Judith Mendelsohn Rood Interview

Judith was raised in a Conservative Jewish home, attending Hebrew School at the Tree of Life in Pittsburgh and Adas Israel in Washington, DC. Her father’s escape from Nazi Germany made her a student of the Holocaust, Antisemitism cast a long shadow over her life—shaping how she saw and understood history. Her love for Israel led her to question why the Palestinians hated the Jewish people, leading her on a journey that led her to the foot of the Cross. While she was a doctoral student she accepted Yeshua as her Messiah and Savior, recognizing that He is God, and has been with all who suffer in this Age of War. Her new book, Beauty for Ashes: Understanding the Israel-Hamas War (WestBow, 2024) analyzes the history of Zionism and the Palestinian Resistance from a faith perspective framed by her life of scholarship. This is the Age of Salvation—an age that offers hope to everyone in the time that remains.