'The most vibrant, creative Jewish experience in the world': A presenter's experience of Limmud Conference - The Jewish Chronicle

We caught up with Gregg Drinkwater in between sessions: Limmud: What gets you excited about Jewish Education GD: To get people hooked back into Jewish text is amazing. Both intellectually and spiritually. The difference between intellectual study and Jewish textual study is that isn't just self-fullfilling. It connects you, even if indirectly, with other Jews. Limmud: Intellectual pursuits can be a lonely business. GD: I'm not Haradi. I'm not orthodox. But its through my textual study of Jewish texts that I feel closest to those communities. Yes, we do it differently, but the act of text study is something we share. The relationship between G-d, Israel and the Torah is about our relationship to others and to our selves. That's the basics of thinkers like Martin Buber. Limmud: Tell us a bit about the organisation you are connected with. GD: I run an organisation called Jewish Mosaic, that helps the process towards helping Jewish organisations to be more welcoming to the LGBT community. And by process I mean that different organisations will be in different places. An orthodox synagogue will start from a different place and end in a different place, but without being us being prescriptive, it can go on its own process. Limmud: Describe your Limmud experience. What have been the highlights and lowlights? Fantastic. I can't think of lowlights Limmud: Not even the 80s dancing? Well, I was in bed. I come to Limmud because its the most vibrant, creative Jewish experience in the world. Limmmud rocks! Limmud: How is it different from Limmud back in the States? First, scale. This size is unimaginable in other communities. But more than that, because of the scale Limmud define Judaism for some people in the UK. We're not there yet, but we're shooting for it. Not that Limmud should be people's only take on Judaism, but it should be one of the viable options, a new model of what Judaism could mean. Gregg Drinkwater directs Jewish Mosaic: The National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, an organization that helps Jewish institutions become more welcoming of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Jews. He is the co-editor of Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible (NYU Press, 2009) and president of Limmud Colorado.