Spoon-bender and mind-reader Uri Geller, together with his family, celebrated Shavuot with the Jewish students at the Oxford University Chabad Society for the first time.
Uri Geller surprised a room full of students at the Slager Jewish student centre in central Oxford with a late-night appearance and spoke about his spoon-bending skills from a young age, his ability to fix watches from a distance and took questions about his alleged work for intelligence services and the power of positive thinking.
His talk was then followed by what must have been a first for a show by Uri Geller when he made the festival Kiddush - blessing on the wine - in celebration of the holiday.
The evening began as a traditional Shavuot cheesecake and blintzes buffet with an excellent line-up of talks by scholars and students in Oxford. The programme included a lecture by Oxford Professor of Law Joshua Getzler on the classification of the Decalogue, a reading by English student Efraim Carlebach, Pembroke College, of his great-grandfather, who was killed by the Nazis, Rabbi Dr. Joseph Carlebach's pre-War work on Jeremiah and Jewish morality, as well as talks by directors of Oxford Chabad Rabbi Eli and his wife Freidy Brackman on psychoanalysis and Judaism and perspectives on women and Judaism respectively.
Darren Vanning of Oriel College, Oxford, commented that it 'was a very entertaining Shavuot evening celebration'.
A further inspirational evening was held on the Friday immediately after the holiday with the hosting of Iraq War Inquiry member, Professor of War Studies and Vice Principal of King's College London, Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, who will address the students at the Oxford Chabad Society Shabbat dinner on his latest book 'Strategy: A history' in relation to Jewish history.