Schlomo Schapiro

I helped building the Eruv at the Limmud Festival 2013 : Ganz in Familie Über 350 Besucher lernen am Werbellinsee http://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/article/view/id/15950 Jüdische Allgemeine, 10.05.2013 We were also filmed by Jewish News One : ( Video on YouTube )

Limmud 2012 was in Berlin at the Jüdische Oberschule  and that made it quite different from the previous Limmud festivals at Werbellinsee . The feeling was much less that of a closed community and more that of a regular conference. Luckily the next Limmud festival will (most likely) be back at Werbellinsee. The festival was well attended without feeling crowded. I talked a bit to the org team. They seemed as stressed as in previous years. Seeing how well the festival runs they really deserve a lot of respect and gratitude for doing this job. Highlights where the talks by Rabbi Cardozo which where approximately the same as the ones he gave at previous Limmud events (see the his YouTube playlists  for a choice of videos), but still worthwhile to sit through. There were also lots of kids programs, like Ruth and Naomi , Ask the Rabi  and of course lots of movies. The unusal venue in the middle of the city allowed for various tours which where also well frequented....

Sukkot was really great this year. We had lots of guests, lots of food (no wonder when the holidays fall on Thursday and Friday) and, most of all, perfect weather. It was not too cold, mostly even above 10° C during the day and we could sit in the sukkah every day and evening! I don't remember such a good weather since we came to Germany, so this is really remarkable. Our small balcony sukkah Come and visit us next year!

Nadia, best of all wives in the world and my wife, gave a Challah baking  workshop at the Limmud Festival today: Putting it all into 1:15h was not so simple but Nadia managed and gave the participants a fast-paced and rich run-down of our Shabbat preparations. The participants where able to take not only their own self-made challah with them but also Nadia's famous bread-machine challah recipe and a handout about hafrashat challah (the separation of challah). Continue reading for the full recipe...