The challenge of a big event is not only in the organising, it is how well one copes when things go wrong. That was certainly what faced the Esra 30^th anniversary organising committee the days before Tuesday 28th October. Plans for Esra’s 30^th anniversary festival were nearly a year and a half in the making. At the first meeting in May 2007, an assorted group of representatives including branch committees, members of the Executive council and office staff met up to consider the options. The committee was looking for a way to reflect everything that Esra stands for and to appeal to as many of its members as possible. The solution was to create the largest event yet seen at Esra.

But as the date approached the weather forecasters warned of intermittent rain so some of the plans were altered. Two days before the festival members of the committee met to work out how to bring all the stalls inside or at least under cover. The day before the festival the forecast was for heavy rain and storms. No-one could be outside, not even under cover. We had to alter the plans yet again. All the stalls and displays would have to be safely inside the buildings. What concerned us was that we had no idea how many would come or what effect the bad weather might have on attendance. The optimists had been wildly optimistic and the pessimists, of course, rather conservative. However the bad weather was certainly not going to help. What we knew for sure was that we had produced a wonderfully varied program and no-one had ever seen such an impressive line-up of well-known Anglo speakers on one day in one place.

The pre-festival publicity had been thorough. Thousands of flyers had been produced for distribution. The two national English-language papers Ha’aretz and The Jerusalem Post had carried advertisements in the previous weeks, published good articles and featured a multitude of announcements. There were preview items in the El Al in-flight magazine and in Time Out; Israel Broadcasting radio and television also promoted the forthcoming anniversary and we were reaching tens of thousands of English speakers through the internet and our Esra website.

The big day arrived. The skies were very grey. No rain yet. By 8am, the conference center at Kibbutz Shefayim was already buzzing. Volunteers were hanging the huge Esra project posters on even larger poster stands the sound engineer was sorting out amplifiers, cables and various microphones and the photography group display was being repositioned yet again. Originally it had been due to hang on the walls of the café, then in the center of the café and finally it was moved just outside the entrance, being the only place we had left in the festival which might survive the Arctic conditions. The rains duly started. By 9am the stall holders were struggling in, soaking wet, with bags and bags of goods. Oh the horror when they saw the small tables all squashed together in the room opposite the café and in the lobby.

By 10.30am, the brightly colored Esra flags and banners were flapping in the wind and rain, the office staff had taken their seats behind the registration desks squeezed together in the entrance hall and the stall holders were set up, shoulder to shoulder. There was smell of coffee wafting from the café and the mellow sounds of a live jazz band could be heard throughout the Kibbutz Shefayim cultural centre. A moment of calm. Very soon the entrance area was completely full; it was pelting with rain outside, people were pushing into lines, tickets were being sold, wet umbrellas were being shaken and brightly colored souvenir brochures were being waved. It was as though a hidden film director has shouted “Action!”

If you stopped you could hear every possible English accent, from Queens in New York to Queensland in Australia, from Saskatoon in Canada (you know who you are!) to Stanmore in London. Greetings of, “I haven’t seen you for AGES” and “You haven’t changed a bit” crossed the café, the corridors and the arts and crafts bazaar. At 10.45am Esra’s founder and president Merle Guttmann declared the event open with a perfectly judged up-beat speech whilst those of us on the organisational side still had our fingers very tightly crossed.

Within minutes people were braving the elements outside and making for the 11am lectures of their choice. Such a huge choice, where to start? There were five or six events to choose from every hour, in a day featuring 28 outstanding speakers, three prize-winning documentary films, two professional concerts and one fantastic arts and crafts bazaar.

Esra’s work in the community was on show with a magnificent poster exhibition covering a wide range of projects. The Esra magazine stand featured two impressive roll-up posters displaying eight magazine covers. Other examples of Esra’s projects, its welfare programs and its social activities were seen in the Ethiopian handicraft stall, the second hand English bookshop, the photography group, the garden club, the hiking group, the computer club and so much else. Esravision programs were being shown on a loop in the small lobby in the Rishonim Center which had been transformed into an Esravision/writers’ corner where journalists, broadcasters and writers created a mini-salon for the whole day. At 11am people were taking their seats for David Rubinger’s talk ‘Israel Through My Lens’ which had a huge appreciative audience. He sat afterwards at a small table in the corner of the café signing his book. In fact he created a little salon of his own and fans and amateur photographers came to chat with him.

Throughout the morning speakers arrived, were met by their designated volunteers and were taken to their lecture rooms. Somehow what seemed so complicated only a few weeks ago was beginning to work out wonderfully. Was this the right moment for a sigh of relief? No, not quite. It was still raining and at lunchtime we were expecting the 220 people who had been taking in four talks and a film at the Rishonim Center to make a dash for it and come to hear the Country Roads concert, possibly via a quick sandwich at the café. Country Roads took the stage at 1pm prompt but hardly anyone had taken their seats in the auditorium. The lead guitarist took one look and walked into the wings. “We are not playing to an empty hall” he announced. He had to be persuaded back. Bit by bit people wandered in and within 20 minutes the place was packed, feet were tapping and a potential disaster had been averted. Lunch hour came and went, the café had managed perfectly well.

