Features
Brooke Zelcer offers a novel approach to spiritual healing
By BERNIE BELLAN Brooke Zelcer is a 28-year-old woman who had a typical Winnipeg Jewish upbringing growing up. The daughter of Hartley and Polly Zelcer, Brooke grew up in Garden City, she says and went to Gray Academy until the end of Grade 9. After that she went to the University of Winnipeg Collegiate, followed by her acquiring two bachelor’s degrees at the U of W – one in environmental sciences, and one in international development.
While she was in university, Brooke says, she “did a practicum with an organization called ‘Food Matters Manitoba’. “I ended up working up north on Shamattawa First Nations Reserve,” she explains. “We did horticultural therapy and agricultural sustainability as well. It was there where I started to find my passion working with individuals rather than on a community basis.”
After that, Brooke began working at the North End Women’s Centre on Selkirk Avenue for several years. “While I was there I started on my masters in psychology,” she says (which she subsequently completed).
Brooke says she worked her way up at that centre and started working in a new government funded program, providing counselling to women who had been in the sex trade – “a lot of hands on, trauma based work.”
“It was quite intense, but incredibly rewarding,” she observes.
After her time at the women’s centre, Brooke began working at another organization that also provided counselling services. In time though, she realized that what she really wanted to do was go off on her own.
First though, she wanted to acquire the type of training that she was planning on putting into effect when she would be working with clients on her own.
She explains that her goal was to train in breathwork therapy and also as a holistic health and nutrition coach. In order to be certified as a practitioner in both fields, Brooke says she took a year of training in both areas.
Ultimately, she says, what she wanted to do is connect with people in a “mind, body, and soul” approach.
Beginning in August 2021, Brooke says, she began working on her own. Her clients, she says, were former clients of hers from her previous place of employment. Her supervisor allowed her to take on clients that she already had so that they would have continuity in their relationship with Brooke as their counsellor.
“But,” she observes, “the pandemic had hit and I had to shift the way I was doing things – going online, forming new connections.”
“It was tough for sure,” she says, “but it opened my eyes to doing other things.”
In time, Brooke found herself doing therapy and breathwork sessions with her clients – but through Zoom, rather than in person.
Zoom, she explains, “has the technology where I can share my audio, where I can also talk. I can also see my clients, watch their breath, make sure everything is okay. A lot of times people may become emotional so it is important for me to be able to see where they are at and hold the proper space for them.”
In addition to breathwork, Brooke says, she offers a range of services, including mental health therapy, and holistic health and nutrition coaching
“I’m offering them together through different programs that I have created” she notes, “but also separately if that’s what people are more interested in.”
I ask her what her website is called?
Brooke answers that it’s called“www.merkaba-healing.com.”
I say to her that I know that “merkaba” means “carriage” in Hebrew. I ask her how she arrived at that particular name?
She says that it does indeed come from Hebrew, but the “merkaba” symbol is also a universal geometric symbol, representing the duality of everything in life. “Merkaba symbolizes the unity of opposites. It marries light and dark, feminine and masculine energy, the material world and the spiritual realm… the power of merkaba has the ability to elevate our consciousness, heal, and bring balance, harmony, and light into our lives”.
(After our phone interview, I took a look at Brooke’s website. Here’s what the introduction says:
“Hi! I’m Brooke Zelcer, a certified Mental Health Counsellor, Breathwork Therapist, and Holistic Health and Nutrition Coach based in Winnipeg, Canada. I dedicate my time and energy in holding sacred space for those who are seeking to heal by embracing their whole, unique, and divine self. I am passionate about bringing Mind, Body, and Soul into the healing journey as I believe that in order to sustain balanced wellness, we must gently lean into the darker parts of ourselves so that we can embody our light. I am here to support and guide you as you align on your path.”)
“Breathwork is typically an hour-long session,” she says, “where the client lies down in a comfortable position – maybe with a pillow under their head and a blanket for comfort. An eye mask is also really helpful because it’s very important to keep your eyes closed during a session.”
She continues: “I use a methodologically sequenced breath in order to elicit a certain experience unique to a client’s needs. Combining purposeful inhalation, exhalation, and breath retention is really all it is. I use positive verbal cueing and personally curated playlists to add to the journey. The whole experience takes you to a transcendental state at the very end and that is where your conscious and your subconscious meet, and that is where so much healing can happen.
“That is often where people can experience spiritual awakening, where they have beautiful messages of healing from their higher selves. Some people have met loved ones on the other side, and some people just find it incredibly relaxing.”
