A few months ago, Sharon Michaels went out for a bowling night with friends. Four of those five close friends were Christian.
For Sharon, an Orthodox Jewish woman and the director of Israel365 Dallas, that evening was not unusual anymore. That’s the point.
Three years ago, when she took the job of building Israel365’s first major American branch from the ground up, her social world looked the way most Orthodox Jews’ social worlds look: almost entirely Jewish. Today, some of her closest friendships are with Christian women who love Israel, love the Jewish people, and have chosen to show up, simply as friends.
That transformation, replicated across cities and relationships and dinner tables, is what Rabbi Tuly Weisz has spent 14 years building. And this Sunday, May 3, he is bringing some of the people living it onto one stage to talk about what it actually looks like on the ground.
The event is free. Join live this Sunday at 1 PM CST / 2 PM EST / 9 PM Israel time.
Rabbi Weisz’s new book, Universal Zionism: The Movement Powering Today’s Jewish-Christian Alliance, makes the case that what is happening between Jews and Christians right now is not a political trend — it is one of the most significant shifts in two thousand years of Jewish-Christian history. Hundreds of millions of believers are discovering that they share not just a common enemy but a common destiny. Since October 7th, that alliance has only deepened.
Sharon’s bowling night is Rabbi Tuly’s book come to life.
This Sunday’s webinar, part of Israel365’s annual Rise Up with Israel campaign, is a conversation about the gap between the two, and how people on the ground are closing it. Sharon will be joined by Dr. Victoria Sarvadi, a passionate advocate for Jewish-Christian relations who has been one of the quiet, steady forces behind Israel365 Dallas’s success. Together, they will talk about what building this friendship required, what surprised them along the way, and what it gave back.
Rabbi Mark Fishman, who has been central to launching Israel365 Nashville and to building pastoral relationships with Christian leaders across America, will be joined by Reverend Art Wilson — a friendship grown out of exactly the kind of patient, purposeful bridge-building this movement depends on. Their conversation brings a national perspective: what does it look like when a rabbi and a pastor choose to invest in each other, not as representatives of their denominations but as human beings?
None of this is simple, and the panelists aren’t going to pretend it is. There is real history between Jews and Christians that doesn’t disappear because people of goodwill decide it should. Jews carry a long memory. And Christians who love Israel face their own honest wrestling — how do you build a deep friendship across a theological divide that has separated your communities for two thousand years?
The answer, as Sharon’s story suggests, is: slowly. Honestly. And with results that change your life in ways you didn’t expect when you started.
That is the story the world doesn’t often hear — not the political declarations and the conference speeches, but the Orthodox Jewish woman who goes bowling with her Christian friends on a Tuesday night and realizes that something real has been built.
Rabbi Weisz calls it Universal Zionism. You could also call it friendship.
Join the conversation live this Sunday, May 3. REGISTER HERE
This webinar is part of Israel365’s Rise Up with Israel annual campaign. Support the campaign here.
