Israel

It’s a GREAT time to be a Zionist! ♥ ✡ ♥

Hi friends,

Since we last connected, I’ve decided to try something new. My written blog got away from me, so I’m pivoting into a video blog in the hopes that I’ll be able to post more frequently this way. If you want to follow me on YouTube, you can subscribe to my channel Glamour and Guts. It’s young and still coming together, but I’ll be talking about a greater range of subjects: headlines, eyelashes, love and everything in between. I hope you’ll enjoy this new incarnation.

Here’s some gutsiness to get us going. As I’ll explain, no matter what you see in the news, it’s actually a GREAT time to be a Zionist. xo

UPDATE: One of my favorite organizations, StandWithUs shared this little video and the response has been amazing. I’m so happy that all us good guys have found each other. Just goes to show Zionists rock and it IS a GREAT time to be a Zionist. :) Here’s a link to their post so you can see all the love and support we have out there.

 

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What can I do? 14 Ways to Help Israel Now

I can help Israel joyish how can i help what can i doIf you’re anything like me, you watch the news and want to jump into action. What can I do? How can I help? Well you CAN help and here’s how: Give your time, prayers, money or all 3!

Give Your Time

Defend Israel : You Are an Ambassador of Israel

  • Get Beyond the Choir: take 30 minutes a day to comment under articles and reply to friends online. Don’t have time to research? We did it for you. I have worked with others to create these concise talking points with supporting materials. We are always updating this site – save time, be effective!
  • Tweet for Israel: Want to tweet for Israel, but don’t have time to compose tweets? Visit this stream of pro-Israel tweets and simply click the “retweet” symbol. Tweets only live 10 minutes, you can tweet often and repeat yourself.
  • Follow and share the posts of: IsraelUnderFire (@IsraelUnderFire), StandWithUs (@StandWithUs), FIDF (@FollowFIDF), and IDF Spokesperson (@IDFspokesperson). Follow trustworthy news sources. Get the word out.
  • Use these hashtags in your posts for maximum visibility: #IsraelUnderFire, #ProtectiveEdge, #KidsAreNotTargets, #IDF, #HamasTerror, #FreeGazaFromHamas, #HumanShields, #IronyDome, #PrayForIsrael, #IsraelUnderAttack. Use these hashtags to reach the anti-Israel community: #GazaUnderFire, #AsymmetricWarfare, #PrayforGaza, #GazaUnderAttack.

Sign These Petitions

Give Your Prayers

Give Your Money

Donate to these Grassroots Efforts

  • The IDF’s elite 6646 Paratroopers Unit is about to go into Gaza and needs certain items to be more effective in their dangerous mission. Help raise the $20,000 our boys need.
  • Deliver Underwear to the IDF soldiers. Why? Health & hygiene matter to our fighters, especially in war. It’s hot on the Gaza border and though funny, this is what they’ve requested. Kits include: boxers, a clean tee, army-regulation socks, a body towel, and a package of fresh wipes. Donate here.
  • Feed our soldiers! Army rations fuel but don’t inspire – want to show your love the Jewish way – through food? Deliver pizza to our platoons on the Gaza border.
  • Help needy Israeli families in the south: cover the credit lines of needy families in grocery stores, buy food vouchers for needy soldiers who serve in the IDF’s Search & Rescue Unit of the Homefront Command of the IDF. This unit is dispatched every time a rocket hits a target in Israel. Many soldiers serving in this unit come from under-privileged families in the South.

Donate to these Important Organizations

  • StandWithUs – Creating an army of advocates, SWU is responsible for much of the powerful social media work you’ve been seeing online. Support this vital organization.
  • Magen David Adom – I am personally involved with this effort to donate an ambulance to Magen David Adom NOW. Help Israel save lives by strengthening our first responders.
  • One Family rehabilitates, reintegrates and rebuilds the lives of Israel’s thousands of victims of terror attacks—those who have been bereaved, maimed, or suffer from post-trauma as a result of terror attacks.

We are one. Our unity is our superpower. Do your part, show your love!

 

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In Honor Eyal, Naftali and Gilad: Murdered by Terrorists

3 boys

We cannot recognize light without dark.
We cannot recognize warmth without cold.
We cannot recognize good without evil.
Yesterday, we recognized them all.

Like so many others, my heart broke reading about the tragic deaths of Eyal Yifrah, Naftali Frankel and Gilad Shaer, the 3 Israeli teens murdered by terrorists simply because they were Jews. I mourned with their families and with Am Israel around the world. My Facebook feed filled and spilled with mourning, scrolling from trios of candles to trios of candles.

As the brave IDF soldiers searched day and night for the kidnapped boys, pictures began surfacing showing Palestinians celebrating the abduction. Average, everyday citizens passed out sweets in the streets and posed for photos holding three fingers in the air; representing the 3 hostages. The photos gloated and endorsed the terrorists’ actions. The most disturbing photos showed children making the 3-finger sign. The PA (Fatah) ordered shopkeepers to destroy their security surveillance videos, lest the IDF use them to find the kidnapped children.

