What is Limmud FSU Canada?
Limmud FSU is a volunteer-driven, Jewish learning experience that began in the United Kingdom in 1980, and spread to countless countries all over the world.
Canadian Jewry constitutes one of the largest Jewish communities on the globe. Canada has been one of the most active centres of Soviet/Russian-Jewish immigration over the past four decades. Today, among young Russian-speaking Jewish adults in Canada, there is a growing interest and involvement with Jewish life, and a desire to explore one’s Jewish identity.
Since 2014, Limmud FSU Canada has connected hundreds of Jewish people with a Russian background and attracted an ever growing attendance to the annual conference and smaller events throughout the year.
Limmud FSU Canada strives to create a dynamic, pluralistic gathering for Jewish learning, engaging attendees of all ages through a variety of events and presenters.
The events include lecturers of all kinds: some are world-renowned academics and journalists, others discuss personal hobbies and interests and are new in their fields, and inspire with their enthusiasm. Importantly, all participants are equal: all are free to choose and select sessions and topics that interest them.
Our mission and Vision
Limmud FSU Canada follows the Mission of the global Limmud FSU movement and seeks to:
- Reconnect young adults of the Russian-Jewish background to our cultural, intellectual and spiritual heritage and to infuse them with the enthusiasm and passion about the culture and values of Judaism.
- Engage young Russian-Jewish adults in a broad range of topics in an open, pluralistic, and dynamic learning environment.
- Empower young adults to get involved and be active in Jewish communities across Canada and develop Jewish communal leaders.
- Strengthen the Russian-Jewish identity and ensure the passage of our heritage to the next generation.
- At Limmud FSU Canada we believe that our mission can, and should, be accomplished through cooperation and partnership with various community organizations working towards similar goals. Limmud FSU Canada annual conferences serve as a platform for any community organization that upholds Jewish values to engage all age groups, but particularly young adults, of Russian-Jewish background. Together, Limmud FSU Canada has been and will continue to be instrumental in promoting Jewish education, developing committed leaders and volunteers, fostering stronger connections between individuals, and building diverse and vibrant Jewish communities across Canada.
Our Values
Learning
- Everyone should be a student and anyone can be a teacher.
- Learning embraces personal development, knowledge and skills.
- Learning changes people, inspires action and opens new worlds.
- We encourage the creation of a learning environment in which people are able to reflect and grow.
- There are many inspirations that can offer opportunities for learning.
Expanding Jewish Horizons
- We strive to create individual, collective and communal experiences, through which we strengthen and develop our Jewish identity.
Enabling Connections
- We aim to create opportunities for communities and individuals to connect.
- We recognise the strength of providing a space where spiritual, emotional and intellectual connections are made.
Participation
- Volunteerism is a key feature of almost everything we do.
- We are all responsible for each other and for the communities we create – everyone has an important contribution to make.
- We encourage participants to take an active part in all we do.
Empowerment
- We inspire people to be ambitious about their contribution.
- We challenge people, and trust them to rise to that challenge.
- We see the potential of individuals and communities, and support their development.
- We empower people to make choices and provide the information they need to inform those choices (including in the biographies which we ask presenters to provide).
Diversity
- We value the rich diversity among Jews, and so we seek to create cross-communal and intergenerational experiences.
- We value accessibility, and aim to be accessible to all.
- We value choice in form, content and style in our programmes.
- We encourage people not to stereotype others.
Community and Mutual Responsibility
- Limmud is a community of learning.
- We can achieve more together than we can individually.
- We gain from, and should give something back to the Jewish and wider community.
Respect
- No-one is more important than anyone else.
- We expect all participants to be respectful of one another, and to recognise that all volunteers are also participants.
- Personal attacks are not acceptable in any Limmud context, especially within sessions at events.
Arguments for The Sake of Heaven
- We recognise and appreciate that ‘arguments for the sake of heaven’ can make a positive contribution to furthering our education and understanding.
- We do not participate in legitimising or de-legitimising any religious or political position found in the worldwide Jewish community. Anyone coming to Limmud seeking opportunities for this will not find them. We have no part to play in the debates between/across denominations.
- Sessions which encourage vigorous debate are entirely acceptable but we will seek to avoid religious or political conflict. Sessions should be educational, and not polemical.
Religious Observance
- We seek to create an inclusive environment for all participants whatever their religious observance practices.
- We believe in the importance of enabling Shabbat and kashrut to be kept in all public areas as far as possible, so that Jews do not have to separate themselves one from another.
- We recognise that in private areas, people will behave as they wish.
- We ask that in matters of Shabbat and kashrut all participants behave in a way which is respectful of the religious observance of others.
Why Participate?
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Limmud FSU is all about people: participants, volunteers and presenters are the core of each conference. Participating in Limmud FSU, one has a chance to deepen existing connections, build new ones, explore new subject areas and discover something new in favorite topics, mix intellectual endeavours with fun and entertainment.
Network
Learn
Socialize
Educate
Volunteering is a principle of Limmud FSU.
Interested to join us?
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The experience will pay off in more ways than one.
