FEBRUARY AT A GLANCE

The first week off February flew by in a haze of last minute organisation and harried madness and then, all of a sudden, David was off to New York and things were much quieter here.

New York

David spent a week in New York, initially just to take part in the JCC Manhattan - Carlebach Shul conference, A Day of Kabbalah, but at the last minute we also managed to organise for him to give The Whole of Jewish History in One Hour at the East Midwood Jewish Center. I didn't want to miss an additional week of Ulpan (and couldn't find the courage to face the winter in New York) so I opted to stay in Tel Aviv and join David a week later at Newark airport, from where we would fly to Los Angeles for LimmudLA.

In the week that David was in New York, I managed to calm down a little and spent some time hanging out with Talz, which was great. Somehow, the two of us managed to convince each other to get our noses pierced (I know, shocking, isn't it?)!

Los Angeles

David and I met up at Newark airport on February 14th - David after a successful week in New York and me after a flight from Tel Aviv. Kirk had kindly brought David to the airport, which was great because I had the chance to see him, even if it was only for an hour or so. And then we were on the plane to Los Angeles...

After staying overnight in Josh and Marlo's flat in the Pico-Roberston area, we made our way on Friday morning to Orange County for the first ever LimmudLA.

The organisers of the LimmudLA are to be congratulated on an amazing conference - and we told everyone we could what a great job they did. There were around 600 participants and the quality of the presentations was very high...so if you haven't worked it out already, let me confirm that we had a fabulous time (and not just because it was at the Hilton, so the beds were super comfortable). We also met lots of amazing people as well as catching up with people who already feel like old friends. Oh, and of course, we enjoyed the 'creative' vibe of the conference, which only an LA conference could provide.

In terms of David's talks, they were a huge success. Although the conference started on Friday afternoon, David didn't give his first talk until Sunday morning, beginning with 'An Introduction to Kabbalah'. The talk was excellent and the crowd was good, with some notable faces including Clive Lawton and Avraham Infeld.

The afternoon rolled on and the 'In One Hour' series began. At 4pm David gave 'The Whole of the Bible in One Hour' to an audience of somewhere between 100 and 150 people. The response was brilliant and people were very enthusiastic, but it wasn't yet time for David to rest and enjoy the attention, he still had another talk scheduled that day.

At seven that evening, David was on again, this time to do: 'The Whole of Jewish History in One Hour' to an audience of more than 150 (including Josh Malina of West Wing fame). As expected, he was brilliant and so enthralled his audience that on concluding his session, the audience rose to give him a standing ovation. It was a fabulous recognition and truly deserved.

David's final talk took place the next morning on the last day of Limmud, when he gave 'The Whole Jewish Future in One Hour' to another big crowd. This is a contentious talk and always arouses a little excitement, but David kept the audience in check - he even managed to be dignified in the face of someone answering their mobile phone in the front row and standing for all to see as he conducted his conversation (despite the boos from the crowd).

The conference was over and we had two days in LA to sight-see and explore, but all we really wanted to do was sleep; our batteries were down - David from a marathon conference effort and me from jet-lag. But we persevered. Monday afternoon, after the conference was over, we were taken by our new friend (from LimmudLA) Janet Krost on a tour of the main tourist sites: Rodeo Drive, the hand & foot prints outside the Chinese theatre in Hollywood and a view of the Hollywood sign.

Aside from the wonderful tour that Janet gave us on Monday afternoon, we largely failed as tourists. Naturally, we still managed to succeed as eaters - having dinnner on Monday night with Shari and Shep Rosenman (co-chair of LimmudLA) and Reb Mimi Feigelson.

The following evening we had dinner with Janet and Jacky (who we also met at LimmudLA) and then we popped in to see Shep and Shari again, where we also caugh with Rabbis Moshe and Osher, two Karlin-Stolin Chassids, who had been a hit at LimmudLA.










We returned to Tel Aviv exhausted but filled with a sense of achievement. For the first time I found it a little difficult coming back - after the comforts of California - and needed a while to settle. Additionally, we both struggled with terrible jetlag. It took us between a week and ten days to fully recover and made us wonder whether we had picked up a virus on the way. Whatever the reason, we were two big bags of fatigue and it was easy to decide to keep our diary (in terms of events) fairly free between the US trip and the forthcoming trip to the UK.