The search lasted 18 days and ended when IDF soldiers found the 3 boys’ bodies abandoned in a West Bank ditch. They’d been shot to death shortly after their abduction. Palestinian mobs attacked the Israeli ambulances brought to transport their lifeless bodies.

Over those 18 days of waiting, Jews around the world united in solidarity. They formed vigils, created petitions, prayed, supported, raised awareness via social media, and maintained hope, using whatever resources they had to bring back our boys and hold the perpetrators accountable. And when the boys were found yesterday, all world Jewry mourned and grew resolute together.

golda meir quoteLet no one say the conflict between Arabs and Jews revolves around a “land dispute.” The conflict arises from hate, from a culture of hate that breeds more hate, that indoctrinates its people to believe that terrorism pays personally and nationally, and only respects strength. In other words, the conflict comes from good, old-fashioned antisemitism, the kind that inspires ordinary people to embrace terrorism and become murderers. After all, the two Hamas members suspected of kidnapping the boys are likely just a few years older than the boys themselves. But hatred isn’t born, it’s taught. We know this: the mother of one of the suspects said she’d be proud if her son were responsible.

Many media outlets ignored the kidnapping, others denied it was a kidnapping at all. Speaking the only language her enemies understand, Israel will send the message this week that terror will not be tolerated. These same media outlets will report this news, critically.

We cannot recognize light without dark.
We cannot recognize warmth without cold.
We cannot recognize good without evil.
Yesterday, we recognized them all.

How strange to cry for people you’ve never met. Yet that’s what we did, because these boys were family, not strangers.

May their memories forever be blessing. May their families be comforted among the mourners of Zion. Baruch Dayan haEmet.

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Israel Facts: Trusted Middle East News Outlets

Israel Facts-Trusted Middle East News OutletsSeeing the news lately, you probably wish you could do more to support Israel. Well, you can, and it’s not that hard!

To help Israel: know your facts.

I personally believe that Israel’s enemies’ manipulatively twist and turn the facts, using our liberal, Western values against us. But, education is the way to peace. When you become an ambassador of the truth, you can correct misinformation when you hear it. Armed with facts, you can educate others and stymie false narratives. There is the war on the ground and the war of hearts and minds. We can all be soldiers in Israel’s PR battle and defend her from ignorance, half-truths and lies.

Hi, Remember me? I know, it’s been a while. Several whirlwind weeks took me from California to Israel to Jordan to Israel to Georgia and back again. What’s better than a global adventure?

But, reality stung when I returned to read the heartbreaking news of 3 Israeli teens kidnapped by terrorists, rocket fire from Syria & Gaza landing in Israeli cities, and terrifying terrorist advances in Iraq. However unsettling, I kept hunting for more information; the ticker tape underlining news programs never offering sufficient detail.

To quell my thirst I headed to the outlets below, my trusted sources for Middle East news. Let them also help you better navigate our landscape of misinformation.

News Aggregators:

1. Daily Alert
If you read nothing else, read this. The Daily Alert curates the day’s must-know news concerning Israel and world Jewry. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and The Conference of Presidents, responsible for the daily digest, includes top news and think tank articles, plus a few choice op-eds. I consider this mandatory reading. You can subscribe for free here.

News Outlets:

1. The Times of Israel
When rockets land in Israel, too many international news outlets skip it. “Again?” they shrug, letting the sirens and terror fade into unrecorded history. No wonder so many people view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict out of context. TOI reports what too many papers omit, the whole story.

2. The Jerusalem Post
Although the ads can get tiresome, JPost gets the job done. I especially enjoy their analysis pieces and pay particular attention to columnists Hillel Neuer, Caroline Glick, Daniel Gordis, Alan Dershowitz, Sarah Honig and Shmuley Boteach.

3. The Wall Street Journal
The WSJ is my American paper of choice. I get the weekend version and read the first section from cover-to-cover. Unlike never-ending online news, once you finish section 1, you can feel you’ve gotten both the international and domestic “essentials.”

News Watch Dogs:
As I alluded to before, mainstream news outlets’ Middle Eastern reports too often cast Israel as the villain, omitting essential parts of the story, sensationalizing or outright misrepresenting events on the ground. Thank goodness for these organizations that keep news outlets – the official recorders of history – accountable to the facts.

1. Honest Reporting: Defending Israel from Media Bias
2. CAMERA: Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America

News Bloggers:
If you can’t handle sarcasm, avoid these sites. The bloggers will often introduce articles they care to share in their own voices, editorializing along the way. I don’t mind. I regularly find hard-to-find news articles and op-eds on their sites, gathered from local news channels and papers across Europe, the Middle East and America.

1. Elder of Ziyon (EoZ) – the blog’s name satirizes the anti-Semitic propaganda book, “The Protocols of the Elder of Zion.”
2. Israel Matzav – Translation: The Israeli Situation.
3. Israpundit – Quite professional, more like an e-zine than a blog.

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