4 terror attacks in one day.

Grad missiles fired on our cities.

Regular kassam rocket attacks on our civilian population that is so routine, it doesn’t even make headlines.

Ehud Barak, the Minister of Defense should be given the pink slip.  He has utterly failed at his job of keeping the Jewish State secure and safe.  I know non-Jews who are not even Israeli citizens who could do a better job.

Why does PM Netanyahu keep him in the government?  He is weak, the Labor Party that he represents, is weak and ineffective.

Though I suspect why the Defense Minister is so impotent in his job, (I think it was Barak who first put into policy, and urged the country’s citizens to have ‘havlaga’, or ‘restraint’.   He tried to sell it to the nation that ‘havlaga’ was actually strength, not weakness.  What a manipulation of the people THAT was!) the fact is that Barak has failed to protect our children and our families from being slaughtered inside our own borders.  For goodness sakes, this is Eilat we are talking about!  The most benign and un-political city in the country!

Yesterday night, following the attacks in Eilat, I heard from someone that when one of the ‘contingencies’ came to ‘inform’ a family that their son, an IDF soldier, was killed in one of the attacks, the mother saw the officials coming towards her front door, she ran out and screamed at them, “NO!  HE’S NOT DEAD!  HE’S NOT DEAD!!” 

But, he WAS dead. 

My heart broke when I heard this story.  I tell myself, this is also MY son.  We are one nation and must feel each other’s pain.  This is MY son who was killed.

I couldn’t sleep last night.

Does Ehud Barak sleep at night?

We are at war.  Not a war that we started, nor that we want to be in.  But the fact is others have declared this war on us.

I have a son in the army.  I don’t want to see anyone’s son killed.  I don’t hate Arabs, there are many nice Arabs, and many who support and help Israel even at risk to their own lives and their family’s lives.  However, we are at war whether we want to admit it or not, and we must respond to these deadly attacks.  

No country can win a war that is fought ‘defensively’.  ‘Tit for tats’ don’t work.  Limited operations and hits against the enemy do not work.  Israel must go on a full scale attack against its enemies.  The Defense Minister needs to be fired, and a Minister of War needs to be appointed.  A minister of war that will lead the country to fight as is needed, until the enemies of Israel are crippled beyond repair, until THEY and the populations that support them, beg Israel for peace, and not the other way around.

The film above is disturbing to watch, yet it is gripping.

How do the rebels get kids into their ranks and become brutal heartless killers themselves?  The rebels go in and slaughter the father, mother and siblings leaving one child left, and then these young boys, some as young as 5 years old bereft of any family but the rebels themselves, get pulled into their 'new family.

These cut throats could be the missing twin of the Hamas, Al Qaida, and other terror groups.  One thing I hope you catch when you watch this film...  is the part when the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) Col. Sharif (the African with the tooth necklace) tells the British Major Ashby, that some of these African rebels believe that if they eat the heart of a brave man, they will be brave themselves.  The major then asked him if he had ever eaten anyone.  Col. Sharif replies, "Yes".  Major Ashby says, "Okay".  He then asks him, "Is it true what they say?  Does it taste like Pork?  

Col. Sharif replies, "I don't know, I'm Muslim."

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Keep your eyes wide open before the wedding, half shut afterwards. -Benjamin Franklin

By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. (Socrates)

My wife dresses to kill. She cooks the same way. (Henny Youngman)

My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met. (Rodney Dangerfield)

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury. (George Burns)

I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life. (Rita Rudner)

Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. (Phyllis Diller)

There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again. (Clint Eastwood)

The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret. (Henny Youngman

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I assume many of you are curious as to all the hoopla about my daughter's wedding. Let me tell you, I have gained a new respect for Millavot (the Hebrew word for the girlfriend that accompanies the bride wherever she goes before the wedding, mostly to assist her and also make sure she doesn't jump off a roof.) No, it's not that my daughter didn't want to get married, she did and she herself stated that she got the best guy in the whoooooooole world!  It's just there are all the worries that everything should go right, and his family should be happy and our family, etc...

