With little more than two per cent of world Jewry, you rarely find British Jews at the head of international Jewish organisations. Shoshana Bloom is an exception.
Since March, she has been chair of arguably British Jewry’s most influential export in recent times — the cross-communal educational organisation, Limmud.
What began as a winter retreat for 80 educators outside Oxford in 1980 has spread across the globe, encompassing more than 45 countries. It has reached every continent, even Antarctica — where a participant in a marathon took some Limmud materials and learned with other Jewish runners..
By the end of this year, Limmud events will have taken place in more than 50 cities from Cape Town to Seattle.
At 43, Ms Bloom is too young to be called a veteran. But she is a seasoned Limmudnik who attended her first conference here — as the winter festival was then called — 18 years ago.
“I absolutely loved it from the second I got there,” she said. “I loved what it stood for — that it didn’t matter how you defined yourself, or your own personal practices as a Jew.
“You could be in an environment with people from a whole host of other backgrounds and you’d be looking at what you had in common and learning about each other and experiencing things in a different way.”
Hailing from Stanmore, she grew up in typical Jewish suburbia. But she did not go to a Jewish youth movement, on an Israel tour or attend a Jewish day school until A-levels.
“I wanted to go to college with all my friends but my parents wanted JFS because it had great results,” she said. “When I got there, I loved it.”
Still, she opted for a university, Birmingham, which then did not have a big Jewish society. During her political science and modern history course, she spent time at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and started visiting Israel more. “Something had awakened in me.”
While she had long considered working in the non-profit sector, she credits a talk by one of the Limmud founders, Clive Lawton, with steering her into the Jewish community. She has worked for organisations as diverse as Jewish Care, the Board of Deputies and British Friends of the Hebrew University.
At the Nottingham-based National Holocaust Centre and Aegis Trust, she was responsible for the campaign to raise awareness of the genocide in Darfur, southern Sudan. She was then recruited by Norwood to oversee Jewish programming for its clients.
It was while Ms Bloom was on the Adam Science leadership training scheme that she first came to Limmud. In other years, Adam Science trainees had trips to Israel and America, she recalled. “We had a weekend in Southend and the other travel option was Limmud conference in Nottingham. We were responsible for the tzedakah project.” She was becoming more interested in Judaism herself, practising more, trying to learn more — “I was taking it very seriously”.
Her own parents had moved from the United Synagogue to Reform and now belong to Masorti.
Ms Bloom is a member of Highgate United Synagogue but treasures Limmud’s multi-denominational environment.
She co-chaired Limmud conference in 2005, and again six years later. She met her partner Kevin Sefton when they were volunteering for the 2004 conference.
He chaired the 2007 conference and went on to chair Limmud from 2013 to 2016. The couple had an agreement that “we wouldn’t be in key leadership roles at the same time”.
To her, Limmud is more than an organisation. “We are a movement for transformational change across Jewish communities around the world.”
Her particular concern is inclusion. As conference co-chair eight years ago, she ensured that adults with learning disabilities were able to participate.
“The main thing was how we make programming more accessible without causing any segregation,” she said.
Ms Bloom now runs a consultancy, LivLuv — the Hebrew word for blossom — advising Jewish organisations here and abroad on how to be more inclusive.
As a Schusterman fellow, she has been recognised as one of the Jewish world’s “exceptional leaders committed to driving change”.
She maintains that neither disabilities, gender, sexuality, age or finance should be barriers to Limmud participation.
Travelling to support other Limmud events around the world had opened her eyes “to the different experiences other Jewish communities have — and some of the things we took for granted”.
Her first visit to Berlin earlier this year for a gathering of European Jewish Limmud leaders was particularly emotional.
In what was once the epicentre of antisemitism, “we were making havdalah and singing loudly and proudly” on a hot night with the window open.
It was also the week after the attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue in which 11 worshippers died. “That Shabbat morning, we came together and a had a memorial service as European Jews for American Jews. It was turning a lot of perceptions on their head. I have done a lot of work in the States and the conversation has always been what it’s like to be a Jew in Europe.”
Limmud Festival will usher in the start of its 40th anniversary celebrations and the organisation can look back on its achievements.
“Limmud leadership is different from most other places. It’s not about your age, or how much you earn,” Ms Bloom said. “It’s not about any of the traditional privileges that get associated with being a leader. It is about values, vision, what can you bring.”
Leaders would continue to explore “how we open Limmud to more people, how we create more avenues into leadership roles within Limmud and how we make sure we widen the pool”.
And how to create more Limmud experiences. For instance, it would be “absolutely Limmudy”, she said, for a group of dog owners to decide to meet once a month to walk their pets and discuss talmudic ideas about treating animals.
While the festival will honour the past, it will be thinking of the future. At Limmud, she said, the most important questions were “What if? How might we? What next”?
