Adamama and LimmudOz combine for reborn Sydney festival

 

Adamama and LimmudOz will join forces over the June long weekend for a new Sydney festival bringing together Jewish learning, culture, politics, Israel, music, food, nature and family activities.

The Adamama & Limmud Festival, themed “Roots and Revelations”, will run on Sunday 7 June from 10am to 8pm and Monday 8 June from 10am to 3pm. The program describes the festival as “a meeting of minds, hands, ideas, and experiences”, inspired by Adamama’s Jewish educational urban farm and LimmudOz’s participatory learning model.

The festival marks a new format for LimmudOz, combining its tradition of community-led Jewish learning with Adamama’s hands-on approach to outdoor education, sustainability, food, wellbeing and family programming.

Adamama director Elik Rotenberg told JWire the idea grew out of the close relationship between LimmudOz and Shalom Collective, which has continued to support LimmudOz over many years.

“Limmud was still being supported by Shalom heavily every year, in lots of different ways,” Rotenberg said.

He said the LimmudOz committee realised late last year it did not have the volunteer capacity to run a full-scale event in 2026 and approached Shalom.

“The idea was that Adamama, in the past few years, has been running big events and retreats full of workshops and a very tight schedule,” he said.

“We thought it could be a natural connection to bring both worlds together.”

The original plan was to hold a long weekend retreat out of Sydney, with separate Adamama, family and Limmud streams. That plan was changed because of venue, weather and capacity issues, with organisers deciding to bring the festival back to Sydney in a more accessible format.

Rotenberg said the aim was to keep the feeling of a retreat while making the event easier for people to attend.

“It will be a combination of what we wanted to do in the retreat, but on a smaller scale, easier and close to home,” he said.

Limmud, from the Hebrew word meaning “to learn”, began in the United Kingdom as a conference for Jewish educators. It has since grown into a global movement of Jewish learning, bringing together people of all ages and backgrounds in more than 40 countries and almost 100 communities worldwide.

The first Limmud held outside the United Kingdom took place in Sydney in 1999, under the auspices of Shalom, now the Shalom Collective.

This year’s festival will be built around four streams: Text & Culture, Society, Politics & Israel, Sustainable Lifestyle, and Families.

The Text & Culture stream will range from Jewish texts to comedy, sexuality, Yiddish, music and Jewish ethics. Sessions include Larry David’s Torah with Adina Roth; Schlemiel, Schlimazel: The Jewish Loser in the 21st Century with Jacob Sacher; and All You Need Is Love (of Torah): The Beatles and Jewish Wisdom with Tommy Sterling.

Rahel Berkovits, the festival’s international guest speaker and a senior faculty member at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, will present several sessions, including Sex and Sanctity: Consent and Individual Autonomy in Sexual Encounters and Jewish Abortion Ethics: Neither Choice nor Life.

The Society, Politics & Israel stream will cover Israel, antisemitism, community security, interfaith conversations, Gaza, AI and Jewish law, and Space Science.

Sessions include News and Brews: Israel Update with Dr Shahar Burla; Is Antizionism Antisemitism? with Joshua Dabelstein; Building a Secure and Resilient Jewish Community: From Rabbi to Robot: AI in Jewish Law and Practice with Rabbanit Judith Levitan; and Why Are Strategies to Combat Antisemitism Failing? with Joshua Dabelstein.

Other sessions include Talking with Ourselves in Times of Alienation with Zalman Kastel, Mohamed Dukuly and Ms C Bennett; A Real-Life Giving Circle Dilemma with Elisheva Madar; and The Amazing Story of Israel’s Beresheet Space Mission with David Shteinman.

Rotenberg said the Adamama side of the festival would give people practical, sensory and outdoor experiences alongside the learning program.

“There will be lots of Jewish learning and experiences around nature, environment, gardening, food preservation and food traditions,” he said.

The Sustainable Lifestyle stream includes Israeli dancing with Keff Sydney, fermentation and dairy workshops with Mitch Burnie and Elik Rotenberg, bush tucker with Koori Kinnections, yoga with Max Gencher, a tea workshop, seed paper gift cards, drumming and dessert making on the fire.

The program also includes The Garden After Sinai: Rewilding Revelation with Ilana Hoffman; Landscapes of Pause: Earth, Body, Belonging with Sar Friedman; and Your Mind on Stress: A Live Introduction to Hypnotherapy with Sarah Berdugo.

The Families stream will cater for children aged two to 12, with some child-only drop-off sessions allowing parents to attend adult sessions.

Children’s and family sessions include candle making, bush tucker, Hanoch Piven family art, bee drinking stations, kids’ yoga and meditation, kids’ acting, first gift workshops, family blessings for the home and tea making. Teenagers aged 12 to 16 will be able to choose between family and adult sessions, depending on their interests.

Sunday evening will include a bonfire, drumming circle and cooking over the fire, including dessert-making.

“In the evening of Sunday, we have a bonfire drumming circle,” Rotenberg said. “We’ll do some cooking, and it’s all about being together.”

He said music would remain part of the LimmudOz spirit, with Israeli dancing and communal music. Sunday night will also feature Frequently Asked Kvetch’ns: The Jewish Quiz, hosted by Dane Stern, with rounds on Limmud, Israel, Jews in Australia and Jews around the world.

Rotenberg said organisers hoped the new format would attract regular LimmudOz participants, young adults, families and people drawn to Adamama’s practical and creative style.

“The event is going to have a beautiful atmosphere, with food vendors, pleasant sitting areas and people mixing and building community and relationships,” he said.

For details and bookings, see: https://www.shalomcollective.com.au/whats-on/adamama-x-limmud-festival