Volume 27 Issue 24

As Israel obliterates Gaza, and hostages await sunlight, it’s easy to look away. Indeed, sometimes we must. Not everyone can take every war to heart. But this war demands something of us collectively.

Mennonite Church Canada issued a brief statement on November 2, calling churches to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia in Canada and pray for a “just peace” in the Middle East.

Bishara Awad stands outside Bethlehem Bible College in Bethlehem in 1985. Awad, a Palestinian Christian, founded the school in 1979. He had previously served with Mennonite Central Committee in a Palestinian school and attended Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary in Fresno, California, in 1981-82.

Uri Weltmann says support for Israel’s government and support for the people of Israel are two different things.

“This is not one and the same,” he says, speaking by video call from Tel Aviv, where he lives.

Growing up as a member of the Sumacher Indigenous peoples group in the Philippines, Tala Bautista listened to American music. She longed to see snow and perhaps roast chestnuts on an open fire. She wanted to see the West Virginia country roads of which John Denver sang.

Working for a more peaceful world can take place anywhere. For Susanne Guenther Loewen it takes place at the front of the classroom at Saskatchewan’s largest public university. Guenther Loewen is in her third year of teaching Introduction to Peace Studies at Saint Thomas More College on the University of Saskatchewan campus in Saskatoon.

A recent seminar in Abbotsford, B.C., considered how churches can help fellow British Columbians find reasonably priced housing. The November 18 event was hosted by Emmanuel Mennonite Church.

How do you adjust after stepping away from the work to which you’ve dedicated two decades of your life?

That’s the question facing Kennert Giesbrecht now that he’s no longer the managing editor of Die Mennonitische Post, the German-language paper that serves conservative Mennonites throughout the Americas.

In her new book, Eating Like a Mennonite, Marlene Epp addresses the question of whether there is such a thing as “Mennonite food.” She assumes there is, and declares it should be celebrated, disagreeing with those who say “Mennonite” is a religious label that should not be used as an adjective for food.