Rules to Teach Your Son

 

My Good Time Stories

Photo by Jonas Mohamadi from Pexels

I recently discovered a terrific collection of some guidelines / rules that every parent should teach their son(s). We can ALL learn something from the following list…

Rules to Teach Your Son

1. Never shake a man’s hand sitting down.
2. Don’t enter a pool by the stairs.
3. Always treat your girlfriend like a queen.
4. In a negotiation, never make the first offer.
5. Request the late check-out.
6. When entrusted with a secret, keep it.
7. Hold your heroes to a higher standard.
8. Return a borrowed car with a full tank of gas.
9. Play with passion or don’t play at all.
10. When shaking hands, grip firmly and look them directly in the eye.
11. Don’t let a wishbone grow where a backbone should be.
12. If you need music on the beach, you’re missing the point.
13. Carry two handkerchiefs. The one in your back pocket is for you. The one…

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Be it in May or September: Run the race

The last two academic years have been very weird with many restrictions. September is here again and soon it will be October, the month when everybody is back at work or back in school. Once more we faee a new academic and church year. Once more we are reminded we have work to do on this earth. We have our obligations and we have to strive to get some results in what we are supposed to do.

In Belgium, last year, sports were more a thing for one person on his own, because no group events were allowed. Everyone had to stay in isolation and contact sports were not allowed. The text underneath normally was to be published in May, when we had the underneath ‘prayer theme’ for the month, but we got somewhat behind with a lot of work, because other matters, like taking care of people, providing food to isolated people and help for those in need, certainly after the floods, required our attention.

In the Covid period it might not have been easy for many. Now it could well be that this year may be a year of transition, for becoming back to normal.

Jane Edwards has a look at what happened mostly in May. In her country that is the time the sun starts showing herself more and more attention is given to outside sports. She then thinks of the race which we have to finish.

Be it May or September, each day we are confronted with a lot of matters. Every day of the year, we have to get on and continue our way.

°°°

Run the race

When I was at school, the month of May meant only one thing…..
Practicing for Sports day.
Today, children are encouraged to just take part, and they are all winners. Helping others along the way to finish together.

When I was at school, it was all about the winning!
Who could run fastest.
Who could throw furthest.
Who could jump highest.

Winners were winners, and losers were just that – losers.
Winners received prizes, losers were scorned.

There were cheers, and plenty of boos.

I hated Sports day. Whilst I enjoyed hockey and netball – team games, I hated the one against one competition of Athletics – mainly because I was rubbish, and not really built to run!

We are told in the Bible in Hebrews 12 that we need to ‘run the race’ , but we are also told that ‘bodily exercise profits little’ in 1 Timothy 4v8 – which is correct?
Of course we need to exercise.
For our hearts and minds exercise is good, but too much can become an obsession – and take us away from other activities that matter.
So, what race do we need to run?

Of course, this is the race to the Kingdom. This race is much better than the ones I failed miserably at school. This race, (perhaps more apt to call it an Obstacle Course) makes everyone a winner!
It’s about getting to the finish line – some may reach that before others, but everyone has a chance to finish and win… and have help from others along the way.
And the prize – eternal life!
No boos, but cheers from the Heavenly Hosts.
As we watch our children on Sports Day, or think about exercise for ourselves, let us remember the most important race of our lives.

 

 

 

Dear Lord,
Please be with us as we run the race to your Kingdom.
Some of us may be slower through lack of faith, anxiety, and fatigue.
Give us the encouragement and strength needed to make it to the finish.
Please help us to help others to the end,
giving them encouragement as you have to us.
Amen

 

Jane Edwards

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Preceding

Race and Grace

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong

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Additional reading

1. Life is like a ten-speed bike.
2. The high calling of God in Christ Jesus
3. We are redeemed; we are “bought with a price”
4. Followers with deepening
5. Troubles testing your faith and giving you patience and good prospects
6. Matthew 20 Are you willing to work for Jesus?
7. Today’s Thought “There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness” (May 27)
8. Every athlete exercises self control
9. Running the battle
10. A race not to swift, nor a battle to the strong
11. Run for the Everlasting Cure
12. Atonement and the race been bought
13. Being of good courage running the race

