Eldest has gone off to a Bat Mitzva party. She asked me to drop her and a friend off at Dizengoff Center shopping mall today after school so they could get presents. You can't just get any old present, it's a Bat Mitzva, she explained, when she saw the look on my face and proceeded to break a tooth (I don't know if the tooth thing is connected). The stuff in the local shop just won't do.

Now I'm not crazy about Eldest going to Dizengoff Center on her own. First of all, it's had a few fires in recent years and I don't believe they've really done enough about making it fire safe. Another thing is that it's enormous, easy to get lost in and has a lot of out of the way nooks and crannies, some of which are congregation places for freaky sorts of youngsters - not the kind I want congregating round my sweet eleven and a half year-old. To top it all, there are a lot of warnings about impending terrorist attacks and a dangerous, desperate British ISM peace-activist is said to be on the loose in town, having failed to blow himself up among Israelis enjoying music on Tuesday night.

The compromise was that Bish took them to the Ayalon mall in Ramat Gan and stuck around till they'd finished shmying round the stores that sell pink fluffy stuff to female adolescents.

I'm probably just being hysterical. That's what Eldest tried to tell me anyway. Actually, I like Dizengoff Center, I'm just nervous about Eldest going there without me. Eldest tried to reason with me that fires and terrorist attacks can happen anywhere and anytime and that they're not a good enough reason not to leave the house (I didn't tell her about the congregating freaky youths).