Then there's the dress. Well, to be truthful, the whole dress thing happened about two months before. Dresses are so expensive to rent here, and it is cheaper to order something from a catalog, but dress offerings aren't what they used to be

The Dress Saga

If anyone has tried to buy a wedding gown lately, you will know that you can't find a frock with sleeves anymore. Everything is apparently for arm-less women. (When I was a little girl and played with Barbies, I couldn't afford their expensive clothes that the stores sod, so I would take a roll of aluminium foil, tear a small sheet off, and wrap and then squeeze it around the doll and make a gorgeous silver skin tight evening gown with it. Wedding dresses today remind me of those squeezed-on silver dresses. I didn't know how to make sleeves then, and apparently wedding gown makers don't know how to make them today either.) It seems like the only place one can find wedding dresses with sleeves is if you go to a Muslim website, and then the woman is covered from head to toe, including her neck and head -- imagine an ivory colored hooded ski hat on a bride.     

Not wanting to convert to Islam, I did a search for winter wedding gowns. Doesn't help. Those women models also don't seem to need sleeves, they just wear a pretty white mink looking stole over their shoulders and that's it. Brrrr !

We finally found a nice wedding dress, believe it or not from China, and when we ordered it, asked them to include a couple of meters of the same material, so we could have a bollero jacket made for the gown here. (Mothers, take note!)  I must say, we were VERY happy with the dress. It had beautiful bead work, was lined, had a beautiful train, and was under $100.00 !!! (How nice to think about these mundane things instead of the news.  Weddings are a good escape from the world!)  I was surprised China gave such good quality for such a good price, and best yet, it came door to door and there was no duty tax on it when it came to Israel. To ensure customer satisfaction, the company we used (here's a plug for DHGATE.com http://www.dhgate.com/wholesale/wedding+dresses+long+sleeved.html#search) to order the dress didn't release payment to the dress company until we were satisfied with the gown (we were!) and gave the 'ok' to release payment.

The Big Day

In any case, the big day finally came. All was beautiful. The groom was there and happy. The wedding took place in Jerusalem at sunset, and it was absolutely beautiful, filled with love, and dancing, and celebration, and family and friends and everyone was happy.

Holy Matrimony

One more thing.... As a parent, I think it is a blessing, and a relief, to know that one has raised a child to the chupah (wedding canopy) where you know that they and their mate share the same values; fear of G-d, family purity, and living a religious life together where they plan to set up home and raise children. So many times today we see single people getting older and older, going from heart-break to heart-break, because they live in a society that encourages instant gratification, sexual freedom with a variety of partners, and living for 'whoever fills your desires and needs at that time' and, and, and..

. I was folding the laundry the other day and watching an episode of Oprah, when she was interviewing Shirley MacClaine. Some call her nuts but most would agree that she has lived a spicy and unconventional life. She told of how she and her brother, Warren Beatty grew up in a family atmosphere. As a child, she learned dancing and later decided she would go into show business. She then talked with 'O' about how she was married for several years, but had an 'open marriage' where she and her husband both had affairs. MacClaine then stated that she didn't believe in marriage, and the only reason her first and only marriage lasted for so long was because they both strayed. I listened to this poppy-cock and thought, she wouldn't be who she is today if it wasn't for growing up with a mother and a father and having a healthy home life. It's hard enough to raise a child with two parents, how much harder for single parents? And how much does a child lose out when he is missing a parent in his/her life. How does it affect a child when he sees his parent moving from relationship to relationship? Ever see an episode of Orange County Real Housewives (something like that) I saw the mother looking like daughters, bleached blond hair, bodies like venus, and husbands who work all day. Or another who lived with a man and had a child with him but never tied the knot, and now she kicked him out, but her other children (from a previous marriage) are still attached to him, but they don't have the access they need and the kids are turning out to be either wild teens or general dufuses . I would imagine it's not a very healthy recipe for a stable life. But to each his own.

I am so blessed, soooooo blessed, that my daughter is happy, that she is G-d fearing, has her head in the right place, and has married a young man who values the same things. A young man that has committed himself to her and to building a bayit neeman b'Yisrael (A home faithful to the traditions of Israel

Now, I only have 4 children left to see off to the canopy. Thank G-d they are all boys  - I imagine I'll buy them a suit and that's about it.   And please, no one wake me up from this fantasy dream with REAL-LIFE horror groom stories. I still haven't recovered from this wedding