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Related

1. “Fit In!”
2. Just Keep Going by Bridget A. Thomas
3. A Crown Beyond the Sun
4. Running The Race
5. Running The Race by Tara Randel
6. Running This Race Called Life
7. His Closed Circuit!
8. Life’s race
9. How do you stay strong in the midst of change
10. ending well
11. Leaning On The Father
12. Running the Race of Holiness: DON’T give up
13. Catching up to the Win
14. Old and Heavy
15. The Race
16. It’s Friday…Run With An Eye For Nothing Less
17. Preparing to Fly!
18. First of All!
19. How To Run A Steady Race Right Into Glory
20. One Thing I Know
21. With “Blinders” of Grace!
22. The Surrendered Disciple!
23. The Funneling Effect!
24. With Reverence, Returning…
25. Reawaken the Redeemed!
26. Saved from Self’s Strainings!
27. The Second Hand’s Moment!
28. His “Stone Soup” Creations!
29. Sunday Morning 7/25: Unit 34, Session 4: Running the Race
30. Clear ye the Way!
31. Shaking the Comatose!
32. Eyes on the Goal
33. A Cloud of Witnesses
34. The Fool’s Boundary!
35. Discarding Camouflage!
36. The Piper’s Promised Peace!
37. Keep the Focus
38. Choice Intersections!
39. Faithful to the End
40. Wholeness…in Him!
41. Running the Race
42. Finishing well

University of the Taliban cabinet

The Taliban’s founder Mullah Muhammed Omar, the one-eyed reclusive cleric-warrior who sheltered Osama bin Laden, is being linked to what was called ‘the University of jihad’ but has become now‘the University of the Taliban cabinet,”

Flanked by adoring supporters, one of whom crouches on the floor kissing his legs, Maulana Hamid Ul-Haq jokes about the nickname given by critics who have repeatedly labelled the school a hotbed of radicalisation. This is because its alumni include some of the Taliban’s most powerful and feared leaders, many of whom are on global wanted lists and are now in their new cabinet after the group swept to power in neighbouring Afghanistan last month.

The biggest names from the notorious Haqqani network, a US-designated terrorist group linked to the Taliban, have been taught there, including its founder, Jalaluddin Haqqani, and Khalil Haqqani, now the Taliban’s minister for refugees. The Taliban’s spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid is also a graduate.

Read more in light of its links to several well-known jihadis, the head of Darul Uloom Haqqania is trying to change its image following the Taliban victory: ‘We’re no longer ‘the University of jihad’ but ‘the University of the Taliban cabinet’: inside Pakistan’s notorious madrasa

In Afghanistan and Pakistan can people trust the Taliban and find some good education

In 2015 there was a wave of outrage, crossing Pakistan’s national borders. The Taliban created a bloody rampage in a school in the province’s capital, Peshawar, killing 141 people including 132 uniformed children in what is being billed as the group’s single deadliest attack to date,

In their war against western, secular education, which the group has denounced as “un-Islamic”, the Pakistan Taliban have destroyed over 838 schools between 2009 and 2012, claimed responsibility for the near-fatal shooting of teenaged education advocate Malala Yousafzai who spoke out publicly against the prohibition on the education of girls that was imposed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP; sometimes called Pakistani Taliban). This Taliban issued numerous edicts against the right of women and girls to receive proper schooling. And today, notwithstanding their promises, it seems they are going to ban again any formal education for girls. Though they say it is only for a short period until they will have found out how to organise an education possibility for female Afghanis.

It may be strange to our ears to hear several Afghanis now want to cross the Pakistan border to find more safety. But perhaps they do know much better the intentions of the Afghan Taliban than we can ever imagine.

Young girls may also find some possibility to study in Pakistan, where the country isin a better condition than five years ago and where alternatives to terrorism and militancy bore some good fruits.

