“We have to go back to the 17th century and ask what healed all that harm? And of course the simple answer is that what wins wars is weapons but what wins peace is ideas.” More →

August 7, 2015

The Jordan River is the central location for many sacred stories of Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Modern Christians in particular are known to journey to the site some consider to be the religion’s actual starting point. Says Rustom Mkhjian, assistant director of the Jordan River baptism site: “We know this is the spot where Jesus was baptized and Christianity started.” More →

May 29, 2015

The Jewish holiday of Shavuot, says Rabbi Shira Stutman, is a time of “rejoicing in the harvest, rejoicing in this gift of Torah that God has given us, and rejoicing in the ability to learn from Torah in each and every generation.” More →

May 14, 2015

Watch more of our interview about the meaning of Shavuot with the director of community engagement at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC. More →

May 14, 2015

“For Judaism to survive in the 21st century and beyond, it needs to be broad, and to not accept converts in the most inclusive way possible challenges that breadth and potentially narrows who we are,” says Shmuly Yanklowitz, an Orthodox rabbi and himself a convert to Judaism. More →

May 1, 2015

“Hatred doesn’t always have to be passed on from generation to generation,” says New York filmmaker Menachem Daum. “Perhaps no one is more qualified to set such an example than Poles and Jews.” More →

April 10, 2015

“The story of the seder, the story of freedom and justice, is a universal story. It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that just about everything we do stems from this story—this idea that we were slaves, and we were freed, and now it’s our responsibility to work for freedom for people all over the world,” says Rabbi Shira Stutman, director of Jewish programming at Historic Sixth & I Synagogue. More →

April 3, 2015

More and more Orthodox Jewish women are celebrating Purim by taking the lead in reading aloud to other women the heroic story of a queen and her people in the Book of Esther. More →

February 27, 2015

“Religion and science are two quite different things and we need them both. Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean.” More →

February 20, 2015

How do interfaith couples decide which faith their children should adopt? “We both wanted to keep our own religions and our own identity for ourselves, so we knew from the beginning that we didn’t want our children to be just one of our faiths,” says Amy Schombs, who is Jewish and whose husband is a Christian. More →

January 9, 2015