Prepare for your Best Year Yet

One of the hardest parts of my Aliyah has been the very negative attitude I have come up against from far too many. So many have told me I don't need my profession and just to clean houses. Their theory being that there are always people who need their house cleaned and it's usually cash money. The problem is you have to do a awful lot of cleaning and hard labour in order to come up with enough to have stability and a healthy lifestyle. You also need enough stamina to work hard for all those hours.

I have had many say I made a mistake to come to Israel. I don't agree and here is why!

Israel is the homeland of EVERY Jew and any Jew who wishes to live here is welcome and belongs here. It is not for anyone to tell a Jew that coming to Israel was a mistake. That thinking is just wrong.

I've tried to do the minimum wage route, I've tried working in facilities that sadly have no respect for professionals with experience. Neither of those work for me.

I have enough knowledge from my profession to know two things.
1) There is a lifestyle that promotes health and well being and
2) There are ways to earn that support a healthy lifestyle

I'm determined to find both and to share any quality tips, ideas or resources that can assist my fellow Jew to be successful in Israel too. So for my first share for 2018, here is an excellent video. Watch it, make your one page list of what your goals are for this year and focus on being successful, here in Israel.



Peter Voogd has a powerful lesson. There will always be nay sayers or haters. There will always be those to try to turn you off from living your best life or reaching your goals. Don't let them get to you.


Focus on your goals and reach for your dreams. Remember, if you have a dream to live in Israel, that dream comes from somewhere. It comes from your essence which goes back to Hashem. Remember that He is in charge of this whole creation and as long as you are working correctly and using your skills and talents for good, He can assist. From my 15 years in Israel so far, I have seen that miracles certainly do happen. Believe in miracles, search for tools, research, podcasts, connections that will help you to succeed and go for your dreams.


Oh, and let us know what industry you choose to focus on, share your goals and let us build a community focused on solutions. Focused on building Israel and Jerusalem.


Have a beautiful, successful 2018.

P.S. if you are interested in tips to live the Jewish lifestyle here in Israel, sign up for my newsletter. You'll find it on my website. Pretty soon I'll be sharing sign up info on blog posts too.

Preparing for 2018

What does preparation look like to you?

Well, I guess you could say it depends on what you are preparing for. If you are preparing to cook a scrumptious meal, then part of preparing will entail chopping up all of the ingredients to get them ready for the cooking process. In our case, we are preparing for 2018 and yes, we'd love to have a very yummy meal. Kind of like a celebration. Wouldn't you?

The celebration would be a way of thanking those involved in helping you to achieve your goals. Well that is much farther down the line. First we need to set the goals that would lead up to being able to celebrate. So let's backtrack a little and look at some progress during 2017.

I do admit that there have been far fewer posts added to this blog during 2017. That is partly because we began working on websites with our own domain name that have their own blog. We have not yet decided what to do with this blog. You can take a look at our websites and remember to let us know what you have enjoyed about them:
www.beahappymom.com is my website that contains my occupational therapy and energy work especially for women. It also has my writing service.
www.lovingkindness.co is my husband's site that has his Torah teaching and other services
www.creationsfromjerusalem.com is our online store with our art, creative gifts and books.

So, part of setting my goals for next year is to ask you, our readers, what posts would you like to read? Do you find this blog useful? If so, what do you enjoy about it?

We'd love to hear from you. Actually, I'm considering putting together a little survey to hear about your needs. Would you take the survey?

Having brought out my first book, of my own as opposed to the kids book that was a joint venture, I am now planning further books. Would you be interested in hearing more about my Aliyah story? If so, what information is of interest to you and what questions do you have that you would like answers to?

I'd love to hear from you. So if you are a regular visitor to this blog, please drop me a note in the comments below.

Oh, another development is setting up our terms and conditions for guest posts. If you have an interest in writing a guest post for this website, please be in touch to find out what our terms and conditions are. If you are looking to share an advertorial, that is advertising which has a fee associated with it. Be in touch for our fees for advertorials too.

Have you set your goals for 2018? Have you reflected on the previous year and considered what you would like to achieve in the new year? If you would like some assistance in your goal setting, my vision board workshop is very helpful to assist you to clarify what areas of your life require improvement. This is an important part of goal setting. These workshops are offered both individually or in group. If you are interested in a session do be in touch to book your time slot / appointment.

We look forward to hearing from you

Telfed Celebrates the Centenary of the Balfour Declaration

It never ceases to amaze me how many new pieces of information I can learn about my grandparents or family history. In truth, for Jews, the family history connects with the history of Israel, the history of the Jews and goes all the way back to Avraham and Sarah, the first Jews.

For anyone paying attention to the news, it is now 100 years since the Balfour Declaration and there are a variety of events taking place to commemorate this. A few days ago there was a talk given by Sir Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Here in Israel, Telfed hosted an event to celebrate the Centenary of the Balfour Declaration.

The event took place in the Arts and Music Centre in Raanana. When my mom noticed who the guest speaker was she became very excited and eager to attend. The guest speaker was Philip Weyers, executive director of the General Smuts Foundation in South Africa and great grandson of General Jan Smuts. Now came a surprise for me, had I known this and it slipped my mind? I'm not sure.

As it turns out, my late grandfather, Prof V.L. Granger was a friend of Janny Smuts, the son of Jan Smuts. His mother, my late great grandmother was friendly with Ouma, the wife of Jan Smuts. Always an opportunity to learn something of interest about one's family. It certainly serves as a reminder as to how important it is to have contact with one's grandparents and to take an interest in learning about their lives. You never know what interesting person was a friend or connection of your grandparent.

Well, equipped with this new insight about my family and their connections, off we traveled to Ra'anana. It's quite different to Jerusalem, for anyone who is sensitive just the energy itself is tangibly different. It was also quite amusing to hear so many with South African accents or speaking the odd word in Afrikaans. I've begun to become accustomed to hearing American accents, Israeli accents. Hearing Afrikaans is a novelty in Jerusalem, and hearing so many speak with South African accents is intriguing.

I was impressed that the Mayor of Ra'ananna, Zev Bielsky was the host. After some introductory speeches, relaxing to the classical music played by a South African Oleh, we had the opportunity to watch a short video taken in Israel around the time of the Balfour Declaration. Yes, there were Jews in Israel (or Palestine as it was called then) prior to WW2.

Finally the main speaker began. He has a wonderful sense of humour and I totally enjoyed hearing information about General Jan Smuts that I had never learned in South African History as it was taught at school. To my amazement and delight, I learned that Jan Smuts was a friend to the Jews. He was a good friend of Chaim Weitzman and had a belief that the Jews belong in Israel. Well he would have called it Palestine as was the name given by the Romans and in use at the time, but I prefer to call our Holy Land Israel.

I learned quite a few details about the Boer War and other aspects of South African history that I had not known before. Why were these interesting facts left out of our classes at school?

When the speeches ended and we began to file out of the theatre, it was fun to meet in person some people I had spoken to on the telephone or corresponded with via email. While most of the guests milled around and enjoyed a biscuit or cup of tea or coffee, we raced off to the bus station to get the last bus back to Jerusalem.

I must say I was grateful to be home in Jerusalem again. Whatever role the Balfour Declaration played in an increase of Jews returning to our land, it is incredible to be a part of the ingathering of the exile.