Julia Fisher talks to Avner. We met in Tel Aviv where he helps a Messianic congregation called MAOZ. Avner was born in the south of Israel, in the desert, where his parents were farmers on a moshav – the Hebrew name for a cooperative agricultural community of individual farms. These moshavim sprang up during the early part of the 20th century to provide homes and work for the thousands of Jewish people who were arriving in Israel at that time and were part of the Zionist vision of providing a safe homeland for Jews – especially those escaping from Europe and the Holocaust. Avner did not have a traditional Jewish religious upbringing. Although the people around him were fervent Zionists, they were also extremely secular in their beliefs. Avner takes up the story – a story that was to lead him down a very dark path.
Our aim is to build bridges… To build bridges of understanding and support, in a spirit of reconciliation, between believers (both Jewish and Arab) in the Holy Land (Israel and the Palestinian Areas) and Christians worldwide.