I ask Brooke what kind of results she’s had since she’s started doing what she does on her own? I say to her that I imagine this is an ongoing process for her clients – meaning it’s not something where they can say they’ve reached the end of a process.
“People come back for different things,” Brooke says. “Many people just want to work through their specific issues – particularly healing trauma.”
“My goal is to meet my clients where they are at. No judgment. No expectations. Just show up as you are and I will do my best to meet you there. This type of personal work is not meant to be easy, so I do my best to help my clients find a bit of flow and ease throughout their healing journey”.
She rattles off a list of areas where the kind of therapy in which she engages provides real benefit: “PTSD, anxiety, depression, bi polar disorder, borderline personality disorder.”
“The kind of results I’ve gotten,” Brooke adds, “vary from person to person, but I’ve had some really amazing results, especially through breathwork. Talk therapy is amazing and we all kind of know what that is and what a therapy session would be like, but when it comes to breathwork – I’ve worked with men in their sixties, women in their seventies, I’ve worked with teenagers – and they’ve come out with a new found love for life, finding peace within themselves, and not having to look for it externally.”
As far as how much Brooke’s services cost, her website does provide full details about the types of services she offers and the rates for the various services. If you would like to know more about Brooke Zelcer visit www.merkaba-healing.com or find her on Instagram @_merkaba.healing_
Features
The moral degradation of Israel’s far-right is even worse than you think
By Dan Perry (Posted March 27, 2026)
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
This week, an Israeli Knesset member said something that should have been shocking, horrifying and unanimously condemned.
“I stand behind IDF soldiers in every situation,” said Yitzhak Kroizer, a member of the ultranationalist Otzmah Yehudit Party. Even if the “collateral damage is children or women — it does not matter to me.”
“In Jenin, there are no innocent civilians,” he added. “In Jenin, there are no innocent children.”
Kroizer was referring to a genuine tragedy: The killing of almost an entire Palestinian family by Israel undercover forces on March 15, near the village of Tammun. The forces opened fire on the family’s car as they returned from a shopping trip. Waed Bani Ohde, her husband Ali, and two of their young children Othman, 7, and Mohammed, 5, were killed. Two sons survived. The army says the car accelerated toward the forces; Palestinian witnesses say the IDF gave no warning before attacking.
It is tempting to dismiss statements like Kroizer’s as the rhetoric of the extreme. Indeed, I often find myself making that point when talking to people inclined to think the worst of Israel: They do not represent the majority, and not even the immoral government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But that, while true, is becoming a little too pat.
For it is also true that as time goes, as the wars continue and hearts harden, what Kroizer articulated is a moral framework that is steadily taking hold in the Israeli right.
That’s why the statements were not condemned by anyone associated with the government. And, indeed, Israeli far-right activists responded to the deaths with social media posts rejoicing in the death of the unarmed “terrorists.”
No senior Israeli official apologized for the shooting. No one said publicly that even if the soldiers believed they were acting under threat, the killing of two children demands something more than a routine internal review.
No official has even conceded that this type of event might contribute to agitation and instability in the West Bank, and perhaps spark another uprising. Set empathy aside; even enlightened self-interest is beyond the current Israeli government.
Yes, an investigation has been opened. But military investigations almost never lead to concrete action against the troops. A Guardian report this week revealed that no Israeli citizen has been prosecuted for a killing in the West Bank since 2020, despite a radical uptick in violence; settlers and police have already killed 10 Palestinian civilians this month alone.
The undercover soldiers, especially, are something like the real life version of the international hit Fauda, widely admired for their counter-terrorism activity. There is little appetite for throwing the book at them.
So while it’s tempting to chalk this up as just another tragedy in a long list of tragedies on both sides, it is actually much more: a devastating manifestation of something fundamental — not just a personal tragedy but a national one.
That’s a tragedy I’ve seen unfolding slowly, since even before the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023.
I’ve seen it in the rhetoric of far-right leaders like cabinet ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. But I’ve also seen it firsthand, as when I found myself on wartime television panels where I was besieged by right-wingers enraged at my assertion that innocents have been killed during the war in Gaza. I challenged one of them about whether this idea would include a two-week old baby.
“OK, maybe not the baby!” he conceded, unhappily.
The descent of part of Israeli society into this unforgivable lack of compassion is, some have argued, an inevitable outcome of indefinite control over the Palestinian territories. For years, warnings that rule over millions of disenfranchised Arabs would mutate Israel’s character were treated as excessive, even hysterical.