The Citizens Foundation (TFC), a local non-profit, busied itself with a pledge to build 141 Schools for Peace, one in the name of each person who lost their life on that terrible day.

“We dedicate this effort to the children of Pakistan, their right to education and their dreams of a peaceful future,”

said Syed Asaad Ayub Ahmad, CEO of TCF,  in an email launching the campaign.

“With the formidable challenges facing the nation, we passionately believe that only education has the power to enlighten minds, instil citizenship and unleash the potential of every Pakistani,”

he added.

While armed groups and government forces answer violence with more of the same, the active citizens who comprise TCF want to shift focus away from bloodshed and onto longer-term solutions for the future of this deeply troubled country.

The charity, which began in 1995, has completed 1,000 school ‘units’, typically a primary or secondary institution capable of accommodating up to 180 pupils, all built from scratch in the most impoverished areas of some 100 towns and cities across Pakistan.

The 7,700 teachers employed by the NGO go through a rigorous training programme before placement, and the organisation maintains a strict 50:50 male-female ratio for the 145,000 students who are now benefitting from a free education, according to TCF Vice President Zia Akhter Abbas.

In a country where 25.02 million school-aged children – of which 13.7 million (55 percent) are girls – do not receive any form of education, experts say TCF’s initiative may well act as a game changer in the years to come, especially given that the government spends just 2.1 percent of its GDP on education.

“Our job is to ensure that wherever we have our schools, there are no out-of-school children, especially girls,”

Abbas  said.

“We believe the change in society will come automatically once these educated and enlightened children grow up into responsible adults.”

Of the 25.02 million school-aged children who are not receiving a proper education, 13.7 million, or 55 percent, are girls. {Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS}

He added that the schools are designed to

“serve as a beacon of light restricting the advance of extremism in our society.”

Healthcare Workers: Heroes of the modern world???

The true heroes, who are usually forgotten by society, are those who work for others without expecting anything in return. All over the world, we are fortunate to find such people volunteering for work that would otherwise be unaffordable and impossible to accomplish. Then there are the teachers and health workers, to whom society should give much more respect and recognition.

 

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Preceding

National Heroes Day Message of Deputy Speaker Loren Legarda

Your Nurse Marry

When I was young, I used to idolize a lot of characters in the movies I watched, especially those people who portrays act of kindness and heroism.

The COVid-19 pandemic that started in the year 2020 had made a drastic and devastating change in the lives of all people globally. The horrible effects of this virus spread abruptly from one country to another.

In today’s modern world, where new and innovative technologies are present and where new strains of unforeseen biological enemies arises, real heroes stood up and are continuously fighting the battle to help, care and protect all the people in world.

Medical facilities are continuously struggling to support all the people afflicted by the virus. Healthcare providers, nurses, allied health workers and other staff working in the hospitals are trying to offer the best and quality healthcare services needed. With full efforts, they devoted their time to give…

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The Fall of Kabul: The Return of the Taliban

To remember:

• Mohammed Omar Afghan mullah (cleric) and mujahid commander who led the Taliban and founded the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 1996.
• Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second largest city after Kabul, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of 1,010 m (3,310 ft).
• 2001 destruction of two giant Buddhas in Bamiyan by the all male group Taliban = lack of respect by the Taliban for historical &  cultural heritage of Afghanistan.
• February 2020, Trump administration + Taliban signed historic deal in Doha, Qatar > 14-month timetable for America & NATO allies to withdraw all of its forces from Afghanistan. > Taliban agreed not to allow al-Qaeda or any extremist group to operate in the areas they control.
• Since 2001 the war forced 2.7 million Afghans to flee their homes mostly to Iran, Pakistan and Europe.
• United States of America Defense Department states > war- fighting costs over the years in Afghanistan total $815.7 billion; from food for troops to fuel; to Humvees, weapons and ammunition; from tanks to amoured vehicles to aircraft carriers to airstrikes.
• Taliban = not strong in area of human rights or women’s right. impose strict limitations on women’s bodies & their human rights + women treated as possession of men
• women are not allowed to dance in public, => bachas (boys), as young as 12, usually orphans or from very poor families, can be made to dance in women’s clothing + they are often sexually abused = bachabaze = playing with boys
  
• Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) = second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations, + collective voice of Muslim world to ensure & safeguard their interest on economic socio and political areas

waykam

“Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.”- John F. Kennedy.

