Sorrow and Hope

Featured Stories

To Do the Will of Our Father in Heaven: Toward a Partnership between Jews and Christians

February 10, 2016

    For the past 50 years we have been building bridges between the Christian and Jewish worlds. Others in the Christian world have been reaching out with hands of friendship and respect. Today, we are embarking on a new era as many in the Jewish world are now seeking to forge respectful, sincere relationships

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Hiking the “Salad Trail”

Recently, our Bridges for Peace family of volunteers spent two fun-filled days exploring a bit of southern Israel. “The Salad Trail,” one of the sites on our itinerary immediately grabbed my attention. I love to hike but adding the word “salad” to the mix left me pondering just what type of trail this might be?

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Intercepting the Missiles of Toxic Tongue Syndrome

January 7, 2016

In July and August of 2014, almost four thousand missiles were fired by the terrorist group Hamas at Israeli civilian communities. It was a relentless barrage. One of the enemy’s objectives was to paralyze the country. But during those months, Israel not only defended itself in a war called Operation Protective Edge, it continued to

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“To Life!” Guide to a Jewish Wedding

To life, l’chaim, l’chaim, L’chaim, l’chaim, to life, It takes a wedding to make us say, “Let’s live another day,” Drink l’chaim, to life! “To Life!” is a song from the quintessential Jewish musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” where the people of Anatevka rejoice over the upcoming wedding of Tevye’s daughter. From time immemorial, weddings

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Enemies of Enemies Are Not Always Friends: Iran Still Major Threat Despite Fighting ISIS

Last fall, in a span of just three weeks, ISIS (ISIL) claimed major attacks on three different enemies: Russia, Hezbollah, and the West. From bombing a Russian airliner, to a suicide bombing of a Hezbollah area in Lebanon, to the Paris attacks, ISIS managed to become the global Public Enemy Number One. Opinion pieces and

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Living Out Loud in the Face of Terror

Over the last months of 2015, Israel found itself in the grip of the worst terror onslaught since the dreadful days of the Second Intifada (uprising) when Palestinian suicide bombers turned civilian buses and restaurants into raging infernos. International media has dubbed it the “The Knife Intifada,” while Palestinians proudly refer to it as “The

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Palestinian Jihad and the Quest for an Unholy War

K.DeGagne/bridgesforpeace.com The Palestinian presentation of their conflict with Israel as being about statehood and political rights has downplayed the religious overtones that have resided beneath the surface. Perhaps it’s because the Palestinians thought Westerners would identify more with a fight falsely presented as a reprise of Ghandi’s political struggle in India, rather than Al-Qaeda’s jihad

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The Jordan River—Restoring a Legend

The weighty mantle of mystique rests heavily on Israel’s main river, the Jordan. In fact, everything about the Jordan River is on a legendary scale—except its actual size. Even at its deepest and widest, it’s surprisingly small (averaging 2m [6.5 ft] deep and 10m [32.8 ft] wide), considering its historical, economic and spiritual import to

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Servant-based Discipleship, Where Discipleship began

Eighteen young people, representing six different nations, sat gathered beneath the same dark sky which served as a canopy thousands of years ago, a witness to the wanderings of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was under this sky that Moses sent the spies to the hill country. Now, under this dark sky, with trillions of

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2015—The Good, the Bad and the Exceptional

Calling Israel “no ordinary country” is somewhat of an understatement. Here, the miraculous serve as the building blocks of history, cemented by the Keeper of Israel’s faithfulness. Here, no day is ordinary, no chain of events random and no news headline arbitrary. 2015 was no different. Walk with me as we explore the good, the

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