Israel was not a colonial power in the classic sense, its defenders argued; it was a democracy under siege, navigating impossible dilemmas. The West Bank may be “occupied” but that was justifiable because of the threat its near proximity posed. Israel’s actions might be harsh, but they were necessary, the argument went. It was said that the country’s moral core, despite pressures, would remain intact.
The initial signs after this latest tragedy are not exactly reassuring. Far from condemning Kroizer, as they rightly should have, the cabinet convened this week to offer his party a great gift: the legalization of 30 illegal settlement outposts, including some in “Area A,” which is supposed to be under full Palestinian control.
Israel did not begin this way. Its founding story was deeply bound up with an acute awareness of the need to maintain morality. The early Zionists envisioned a country that would be a “light unto the nations.”
As occupation has become an entrenched reality, most Israelis have wanted to look away; the problem is too complicated. This position may not be possible for much longer. The moral rot is too extreme. But the good news is that it has not infected everything and everyone. Israel’s public broadcaster devoted a segment to the Palestinian family’s tragedy, characterizing Kroizer’s statements as a disgrace.
The humanistic ideas through which Israel once judged itself have eroded. We must now hope that they won’t entirely vanish.
Dan Perry is the former chief editor of The Associated Press in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the former chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem, and the author of two books about Israel. Follow his newsletter “Ask Questions Later” at danperry.substack.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email opinion@forward.com.
This story was originally published on the Forward.
Features
The Entebbe Alliance Reborn: Why Uganda Is Ready to Fight Iran Alongside Israel
Fifty years ago, Israeli commandos stormed the terminal at Entebbe Airport under the cover of darkness. They engaged in a deadly firefight with Ugandan troops and Palestinian hijackers to rescue over 100 Jewish and Israeli hostages. The daring 1976 raid astonished the world and reshaped modern counterterrorism, but it cost the life of the assault unit’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu.
Fast forward to March 2026, and the geopolitical script between Jerusalem and Kampala has flipped entirely. The very soil where Ugandan and Israeli forces once exchanged fire is now the foundation of an emerging alliance aimed squarely at countering the Islamic Republic of Iran.
General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the chief of Uganda’s armed forces and the son of President Yoweri Museveni, recently shocked the international community with a blunt declaration.
As regional tensions with Iran boiled over into direct military confrontations, Kainerugaba took to social media to draw a definitive line in the sand. He stated that while the world wanted the war in the Middle East to end, any talk of destroying or defeating Israel would bring Uganda into the war on the side of Israel. To physically cement this dramatic pivot, he previously announced that Uganda would erect a statue of Yoni Netanyahu at the exact spot where he fell at Entebbe Airport, framing the monument as a profound gesture designed to strengthen blood relations with Israel.
While some policymakers in Washington and European capitals are quick to dismiss Kainerugaba’s rhetoric as mere social media bluster, doing so overlooks a profound geostrategic realignment occurring in the Global South. This is not just historical poetry or diplomatic hyperbole. It is the public crystallization of Israel’s new “Circle of Partners” framework, a vital evolution of Jerusalem’s traditional defense strategy tailored for an era of multi-front warfare.
For decades, the Israeli defense and intelligence establishments relied heavily on the “Periphery Doctrine.” This strategy involved cultivating quiet but robust ties with non-Arab states to counterbalance a hostile Arab core.
Today, the threat matrix has completely inverted. The Arab core is increasingly allied with Israel, while the primary existential threat is the Iranian regime. Containing and defeating Tehran’s regional ambitions requires strategic depth far beyond the Levant, necessitating a modernized Periphery Doctrine that extends deep into the African continent. Israel recognizes that securing a “Circle of Partners” is no longer optional; it is a tactical imperative.
By cementing ties with Uganda — a Christian-majority, military heavyweight in East Africa — Israel is effectively anchoring a new southern flank. The strategic utility of this partnership becomes undeniable when looking at a map of Iran’s maritime ambitions. Tehran has spent years attempting to weaponize the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb strait, primarily through its funding of Houthi proxies in Yemen, while simultaneously seeking naval footholds in the Horn of Africa. East Africa serves as the geopolitical backdoor to this critical maritime corridor.
Furthermore, as the conflict with Iran expands across multiple domains, an allied Uganda offers Israel unparalleled intelligence-sharing nodes in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Uganda People’s Defense Force possesses deep institutional knowledge of local terror networks and illicit smuggling routes that Iranian proxies frequently exploit. Uganda also provides potential logistical staging grounds that sit safely outside the immediate range of Iran’s conventional ballistic missile umbrella, offering Israel a secure rear base for long-term strategic planning and operational depth.
