What Makes People Tick?

 I'm quite certain that I'm not the only one who's recently learnt about Adriana Rosie's social media channels where she writes about being a non-Jewish nanny for Jewish families in Florida in the US. It was an article from the Times of Israel ( ‘Non-Jewish Nanny’ to Orthodox kids gains TikTok fame with cute culture-shock videos ) that got me reading about what she does. And honestly, I've really enjoyed going through this young woman's Every Single Instagram Post. Check it out for yourself:  Adriana Rosie @nonjewishnanny .  While I usually prefer using Instagram to check out photos as opposed to videos (one of the reasons I'm not on TikTok...), I have to admit that I've just been eating up the content, and have really enjoyed learning about all her experiences. This is someone who's respectful of a community with many customs, rules and regulations that may not make sense to, or seem strange to outsiders, and opens up that community to the wider wor...

The Rock Test: A Hack for Men Who Don’t Want To Be Accused of Sexual Harassment You've probably heard of it and if not, this is your chance to read about it. Because yes, this deserves attention and yes, speaking as a female who's been harassed, felt up, assaulted, insulted and more, this approach is perfect.  "While navigating professional relationships can often require that dreaded thing known as “any amount of work at all”, there is hope. You see, by following this one simple rule, you too can interact with women as people. It’s as clear cut as this: Treat all women like you would treat Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. I know, this sounds weird, but trust me, this is a visualization exercise that will work wonders in your dealings with the women in your workplace. When a woman approaches you, just replace her in your mind with The Rock. Then, behave accordingly." Source: The Rock Test: A Hack for Men Who Don't Want To Be Accused of Sexual Harassment |...

Read an article today that got me thinking. Sharing the first paragraph of the article here. Hope you'll head over to the Jewish Press to read the entire article. It's worth reading and the question the article asks is worth thinking about, no matter what you think about the Israel / Palestine situation. With the BDS movement gaining momentum, many on the Israeli Left are increasing their calls for negotiations under the premise of a two-state solution. In their minds, the two-state solution is the only practical solution that could end the international isolation of Israel and lead to peace. But in the midst of the exhausted political ping-pong of whether or not the two-state solution is actually viable, the most important question often goes unasked – what if they are wrong? Source: What if they are wrong? | The Jewish Press | 22 June 2015 Now, whether you went and read the article or not - and I hope you did, it's worth reading - do yourself a favour and use your i...

Religion pic.twitter.com/FmByPLkuUu — Mahatma K. Gandhi (@GandhiWisdom) June 19, 2015

The English language can be confusing... However so can those who speak the language! England, Britain or the United Kingdom? English, British or perhaps Yuukayeean? Here's an easy tool to help you remember! I don't know why people get confused,  it's very simple... pic.twitter.com/xUCJ2X6fs8 — The Lazy Dog (@TheLazyDog_) March 9, 2013 Disclaimer: Yes, we did make up the word Yuukayeean. Call it attempted humour. Or just silly.  

"Surveys suggest that as few as    one in 10 cases [of rape] are ever    reported to the police in many countries" Top 5 Countries with the Highest Rates of Rape  The International Business Times (UK), January 2014 The Times of India reports in a July 2014 article that "If one goes by the latest statistics of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), every day 93 women are being raped in the country." The article explains that the total number of reported rape cases in India has gone up. In 2012, a total of 24,923 rapes were reported while in 2013 the total number came to 33,707. This means that more women are coming forward and filing reports; more women are speaking up about what is being done to them. I can only hope the trend continues, and 2014 will see even more reports.  Wikipedia's article Rape in India puts the above numbers into perspective. Looking at the same data, the article explains that "24,923 rape cases were reported a...

What is your earliest memory? Do you remember being five years old, being a toddler, being a baby? Do you remember what it was like in the womb? Chances are you might remember something from when you were around five years old, whereas the earlier years of your life are most likely a blur, if you remember anything at all. Yet the early years of our lives are when we learn all the basics for the rest of our lives. We learn to crawl, to walk, to talk, to recognise people and situations, to differentiate cats from dogs and other animals, to play with other children and navigate playground politics, to understand that fire is hot, that we need to be cautious around strangers, that we need to look both ways before crossing the street... We learn almost everything we need to know to live and survive the rest of our lives yet when we're older we usually can't remember learning many of these things. playground slide Which leads me to wonder, how exactly does a baby's brain...

