Israel has now begun to lift the strict Covid-19 restrictions which have lasted a year. As of March, it is permitted for people to meet inside in groups of 20 if they are not vaccinated, or 50 people, if they are vaccinated. However, over the year, congregations faced many challenges caused by the invisible virus.
The biblical narrative of Exodus describes how, after 430 years of exile and slavery, the children of Israel were finally released from Egypt. How did God bring the Israelites out? According to the biblical account, He brought them out with a “mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deuteronomy 4:34).
After living in Israel for numerous years, I was surprised to realize the sense of shame that is rooted in my own Finnish culture. It’s something you could describe as almost penetrating the nation, or at least the older generations.
Elisabeth E. Levy, Director of Caspari Center We learned about some of the different names of God in the Old Testament in Part I of this article. One of the names we examined was the Tetragram (YHWH), the most holy name of God. In the Septuagint, the earliest Greek translation of the Old Testament, the […]
Elisabeth E. Levy, Director of Caspari Center Once upon a time, I was exchanging phone numbers with an Orthodox rabbi, here in Jerusalem. As I dictated my number, the rabbi looked up at me and inquired with visible excitement: “How did you get ahold of such a number?!” I’d never thought of my number as […]
Alec Goldberg, Israel Director Like other practices, the order of the Communion service differs from one Christian denomination to another, and here in Israel from one congregation to another. Who can participate in it, who can minister it, and under what conditions? How often should we celebrate it? Most importantly, what is Communion? What do […]
Sanna Erelä, Project Coordinator Shabbat is a special time here in Jerusalem. Most of my neighbors are religious Jews —not the black-wearing, isolated community members, but people whose daily lives are conducted by the Jewish tradition. As the sun goes down on Friday, and the Shabbat horn sounds over the city, a peace falls over […]
Kristoffer Eknes, Director of Return2Sender I’ve always known that Jesus was Jewish, but I never fully understood how that affected my own faith and my own relationship with him. Until one day it hit me. I remember sitting in a church in Jaffa, approximately 10 years ago. I had been volunteering at Immanuel Church for […]
Margarita Kantor, Project Coordinator When we envisioned our online course for Shabbat School teachers, “Lord, I Want to Teach!”, we were thinking of how it would benefit the hundreds of teachers in Israeli Messianic congregations whose challenge it is to educate children in Shabbat school. These teachers have a great desire to serve, but almost […]
Sanna Erelä, Project Coordinator What do we do when someone close to us appears to be in a desperate state, perhaps even expressing the intent to harm themselves? How do we support someone who has recently experienced the loss of a loved one to suicide? In Israeli society, the value of human life is immeasurable […]