Yasnaya Polyana Comes to Windsor
The First Limmud FSU Event in Western Europe Has Attracted Some Interesting Guests and Brought Up a Discussion About the Differences Between East and West
"At the Windsor Castle Hotel, not far from the royal residence, in the cold of early February, 700 people have congregated for the first Limmud FSU in Western Europe, coming from the UK and all over the continent, and as far away as Russia, Ukraine, Albania and Kazakhstan.
It has taken us two years to get them here,” said Semyon Dovzhik (45), chairman of the organizing committee of Limmud FSU Europe. We talk about assimilation as a threat to Judaism in Europe, and about the cultural differences between Jews from East and West Europe. Ron Proson, ex ambassador to the United Nations in New York, talked to the Limmud FSU audience about the relationship between Netanyahu and Obama. Malcolm Hoenlein, ex chief executive of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, was also one of the speakers. “Limmud FSU is an example of Jewish unity. When we are united, we can overcome antisemitism.”
One hundred sessions given by dozens of presenters filled the program that weened in Windsor. On the eve of Netanyahu’s visit to London, talks by Israeli guest politicians including MKs Merav Michaeli and David Bitan, were popular.
Other participants, who had hastily left for London to watch the Arsenal-Chelsea football match, hurried back to the lecture halls after the final whistle had been blown."
About Windsor
A Conference with Royalty
Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is strongly associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, and embodies almost 1,000 years of architectural history.
The original castle was built in the 11th century after the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I, it has been used by the reigning monarch and is the longest-occupied palace in Europe. The castle's lavish early 19th-century State Apartments were described by early 20th century art historian Hugh Roberts as "a superb and unrivalled sequence of rooms widely regarded as the finest and most complete expression of later Georgian taste". Inside the castle walls is the 15th-century St George's Chapel, considered by the historian John Martin Robinson to be "one of the supreme achievements of English Perpendicular Gothic" design.