I used to be a Complainer
I used to be a complainer.
From our London home, my wife and I would write hundreds of letters of
complaint each year to the BBC, independent TV stations, national newspapers,
to MPs and the Prime Minister. Each
letter would defend Israel against some horrible slanderous attack that had
just been perpetrated against the Jewish State by some anti-Zionist (read
anti-Semitic) journalist or politician.
Constantly battling against the unredeemable enemy was no good for my
health and in 2007 I took early retirement due to stress and made Aliya.
When we arrived in Israel, my wife first tried to talk me
into writing a book about our previous work.
I responded repeatedly, “Who on earth is going to be interested in
that?” Eventually, my wife agreed that
it would only have been of academic interest, or maybe have made an impact on
just a few individuals.
Having settled into life in sleepy Netanya, I felt the need
to keep active. A spell of freelance
work came to an end and although I was too old for any Israeli company to
employ me, I realised that at 54 years of age I still had plenty to offer the
country. What should I do?
Then one day, I saw that a new book had been published. “Start up Nation – The Story of Israel’s
Economic Miracle” by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. It literally blew me away.
I bought about a dozen copies for family members and memorised most of
the material. The facts within the book
were amazing – back in the early 1990’s Israel was an economic
“basket-case”. Its currency was a
joke. Inflation was rampant. But then suddenly everything started to go
right. Financial policy, Russian
immigration, venture capital investment and entrepreneurship melded with
Israel’s unique National Service prior to University and its people’s
risk-taking approach and “just do it” attitude to get out of crises.
This was inspirational.
I wanted to shout about Israel’s achievements to the world. And then I thought – hang on, this could
also be the way to stifle growing attempts to de-legitimise the Jewish
State. Instead of always having to defend
Israel, why not CHANGE the conversation.
We can stop making excuses to those who anyway never listen to the
truth. We can just talk about what
great work Israel DOES perform.
If nothing else, it will alleviate my stress problems.
And so early in 2010 I started sifting through the week’s
news and saving those stories that highlighted the best aspects of the Jewish
State. I set-up a “Good News Only”
email group and found enough material to send out a weekly email of about a
dozen stories. It soon grew to 30 – 40
articles a week. Thousands now receive
the weekly emails.
I have about 200 book-marked favorite websites that I check
regularly for positive articles about Israel.
Several friends and family also send me emails with great stories. But my most trusted partner is a wonderful
piece of Israeli software called Genieo. It records the websites I visit and then
“suggests” to me articles of interest when those sites are updated.
I started my blog www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com
in May 2010 and it now receives over 4000 hits each month. One of my one-off summaries “Boycotting
Israel? - Just Do It!” won me a
regular position as a regular blogger on the Jerusalem Post on-line and I have
published over 50 blogs since.
It’s difficult to know the impact. Dozens of lovers of Israel tell me that the newsletter and the
blogs are terrific. The website gets
hits from all over the world - Muslim and Arab states included. There is a Christian pastor in The
Netherlands who translates the newsletter into Dutch once every couple of
months. It was also translated into
Spanish once, which led to several incomprehensible subscription requests. WIZO use the material in their
newsletter. A blogger posts it on his
facebook for 12,000 friends to read.
And on the small scale, one family in California sits around the table
on Shabbat and each member of the family chooses a piece of news from the
newsletter to read out.
I really would like my newsletter and blogs to reach a much
wider audience. However working alone,
for no payment and with few marketing skills, I am very much in need of outside
assistance. Hey, but who’s complaining?
Please help promote positive messages about Israel to your
family, friends and colleagues all over the world. I often make the analogy of Israel being like a candle in the
dark. Those wishing to extinguish the
Jewish State are the forces of darkness but the forces for “good” are the
light.
Michael Ordman writes a weekly newsletter containing Good
News stories about Israel.
To subscribe, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com
