The one-woman show highlights the memories of Corrie ten Boom, one of the "Righteous among the Nations". Corrie's story remains little-known to Jews. However, the City of Afula and the Galilee Center for Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations at Yezreel Valley College worked to change that by bringing this drama to Israel.

Cornelia (Corrie) was raised in Holland, in a family of dedicated Christians who believed that the Jews were a people chosen by God. With the German invasion of Holland in 1940, the ten Boom's beliefs about Jews were put to the test. Asserting that God's ...]]> While we live - happily, I might add! - in the Galilee, there's nothing like Jerusalem.

And one of the city's most fascinating aspects is its street life.

Part of Jerusalem street life is the presence of little boxes.

Little boxes attached here and there, easy to miss, unobtrusive, sometimes with a handpainted sign "matan beseter" - hidden or secret gifts.

These boxes are for charity. I guess someone opens them - I've never seen it. But I have seen people hurrying by, dropping money into them. They are there for people to give the high level of charity, where neither the giver nor the recipient know each other.

To think that people seek such anonymity, such that even the distributor in the midd...]]> We live in the Galilee, surrounded by olive trees.

In the late fall, these trees are heavy, laden with plump dark fruit.

I'm often tempted to reach out, grab one, and pop it into my mouth.It's a good thing I know better - I would have spit it out in disgust.

Olives straight off the tree are inedible. Even ripe, they are bitter and hard.

What good could something like that be?

But look deep within, and you find a stunning secret.

Hidden within that bitter hard fruit is light. Blazing. Shining. Warm. Pow...]]>
Recently my eldest son has become fascinated with his Children's Atlas. When not quizzing his siblings on the language spoken in Tunisia or the currency in Peru, he delights in considering his own location in the Middle East.