(no subject)

[lethargic_man]

Gave my talk "An Introduction to Masorti Judaism" at Newcastle Day Limmud on Sunday. It went down well (and I got positive feedback from various people afterwards), and there were not any difficult questions asked I could not answer... despite one audience member (an Assifnik, of all things) threatening to sit at the back and ask difficult questions. :o)

There were eighteen present in the audience, of whom no more than four were related to me even using a highly extended definition of "family".^* Which is similar to that attendance at my last talk at Newcastle Limmud; it's actually two down on it, but numbers in general were down this time. My mother blames this on putting it on in summer; she's also narked that I got put up against audience puller Sir Jeremy Beecham for the second time, but that's always the danger at any conference. (I had a 40% chance of being put on against him or Clive Lawton, and I haven't even checked if there were big-name speakers in the other slots.) There was at least one person I know of who had said in advance she would come to my talk, but ended up going to another one at the same time; and all of the AMS glossy brochures which didn't go during the talk got taken afterwards.

* Two of the attendees were the widower of my mother's late cousin, and his second wife.

Comments

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

Mazal tov! It sounds like great success. I have never doubted that Masorti gets any threats in Limmud. People are lot more open-minded for anything. I might have not spent a lot of time at sessions and with people outsite the nursery when I was working in the limmud nursery but I had the feeling people were very relaxed.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Limmud Conference and Limmud Fest, yes. Newcastle Day Limmud, where most of the attendees and most of the presenters are Orthodox, I was not so sure of. But it turned out fine in the end.