We have all seen the stunning and alarming images on our television; hundreds of Afghans both men and women running alongside a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane as it moves down a runway of the Hamid Karzai International airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. The script was not supposed to end like this. The Taliban have moved with fighting speed to control Afghanistan. The United States of American trained Afghan security forces hardly resisted the Taliban. This military maneuvering by the Taliban has led many to wonder whether or not the United States and her allies miscalculated the capacity and capabilities of the Taliban. Many will view the surrender of Kabul as well as the other provinces in Afghanistan with some suspicion especially since the former president Ashraf Ghani fled before Kabul fell to the Taliban. A significant…

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Afghanistan — What It Tells You

We may not forget that the ultraconservative political and religious faction that emerged in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s following the withdrawal of Soviet troops, protected and hid Osama Bin Laden, who was responsible for the 9/11 attack on the U.S.A.. Them also enforcing a strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law, and wanting to have that Sharia being practised all over the world, they were a threat to the entire Western democratic world.

The Taliban already gave our Western world a picture of what would happen when they would govern all the world. During their rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban and their allies committed massacres against Afghan civilians, denied UN food supplies to 160,000 starving civilians and conducted a policy of scorched earth, burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes. In several countries where those conservative Islamists take power, we can witness how they banned activities and media including paintings, photography, and movies if they showed people or other living things (?!?), and prohibited music using instruments. In all countries where those religious activists took power, women were oppressed and could not study or take a proper job. Except in the medical field because male doctors were prohibited from seeing women, and therefore a few women were allowed to treat females under certain circumstances.

The whole affair is not a comedy of errors, but more a tragedy of errors.

Henry's Views

What the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban tells you about the limits of American power is that we can’t change the ethos of other countries — that is well beyond our capability. We can’t take a deeply conservative, male-oriented, and archly Islamic country and make it over into our image of a Western democracy with equal rights for everyone and freedom of religion. And we shouldn’t try to. It’s bound to fail.

They are all now blaming Biden for this defeat, but, to be honest, he was a very late player in this comedy of errors. The initial error was to expand our enemies list from al-Qaeda to the Taliban. The Taliban never attacked the US; al-Qaeda did.

Another Vietnam?

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Afghan filmmaker Sahraa Karimi

Noted Afghan filmmaker Sahraa Karimi has penned an open letter calling on the world to wake up to the impact of the Talibans swift takeover of Afghanistan. She calls for protection for filmmakers and for women in general against the brutal militants who have overrun the country amid the final US withdrawal of forces.

Karimi, who previously directed “Hava, Maryam Ayesha,” a film about abortion that appeared at the Venice festival in 2019, says that despite the slick public image, the Taliban’s agenda is brutally feudalistic, paternalistic, and involves turning the clock back on women’s rights.

“(The Taliban) will strip women’s rights, we will be pushed into the shadows of our homes and our voices, our expression will be stifled into silence. When the Taliban were in power, zero girls were in school. Since then, there are over 9 million Afghan girls in school. Just in these few weeks, the Taliban have destroyed many schools and 2 million girls are forced now out of school again,”

said Karimi.

“Everything that I have worked so hard to build as a filmmaker in my country is at risk of falling. If the Taliban take over they will ban all art. I and other filmmakers could be next on their hit list,”

she said. Karimi is also head of state-owned Afghan Film.

Karimi says that the Taliban’s agenda targets the suppression both of women and the liberal arts.

“In the last few weeks, the Taliban have massacred our people, they kidnapped many children, they sold girls as child brides to their men, they murdered a woman for her attire, they gouged the eyes of a woman, they tortured and murdered one of our beloved comedians, they murdered one of our historian poets, (and) they murdered the head of culture and media for the (now deposed) government,”

her letter asserted.

