Grandma's army

AN EVERLASTING LIGHT - I For all my new readers, I am rewriting a blog I wrote a few years ago, which is still relevant: Perhaps the most significant battle that the Jews fought, and won,  took place in the second century BCE.    Desiring to unify his kingdom through the medium of a common religion and culture Antiochus, the Greek ruler at that time, tried to root out the individualism of the Jews by desecrating their holy Temple and suppressing all the Jewish Laws. Tomorrow we start the eight day Festival commemorating this particular victory - this year coinciding exactly with Christmas. The story of Mattitiyahu Maccabee and his sons, who head the Revolt, is told in detail in the two books of the Maccabees.   A small, vastly outnumbered band of Jews waged battle against the mighty Greek armies, and drove them out of the land. Even though Judaism would have disappeared if Antiochus had succeeded in his strategy,  Jewish sages chose to leave these book...

It’s a verified fact that Hamas has been planning the ongoing war with Israel for decades. Hamas knew that they could not beat Israel militarily.  They also knew that  Israel would retaliate very strongly after the massacre on October 7 th - and the kidnapping and abuse of 252 men, women, children and babies. Hamas spent almost twenty years preparing the Gaza Strip as a killing ground for Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians. The  massive network of tunnels spanned more kilometers than the London Underground and  New York metro combined!  By integrating their military operations throughout civilian infrastructure - these tunnels served as missile launchers and storehouses of lethal weapons underneath kindergartens, schools, hospitals, even mosques, etc. The IDF had no choice but to fight the terrorists from, or close to, residential and commercial areas. In all those years, Hamas deliberately prepared nothing to protect it’s own civilians. On the co...