A women's clothing store in the United Kingdom named after an Egyptian mythological figure becomes the target of hate mail and harassment, as the UK's  Daily Mail reports . Source:  Isis Boutique  Facebook page Jill Campbell is the owner of women's clothing store Isis Boutique in Malvern    (Worcestershire). Her store is named after the Egyptian goddess Isis. Ms Campbell came up with the name after leaving Oxford in 2007, explaining "The river in Oxford is named locally as ISIS and it is also the Egyptian goddess of magic, mystique, beauty and femininity which is everything the shop is all about." The boutique has been in business for seven years. The past few months, as the western world has been getting to know the terrorists and murderers in Iraq and Syria known as "ISIS", Ms. Campbell's store has been coming under threat. Not because she supports ISIS or anything like that but because the name of her boutique sounds similar to one of th...

In October 2001, almost thirteen years ago, Robert Worth published an article in the New York Times entitled "The Deep Intellectual Roots of Islamic Terror." In the article, he quotes Princeton professor of Near Eastern Studies Michael Doran who talks about terrorist group Al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden. Remember, this article was published only a month after the horrible events of September 11, 2001. ''Many Americans seem to think that bin Laden is just a violent cult leader,'' said Michael Doran. ... ''But the truth is that he is tapping into a minority Islamic tradition with a wide following and a deep history.''  Although many Muslims are horrified at the notion that their faith is being used to justify terrorism, Mr. bin Laden's advocacy of jihad, or holy war, against the West is a natural extension of what some radical Islamists have been saying and doing since the 1930's. These radicals were jailed, tortured and oft...

The words "Free Gaza From Hamas" seem to be popping up everywhere on social media. I hope this means that the world is starting to wake up, just a bit, to the reality of Hamas. It is a terrorist group intent on the destruction of a nation and the extermination of a people. I understand that in 'the West' we see images of what is happening in Gaza and sympathise with the plight of the people who are effectively stuck in Gaza. We should sympathise with them because they are suffering and they deserve a better life than they have now. However we need to consider, very carefully, what the money or goods we are sending to Gaza are being spent on. Are they being spent on making the lives of people in Gaza better, or are they being spent on making the lives of people in Israel worse? Construction materials meant for Palestinians routinely enter Gaza from Israel. To be exact, 4,680 trucks carrying 181 thousand tons of gravel, iron, cement, wood and other supplies have ...

Operation Protective Edge continues. While I read earlier this morning that there might be a 72-hour ceasefire starting today; Israel National News (Arutz Sheva)  tells me that the ceasefire has already been broken, not even two hours into the 72 hours. How surprising... Not... "Israel uses weapons to protect its civilians. Hamas uses civilians to protect its weapons. Hamas puts Palestinian civilians in the line of fire." Source: IDF through Barenaked Islam

If you read anything at all today, read this. The story of these people deserves more attention than it has been getting up to now. More attention from the international media and from international aid organisations as well. This 25 July 2014 article from The Wall Street Journal opened my eyes to a side of the MH17 crash that I'd barely given any thought to up until now. Then the plane crashed. The cabin's second-row overhead compartment is in a tree across from the village hall—and suitcases and clothes are in backyards and gardens of square-windowed cottages.  Villagers dashed into their basements, fearing a bomb attack. Residents in a nearby village ran for the church, certain that the world was coming to an end. A colleague of Ms. Voloshina screamed after being nearly hit by the plane's cargo hold.        Days later, the 43-year-old mayor found the bottom half of a man's body in the shrubs next to her office. She has barely slept since then.  ...

Yale University's Avalon Project has a copy of the Hamas Covenant 1988  in their archives. The following is a direct quote. I encourage all readers to read the entire Covenant and to form your own opinion based on your personal interpretation of the document. Article Twenty-two:   For a long time, the enemies have been planning, skillfully and with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained. They took into consideration the causes affecting the current of events. They strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realisation of their dream. With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard a...

Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of Hamas founding member Sheikh Hassan Yousef. After realising that Hamas was a violent organisation that he did not want to be a part of, he left Hamas and eventually moved to the United States. Mr. Yousef is also the author of the book " Son of Hamas " published in 2010. Judging by the reviews on Goodreads, it looks to be a very interesting book. I have to admit that I'd not heard of this book nor of Mosab Hassan Yousef until about an hour ago when I was alerted to the video below. In this video , Mosab Hassan Yousef speaks to CNN about his decision to leave Hamas and explains candidly why he could no longer be a part of such a brutal regime. If you watch anything today, watch this video! "In the mosques Hamas taught us that without shedding innocent blood for the sake of the ideology we wont be able to build an Islamic state. They were preparing us from the age as young as five years old.   This is the ideology that Hamas w...

Israel National News reports that for the second time since the start of Operation Protective Edge; United Nations workers have found rockets stored in one of their schools in Gaza. United Nations relief agency UNRWA has discovered, for a second time during the current war in Gaza, Hamas terror rockets stashed in one of its vacant schools.  A statement by UNRWA Tuesday said that “Today, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip.” Source: Again, Rockets found in UNRWA schools , Arutz Sheva - Israel National News

"Yesterday, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered approximately 20 rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip.   UNRWA strongly condemns the group or groups responsible for placing the weapons in one of its installations. This is a flagrant violation of the inviolability of its premises under international law.   This incident, which is the first of its kind in Gaza, endangered civilians including staff and put at risk UNRWA’s vital mission to assist and protect Palestine refugees in Gaza."  Source: UNRWA strongly condemns placement of rockets  in school , UNRWA Published 17 July 2014.

The Earth is 4.6 billion years old.  Let's scale that to 46 years. We have been here for 4 HOURS. Our industrial revolution began 1 minute ago. In that time, we have destroyed  MORE THAN 50% of the world's forests. Source:  Science Alert Facebook Page I find it unimaginable that so few listen while environmental agencies the world over are screaming about climate change, global warming, the need to reduce greenhouse gases and CO-2 emissions, the effects of the industrial revolution and really - the overall negative impact humans have had and continue to have on our planet. Wars, famine, floods, crop failures, droughts and the like - these are always localised events. An entire country or region or continent may suffer the effects of a flood or a war, yet in other parts of the world people simply continue on their daily business, oblivious to the suffering of people they don't know who live in a country they may have never even heard of. Global warmin...

Source: Propaganda Materials - Flyers , Church of the FSM One learns something new every day... Today, I'd like to tell you about something I first heard of some time ago. The first time I heard of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I thought it was a joke. Even today, I still wonder if this Church is only a farce or actually captures the essence of belief in the Divine. Back to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and let me assure you, Yes, you read that right . First thought up as an argument against teaching Creationism and Intelligent Design in schools in the USA, this idea has turned into an actual religion. Once upon a time, there was a Flying Spaghetti Monster who created the Heavens and the Earth...  No wait, stop laughing. I'm serious. This comes from the Church's website: Q: How do Pastafarians believe our world was created?   A: We believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world much as it exists today, but for reasons unkno...

A Soldier's Mothe r is the personal blog of the mother of a soldier in the Israeli army, the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). Writing to ease her worries, to share her thoughts and to tell her story to the world, this particular soldier's mother started blogging about her eldest son Elie's entry into the IDF in 2007. Now, A Soldier's Mother will be going to print. There's a fundraising campaign to raise money to print and publish the book:  Help A Soldier's Mother get published at Jewcer.com. I first started reading A Soldier's Mother several years ago. I was looking for new blogs to read, blogs by people from interesting places or those writing about interesting things. I wanted to expand my horizons; get to know different worlds and different perspectives - A Soldier's Mother fit the bill on all counts. Paula Stern is an American Jewish woman who moved to Israel with her husband and three young children over twenty years ago. Now a famed blogger...

Source : BBC News   Only minutes after writing about how the #YesAllWomen hash-tag is sweeping the world, I came across an article from Al Jazeera. According to the article, two teenage girls were found hanging from a tree after being GANG-RAPED BY FIVE MEN in India's Uttar Pradesh state. A quote from the article: "Records show a rape is committed every 22 minutes across the country of 1.2 billion people, though activists say that number is low because many victims are reluctant to come forward." Source : Indian girls found hanging after gang-rape , Al Jazeera English EVERY 22 MINUTES. How? Why? In what twisted, ridiculous world are numbers like that even reality? In what world are human beings treated as nothing but objects by other human beings? Rape is one of the most vile, inhuman things that one human being can do to another. I can't begin to find the words to express my utter disgust when I read this, when I try to think of the incredible unfairness of ...