Equally important is the diplomatic and ideological blow this alliance deals to Tehran. The Iranian regime relies heavily on a manufactured narrative that pits the Global South against a supposedly isolated Israel. At a time when international forums are routinely weaponized to turn Israel into a pariah state, unconditional support from a prominent African Union member shatters Iran’s diplomatic framing. When a leading African military commander publicly volunteers his own forces to defend the Jewish state and honors a fallen Israeli hero on African soil, it signals a shared recognition of the threat posed by radicalism that transcends geography.
In 1976, the raid on Entebbe proved to the world that Israel possessed the operational reach to strike its enemies and defend its citizens anywhere on the globe. In 2026, the emerging Entebbe alliance proves that Israel possesses the diplomatic foresight to build a continental strategic firewall against Iranian hegemony.
Uganda’s willingness to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel is a testament to the shifting tides of global alliances. If Tehran continues to escalate its multi-front war, the ayatollahs will rapidly discover that Israel is not fighting alone, and its “Circle of Partners” reaches much further than the Islamic Republic ever anticipated.
Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx.
Features
Iran Lowers Minimum Age for War Roles to 12, Sparking Outcry Over Child Soldier Use
The Iranian regime has lowered the minimum age for participation in war-related activities to just 12 years old, a move that will likely fuel the concerns of human rights groups, which have condemned Iran’s treatment of children.
In a televised interview with state media, Rahim Nadali, a cultural with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Tehran, announced that the new initiative “For Iran” is recruiting participants to assist with patrols, checkpoints, and logistics.
“Since children are increasingly volunteering to take part, we have lowered the minimum age to 12,” Nadali said, urging young children to join the war effort if they wish.
Rahim Nadali, Cultural Deputy of the IRGC’s Tehran branch (Mar 26, 2026):
“12 and 13-year-old children wanted to participate in Basij checkpoints across the cities. We have lowered the age limit to 12 and above.” pic.twitter.com/lLZy9pU5xm— حافظه تاریخی (@hafezeh_tarikhi) March 26, 2026
Iran International first reported Nadali’s statement, which has since circulated on social media.
As part of the regime’s state media coverage of the US-Israeli war against Iran, this latest announcement has ignited mounting backlash over the use of minors in security‑related roles — a practice that is not new in Iran.
“Recruiting children into military activity is a violation of international laws and the international community must not stay silent,” Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad posted on social media, along with video of Nadali’s comments. “This is the same regime that lectures the world about morality. But when it comes to survival? They’re willing to send children into danger.”
In the past, widely circulated social media images and videos have repeatedly shown children and teenagers in military-style uniforms cracking down on protests, including during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, which erupted nationwide after Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, died in a Tehran police station following her arrest for allegedly violating hijab rules.
Under international law, Iran’s move flagrantly violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which explicitly prohibits the use of children in military activities, marking a dramatic breach of its global obligations.
Human rights groups have also repeatedly accused Iranian security forces of killing child protesters during past crackdowns.
According to the Center for Human Rights in Iran, more than 200 children were killed during the nationwide anti‑government protests earlier this year, which security forces violently crushed, leaving thousands of demonstrators tortured or killed.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also documented cases of children being shot, detained, and abused during these latest demonstrations, noting that government forces have repeatedly targeted minors in ways that breach international law.
Iran has a long track record of widespread human rights abuses, including crackdowns on protesters, harassment of activists, threats to minorities, executions of children, violations of women’s rights, and dire prison conditions.
During the January uprising, at least 6,724 protesters, including 236 children, were killed, with another 11,744 cases still under verification, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). Multiple other reports have estimated that the overall death toll may exceed 30,000.
As in past years, executions remain one of the starkest manifestations of human rights abuses in Iran, with at least 2,488 people executed last year, including 63 women and two children, 13 of them carried out publicly.
Tehran’s latest controversial move comes as Iran has reportedly slammed a US proposal to end the war as “one‑sided and unfair,” a rebuff that has cast doubt on the prospects for a negotiated ceasefire.
US President Donald Trump has warned the Islamist regime it must reach a deal or face a continued onslaught.
“They now have the chance, that is Iran, to permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions and to join a new path forward,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
“We’ll see if they want to do it. If they don’t, we’re their worst nightmare. In the meantime, we’ll just keep blowing them away.”