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.

The Latest News and Update at Welcoming Olim

It's been a while since I posted on this blog. No we have not disappeared, we have been busy, very busy. With the new year, it's a perfect time to introduce or reinforce some progress and development taking place. Before we share some updates, did you notice that the title mentions updates at Welcoming Olim and yet many of the updates are not on this blog? Well that is because the blog Welcoming Olim is a service offered by Chessed Ve'Emet.

If you knew that already, then do continue, if you are new to our blog, then welcome. The rest of this post will help you to gain some insight into who we are.

Firstly, do you know about our new website. Creations From Jerusalem is all about our artistic and creative products. We have tried a number of platforms along our journey and finally have our own website to showcase, promote and sell our products. We love to be creative in a number of mediums. So we invite you to visit this website, sign up for our newsletter and you can get to know about our latest products, specials and developments.

Next, we have progressed with the information we offer to Welcome Olim. We recognise that many who visit our blog are not yet Olim or have been here so long that they no longer regard themselves as Olim. We also have many ideas to develop and share. We are excited to introduce our Aliyah website. What is our website? Well, it's Everything Aliyah. Yes, it is all about Aliyah. Everything there is about Aliyah.

Do you have any questions related to Aliyah? Do you have any inspiring stories to share? We'd love to hear from you. We are working up towards offering podcasts and we would love to answer your questions, feature your stories or interview you. So, please do be in touch. Send in your questions, share your stories, your hopes and your fears. Most importantly, sign up for our newsletter to keep up to date with our latest developments.

Lastly, if you are familiar with our main websites, you will notice an important change happening there too. We have introduced a membership feature. This will enable us to continue providing quality articles, information and content in various formats. For you see, it takes time to prepare the articles, to search our suitable videos, links and so forth. By becoming a member of our websites you will have access to certain key articles. You will also assist us to concentrate on doing what we do best, which is to share valuable, quality articles and products. So we invite you to become a part of what we are doing and to sign up to become a member.

We hope you will enjoy and appreciate the changes, improvements and developments that are taking place at Chessed Ve'Emet and the various websites and blogs that we manage.

We look forward to hearing from you and to having your join our newsletter and websites

Have a wonderful 5778!