Khaled Hosseini, author of the book “The Kite Runner” which was later adapted as a film, called the Taliban takeover a nightmare.

“The American decision has been made. And the nightmare Afghans feared is unfolding before our eyes. We cannot abandon a people that have searched forty years for peace. Afghan women must not be made to languish again behind locked doors & pulled curtains,”

he said on Twitter.

Somali women in the Somali society

It is not bad to read a view from someone living in Mogadishu, Somalia, about Somali women and widespread myths about women in Somalia.

 

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Extra reading material about Somalia

1. 25-top-facts about Eastern-African-countries
2. Somalia military kills 50 al-Shabaab terrorists in separate operations
3. U.S. Military Conducts a Drone Strike Against Shabab Fighters in Somalia
4. US carries out first airstrike in Somalia since Biden took office
5. Somalia and Ireland discuss security support and partnership
6. Somalia postpones long-delayed election
7. COVID19 – Daily updates from #Africa and for Africa
8. Jubbaland announces its first four senators to Somali Parliament
9. Book Review and Blog Tour: The Last Nomad, by Shugri Said Salh
10. DN!: Ilhan Omar on Eviction Moratorium and her book ‘This is What America Looks Like’
11. The Last Nomad by Shugri Said Salh
12. Kids Read: Somalia
13. UK-Kenya Defence Cooperation Agreement raises eyebrows in Somalia
14. Kidnappings in Kenya, Al-Shabab & What Needs To Be Done
15. Bomb blast kills 4 footballers in Somalia
16. 4 footballers dies in Somalia bomb explosions
17. 08/02/21 Antiwar: Biden Administration Escalates Airstrikes in Somalia
18. Joe Biden Keeps Bombing Somalia
19. Focus on Refugees: Ifrah Ahmed- Somali Refugee Turned Infuencial Social Activist
20. Is Ethiopia hurtling towards all-out ethnic conflict?”

Political And Developmental Thoughts

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Somali women, wearing clothing with the Somali flag on it, dance and sing at a handover ceremony of a new well donated by the African Union Mission in Somalia to a local community in the country’s capital, Mogadishu, on June 5. AMISOM Photo / Tobin Jones

Throughout history, women around the globe faced discrimination against men and were inferior and had no basic rights. Women were subjected to men as they were their properties. After many years of discrimination and hatred towards women, men and women started to stand up for women’s rights. During the 19th century, many women’s rights movements emerged in Europe and America.

After these movements, Feminism came into existence and was spreading quickly around the globe, especially in the West. During the 20th and 21st centuries, there were several serious waves. The first wave’s main objective was for women to gain suffrage and political equality.

The…

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97-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor scoring high on TikTok

Tik Tok a youngster gadget

We know already of Hadassah Tirosh who has amassed over 2 million followers on TikTok, where she proudly and openly shares about her Jewishness. She is not only Jewish, but also a Mexican Israeli trans content creator. whose early content, which begins in December of 2019 was posted under her previous name, David, who she remembers fondly and has taken the time to thank for helping her become the person she is today — she’s seen proudly wearing different colourful kippahs, her Star of David necklace and being generally proud and open about her Jewishness.

In 2021 Tik Tok is the seventh most used in the world, with the majority of its users being millennial and Gen Z. But it might be a very high surprise to find a 97-year old lady being a “hipster”.
Lily Ebert isn’t your typical 97-year-old. In June, after only joining the platform earlier this year, Ebert reached 1 million followers on Tik Tok and has now amassed over 1.2 million in total.
How?
Ebert is a Holocaust survivor and, together with her great-grandson Dov Forman who runs her account, is teaching the internet about her remarkable life and experiences as a survivor of Auschwitz and how she made a life for herself after liberation.

Lily Ebert from the camps

Lily Ebert, born in Bonyhád, Hungary on 29th December 1923

Originally from Hungary, Lily Ebert, the eldest of six children in a happy and loving family. When the Nazis invaded Hungary in March 1944, her family got to face the worst nightmare one can wish for.

