Purim the ‘Most Ambiguous’ Jewish Holiday

Remember the book of Esther from Sunday school? The boys yawned and waited for the lesson on Daniel, but the girls loved the beautiful queen, an exemplary heroine who saved her people. Victims become victors in Esther. However, there is much more in the book of...

Holy Land, Holy People

In September I took time off from my duties as an associate scholar at the Institute for Christian/Jewish Studies to represent the Alliance of Baptists along with 15 other Jewish and Christian leaders. We represented various religious communities in a peace mission to...

Handel Was Patron for Children’s Hospital

While listening to Handel’s Messiah, consider how the great composer joined forces with William Hogarth, the artist, and Thomas Coram, a retired sea captain, for the sake of children in desperate need. Captain Coram wrote of the abandoned children left to die in...