A heart that connects: Jerusalem, Acheinu, and the promise of Jewish–Muslim fraternity
Jerusalem can be named in one word: connection. Stones reach for the sky. Pilgrims reach for one another. Prayers in many tongues rise through the same air and find their way to the One who hears them all. In a season of grief and fear, the city whispers the same invitation it has offered for generations. Come closer. First to God. Then to one another.
4 min read
Roads of Stone, Wells of Memory: The Nabataeans and Israel’s Southern Story
The Nabataean story is built into our modern landscape. Their terraces, dams, and way-stations are preserved today in archaeological parks like Avdat National Park, Shivta, Mamshit, and Haluza, where Israel has chosen not to pave over the past but to curate it. Walking those sites, visitors see how Nabataean engineering underlies later Jewish, Byzantine, and Arab rural life, turning the Negev into a living classroom about continuity rather than replacement.
6 min read
Between Hero and antihero: the Israeli soldier in cinema
Since 1948, the IDF has been central not only to security but also to Israel’s national imagination. In a country that conceives itself as an "imagined community", the image of the soldier as David - a young fighter against a giant - became a national symbol and teaching tool. This article shows how that figure has shifted with the fortunes of the Arab-Israeli conflict, culminating in a metamorphosis: from David to Goliath and, more recently, the paradox of "David versus Davi
6 min read
Nahalat Shiva: at the dawn of modern Jerusalem
Nahalat Shiva (translated as “the land of the seven”) takes its name from its founders: seven young men of Jerusalem, descendants of families deeply rooted in the Jewish presence of the Old City. Driven by the conviction that the command to settle the Land of Israel must be fulfilled, they set out together to build - stone by stone - the Jerusalem of tomorrow.
5 min read
Israel’s education in the 1950s: shaping a Nation through schools
When Israel declared independence in 1948, its new education system wasn’t built from scratch, it was anchored in 3,800 years of Jewish history. From biblical times to modern Zionism, the Jewish return to its ancestral land and the centuries-long yearning for it shaped how the state approached educating its youth.
4 min read