Shortly after Germany invaded Hungary, Lily, her mother and her siblings were sent to the ghetto, and soon after were put on a train, crammed into dark and almost airless cattle wagons, to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Lily at the age of about 4 or 5 had received from her mother a small gold pendant. Even then it wasn’t very expensive or unique but young Lily was very pleased with her present and now in the camp she did not want it to be taken by the Nazis. The small pendant had gone hiding, safe inside the heel of her mother’s shoe. Lily and her mother wore the same size of shoe and as they arrived at the camp her mother asked Lily to swap shoes with her.

Although this happened over 70 years ago Lily can still remember her arrival at the camp. After the long and terrible journey, ‘everyone was half-dead’. They were ordered to climb out of the train and stand together five in a row. There was a man with a stick in his hand. It was Dr Mengele, the notorious Nazi doctor who became known as the Angel of Death for his brutal experiments on inmates, though at the time Lily didn’t know who he was. With one movement of his hand Dr Mengele sealed the fate of the people before him. He sent people right or left — to life or to death. When they had arrived, Lily and her two sisters Renee and Piri were sent in one direction, while her mother Nina, brother Bela and sister Berta were sent to the left, the way to the gas chambers and crematorium. Lily never saw them again.

Lily had put on her mother’s shoes and was ordered to take a shower, whereafter her hair was cut, and their remaining belongings were stolen. It was her only remaining possession and a reminder of her happy childhood. It was a link to her murdered mother and a symbol of defiance. The Nazis would not be allowed to steal it! The Nazis left them with only their shoes, not having any idea of what was hidden in the heel of Lily’s shoe, the tiny pendant Lily’s last link with her mother. When the shoes wore out, she placed the pendant in her daily ration of bread. After about four months in Auschwitz, the sisters were transferred to an ammunition factory near Leipzig. The pendant went with them.

March to liberation after a human and a viral war

When the Front started closing in on the area, they were forced to leave Leipzig and sent on a two-day march. After seeing and suffering unimaginable horrors, on the second day of the march, April 13, 1945, they were finally liberated by Allied forces.

Lily tried to rebuild her life. She wore the pendant every day in memory of her murdered family. Eventually, she married and had children. In 1953 she was reunited with Imre, one of her brothers, who had been imprisoned in a Nazi labour camp. In 1967 she came to London with her husband and three children.

Having become a proud grandmother she came to face another life-threatening struggle: COVID-19. In January, she struggled with a brutal bout of the virus, but true to her nature, she fought through. For her it was her second chance to be alive.  It was then that her great-grandson Dov Forman decided to share a photo of his great-grandmother to Twitter celebrating her miraculous recovery.

Dov Forman

My 97-Year-old Great Grandma, Lily Ebert BEM – Auschwitz Survivor, has just recovered from Covid- 19. Today she went on her first walk in a month after making a miraculous recovery. A fighter and survivor

The response was extraordinary; the photo has since been retweeted over 17,000 times and has received more than a quarter of a million likes, with people from all over the world responding to send their well-wishes and express their admiration for Lily’s strength and bravery.

Finding viral fame

On the back of this unexpected reaction, Dov set up a TikTok account for Lily. At first, their videos mainly consisted of Dov introducing his great-grandmother and encouraging people to follow the account in order to have her story reach as many people as possible. But once they started building up a following, people quickly began expressing an interest in the details of Lily’s extraordinary life.

Soon enough, the account became dedicated to answering followers’ questions about the Holocaust and Lily’s experiences of it, with questions ranging from asking what they ate in the camp, to what happened to babies that were born there, and what the sleeping conditions were like.

She also remembered some Hungarian poems and recites them on the application.

No human anymore, but just a number

Though it is not always easy to answer all the questions she gets, she finds it a necessary act:

“Of course it is hard but if I could survive it, I can talk about it. And for the future, to ensure that something similar [to the Holocaust] cannot happen again, I have to talk about it.”

Lily’s most viewed video, now with over 20 million views, shows her answering the question,

“How did it feel to get your number in Auschwitz?”

