JDOV is best described as Jewish TED talks and its name comes from J for Jewish and Dov as the Hebrew word for “TED”dy-bear. JDov invites interesting and creative thinkers to give “the Jewish talk of their life” as this amazing project seeks to create a community inspired by what the Jewish people have to offer the world.

Shoshana Boyd Gelfand, Director of JHub, founded this project and was in charge of inviting the awe-inspiring speakers for JDov at Limmud UK, back in December 2012. All 12 speakers were outstanding – each has a fascinating life story and taught the memorized crowd a life lesson. If I had to choose my top five speakers they would have to be:  Jude Williams, Amy-Jill Levine, Gila Sacks, Robbie Gringras and Nigel Savage.

For my month blog post at the PresenTense blog I chose to focus on the people who's talks I found most inspiring while visiting Limmud UK: Jude Williams who works at Tzedek as Chief Executive, Amy-Jill Levine, University Professor of New Testament and Jewish studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and College of Arts and Science in Nashville, Tennessee. As well as Gila Sacks, an ultra orthodox Jewish woman who works at the Department of Education and Business, overseeing the British Government’s flagship apprenticeship program, Robbie Gringras - a writer, performer and educator, and his one man show and Nigel Savage who founded the New York-based Hazon, which teaches Jewish communities about food (the Jewish and more calm and appealing version of Gary Yourofsky).

Agreed - this is not the most intelligent post I've had so far but it's funny :)