-By Cliff Keller- “Step out of your comfort zone! Muster the courage to approach people! You’ll be surprised by how many new friends you can make.” So advises a relatively recent and popular YouTube video, 10 Tips to Meeting Friends in your Area. But it’s not at all clear that the video’s list of tips

– By Yaniv Romanowski – Christmas is one of the most festive holidays in North America. As soon as fall begins, you start seeing the department stores bringing in the decorations, trees, wreaths, and lights. As the holiday draws closer the festive smells and sounds dominate every bookstore and coffee shop. It’s this time around that

– By Anthony Cardinale – Chanukah this year finds Syria decimated after a long civil war— but it’s likely one day to arise from the ashes, under Iranian sponsorship, and renew its attacks on the Jewish nation. It was ancient Assyria whose persecution of the Jews led to the miracle of Chanukah, when a one-day supply

– By Kevin Geoffrey –                       What if Chanukah is more than just candles and presents? What if it isn’t really the memorial of a miracle? What if the real Chanukah story is actually a rallying cry for the Jewish people, and a graphic exhortation to

– By Donna Diorio –                           In the darkest alleys of the internet lurks every kind of evil known to man including 23 year old Nevada man who was tracked by an FBI informant, likely from the Anti-Defamation League’s Center of Extremism trackers. The

– By Janna Davis –                                This season is the time of year for the world to experience simcha, the Hebrew word for joy or gladness, through the celebrations of Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas and the New Year.  What exactly is joy or

– By Cliff Keller –Ir Ganim’s community multi-year archaeology project was about much more than finding artifacts.One morning not too long ago, for what seemed like the thousandth time, I glanced out a rear window of our Jerusalem home in Givat Massuah.   Across the notch that separates that hilltop neighborhood from the next, lies Ir

– By Cliff Keller – “Wait while my husband puts on his shoes…” Ramot Naftali is an agricultural moshav in the Upper Galilee lying two miles southeast of Israel’s border with Lebanon. Upon a breezy hilltop overlooking the Hula Valley, a scant fifteen miles from the Syrian border and only fifty miles from the fated

– By Cliff Keller – Wholly unique yet not unlike othersJerusalem’s Jaffa Gate was built in 1898 by Ottoman governors to allow German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, to enter the city in a triumphal procession. The Kaiser had come to Jerusalem for the inauguration of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, built on land given to

– By Cliff Keller – Bring my sons and daughters…Every soul who has left home to live in modern Israel has a story, often fascinating, always a bit mysterious. But the inevitable mysteries embedded in each account—a vanished barrier, a recurring dream, a sequence of seeming coincidences, a nagging longing for the Land, aren’t truly mysterious

The Road to Zion with Aliyah Action Council- By Esther Glass -If you have been in the Messianic community for very long, you have most likely heard stories of believers making aliyah (a permanent return [move] to Israel). Perhaps you have heard a bad report. The story may have gone something like this…the person telling

Paul Wilbur and Friends Roar From Zionby Cliff KellerIn a way, planning for the Roar from Zion event, Paul Wilbur’s recent, immensely successful live performance in Jerusalem, began 2,800 years before the performance itself. And, with the aid of more recent efforts, Roar from Zion became a reality in no less than inspiring fashion. The