Revealing a faded tattoo on her left arm, Lily confidently tells her followers:

“My number is A-10572. That is what I was, they did not call us by our name. We were no longer humans. We were only a number and we were treated like numbers.”

The video now has over 29,000 comments from people expressing their solidarity with Lily and gratitude for her honesty and strength.

Downsides of Tik Tok and Twitter, also platforms of hate talk

However, despite the overwhelmingly positive reactions and encouraging words of support, like all social media platforms, TikTok comes with its downsides, too. For Jewish creators on TikTok, the fun comes with a hefty dose of antisemitism.

It seems as if the kids on TikTok are churning out a new trend nearly every week. The never-ending scroll of the “For You Page” sends users on a twisting path of all sorts of niches and topics. The app truly has something for every interest, from sea shanty challenges to tortilla wrap hacks to — antisemitic caricatures?

In May, around the time when violence was escalating between Israel and Palestine, Ebert’s account received a slew of hateful antisemitic comments. In one particular instance, under a video of Lily simply wishing her followers “a lovely, peaceful weekend”, and by a repeated similar wish in Hungarian, her native language, she added “Shabbat Shalom,” despite the mundanity and kindness of this video, it quickly became the subject of a swarm of hateful comments. it went even so far that she was called to be responsible for the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Another said, “Happy Holocaust,” while another said,

“Ask her if she thinks the treatment of Palestinians reminds her [of] the treatment she got in the camp.”

Another response was

“Peace be upon Hitlar [sic]”

to one which asked if she believed the treatment of Palestinians reminded her of her treatment in the camps. All of this for a grandmother’s simple greeting. Sadly, this experience of antisemitic hate isn’t exactly unique.

Although these comments were clearly abhorrent, unjustified and unacceptable, like everything else Lily and Dov handled them with the utmost dignity. Posting to Twitter, Dov wrote:

“Over the past few days my great Grandmother (Auschwitz survivor) and I have continued to receive messages of hate on Tiktok and Twitter… We will not allow this to stop us from educating about the horrors of the past, and what hatred can lead to. Hate only breeds hate.”

Hero Magnus, a university student and TikToker, explains how her Judaism-related content would often get slammed by offensive comments.

“The really vicious comments are usually from actual Nazis, and I just block and delete. When I was making a ton of Jewish content, I would get a couple of those on practically every video,”

she explains.

“I often also got casually mean stuff from Christians or culturally Christian atheists who wanted to tell me that Judaism is backwards, cultish or stupid.”

Additionally, Jews of Colour on TikTok experience vitriol both from outside the Jewish community and within.

Shekhiynah Larks, a Black Jewish TikTok creator, describes that, in fact, most of the antisemitism she experiences on the app comes from white Jews and Black non-Jews, not Neo-Nazis.

“When I do receive antisemitic comments, it’s more coded with anti-Blackness at the same time,”

Larks says.

“It’s more people posting ‘free Palestine’ on my page and asking me how I can be Black and a Jew, I’m being brainwashed by white Jews, and that I don’t care about Black people.”

She also notes that many white Jews comment on her videos asking her invasive questions that probe into her Jewish identity and conversion, showing they don’t really view her as Jewish enough.

Aviva Davis writes:

There are many white and white-passing Jews using their platforms to share information and educational resources about systemic racism and anti-Semitism and how one’s identities intersect and influence the way one is treated in society. This is great! Better yet, share resources created by Jews of Color (hint hint, nudge nudge).

Aviva Majerczyk remarks

While the invalidation of Jews of Color is rampant throughout the Jewish community in real life as well, on TikTok, these racist commenters may feel more empowered to voice their backwards views behind anonymous accounts.

Still going strong

Lily Ebert keeps going strong. She still wears the tiny gold pendant and shares its remarkable story with all those who have time to listen.

As part of their mission to teach people about the Holocaust and its devastating effects, Lily and Dov have now co-authored a book together called “Lily’s Promise: How I Survived Auschwitz and Found the Strength to Live.” to come out coming September.