Now there was a palpable sense of relief all round. The Esra office staff members on registration, who had worked flat out all day, were beginning to relax. The 2pm lectures went off well. The 3pm lectures went off well. People were already congratulating us. They were beginning to say there had never been anything like this before in Israel’s Anglo world. Singer Linda Tomer and her band went on stage in the auditorium at 4pm, we were old hands by now, we knew the venue would be packed, we just had to wait. And we were right.

At 5pm Mark Regev, the Prime Minister’s spokesman was about to start his talk in the auditorium with a full house. Across the gardens, also at 5pm, the electricity across the gardens at the Rishonim Center failed due to the storms. The screening of Shadya at the Esra film club ground to a halt. The arias which conductor Harvey Bordowitz was playing on the sound system were now silent and Hanna Wende couldn’t show her gardening photographs. Unfortunately, the technician upon whom we were all completely dependent, had simply disappeared. There was nothing anyone could do for a few minutes but then he did turn up and fixed the equipment. The 6pm talks went ahead as planned, although running a little late because of the misadventures on the technical side.

By 7pm, the festival was drawing to a close. Back in the lobby of the auditorium the stall holders were clearing out and Esra’s chairperson Debby Lieberman was about to open the reception for the Annual Volunteer’s Award Evening.

The attendance figures exceeded our wildest expectations. Over 800 people braved the rain and the storms. Many of the talks were oversubscribed, the documentary screenings were packed and the concerts in the auditorium were a resounding success.

According to the scores of wonderful, generous and enthusiastic emails we have received, the Esra’s 30^th anniversary festival was a day to remember.

Jane Krivine was the Chairperson of Esra 30^th Anniversary Festival

Esra’s Wonderful Volunteers

From the outset it was clear that large number of volunteers would be required on the day. It was not clear though how many. When the committee got to grips with the program it was decided that each speaker would be introduced and thanked by a volunteer and each room would be manned by another volunteer who would act as an usher dealing with on-the-spot problems. We devised a plan whereby each volunteer would only be asked to introduce a speaker or usher at one event so they could spend the rest of the day enjoying what would be on offer.

That alone required sixty-two volunteers. But we would also need volunteers to sit at the Esra desks, appeal for new members, sell raffle tickets and promote Esra activities. In addition, the second hand English bookshop, the Ethiopian handicrafts stall and the Esra projects display organisers had roped in their own teams of Esra volunteers.

All in all more than 100 volunteers answered our email cry for help, most were able to get to a pre-festival briefing before the festival and they all turned up on the day. So many of you wrote or called to tell us about the wonderful, enthusiastic Esra volunteers and their willingness to help.

As chairperson of the 30^th Anniversary it is my pleasure to thank everyone for their help in creating such a wonderful day. Thank you to Judy Copeland for managing the arts and crafts bazaar so competently, to Mike Cronin for being an über-professional production manager, to the bright, encouraging, supportive Esra office staff at Gan Rashel, to Janet Kiesari for the mammoth task of contacting the volunteers, to Merle Shewchuk for her help with the brochure, to Liz Trakenizi, poacher-turned-gamekeeper (British expression, sorry everyone), to Nina Zuck for the wonderful project poster display and to the one hundred plus wonderful Esra volunteers who were so magnificent on the day.

However there was no one more involved on a day to day basis than the indefatigable Adele Hunter. Adele was a fantastic ally and friend, she guided me all the way and I am hugely indebted to her.

A personal account

I love festivals. Cultural festivals are very popular in Britain where I come from. The first I ever attended was Sir Yehudi Menuhin’s Bath Festival, that was over twenty five years ago; I was a regular at the Edinburgh Festival, the Hay Festival, the Aldeburgh Festival and the Chelsea Festival. During much of that period I was a professional concerts manager, mainly in classical music.

In 1995 I was asked to be a festival director and for six years, together with my dear friend Lucie Skeaping who advised on artistic content, we managed the Windsor Festival. Lucie is a BBC classical music radio presenter, a music writer/researcher and a professional musician (she has a very successful Jewish music band, the Burning Bush). The Windsor Festival featured orchestral concerts, recitals and talks which were held mostly in the beautiful historic settings of Windsor Castle, one of the Queen’s residences, and at Eton College, founded in 1440, where the Princes William and Harry went to school.

In one of our festivals Lucie and the Burning Bush appeared in The Vicars’ Hall, the first time that Jewish music had ever been performed at Windsor Castle. It was a real pleasure to see the kindly clergy from St George’s Chapel (where some years later Prince Charles would marry the Duchess of Cornwall) tapping their feet to Yiddish folk songs.

From 1998 I also ran the newly created Hampstead and Highgate Festival and in 2002 I organised Jubilee celebrations for Westminster City Council. My last festival job in England was to run the 2003 Jewish Arts Festival with over 100 events in one month all over London. So perhaps it is not all that surprising that when I turned up at the very first 30^th anniversary committee meeting, I just couldn’t help myself, I suggested we do a festival!