MISSION & VALUES

Our mission – restoring the tradition of lifelong Jewish learning and to strengthen Jewish identity of Russian-speaking Jews worldwide. We hope to engage the widest number of Russian-speaking Jews and their family members in the Jewish communities where they live, inspiring their Jewish journeys and giving them tools to continue to the next step as active, informed members of the Jewish people.
We believe our educational model and continuing efforts will ensure a vibrant and sustainable Jewish future for young Russian-speaking adults in the FSU, in Israel and throughout the world.

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.