It has been a long time since i have written. I couldn't think of anything to say. That is a sad indictment on the continual nothing ever changes here reality. I thought for about a half a minute that I might have a celebratory piece to share when the government fell. But this government has not fallen in spite of all that is going on day after day after day.

Now I have something new to write about. The old adage: be careful what you wish for...I wish I hadn't wished for something to write about.

I am a lot of "people". I am a Jew, a teacher, a wife, a friend. These are all things I have chosen to be. But deep in my DNA - at the very essence of "me" I am a mother. I cannot really say I chose that because I believe that motherhood chose me. With every breath I take, every decision, interaction, plan, I'm a mother. I mother my children. I mother my husband when he is not looking. I mother the course participants. It's just...who I am. And I am proud of that and grateful to G-d for making me that way.

I was sitting outside at Yad Vashem yesterday when I heard a siren. It's hard to tell if you are hearing one siren or more than one; hard to know if it is the normal pattern of life or the extremity of life in Israel. The key is the length of time. When it got to be too long, I went inside the office to see what had happened.

You know what I found out; that this sick individual used a bulldozer to kill Jews. He killed two mothers. I’d like to tell you about one of them, in part because she was a woman of valour – a heroine among all women - and in part because she worked in my neighborhood. So I really take this personally!

Batsheva Unterman was a kindergarten teacher in Har Homa, the neighborhood in which we live. Batsheva and her husband struggled for two years to conceive a child. Efrat was born five months ago, the delight of her family and the confirmation that faith does indeed move mountains. Efrat and Batsheva were on Jaffa Road yesterday. The bulldozer hit the car in which they were riding. In the moments before she died, Batsheva was able to undo the strap on Efrat’s car seat so that she could hand her out the window to waiting arms.

At that moment the bulldozer, evil lunatic at the wheel, backed his bulldozer over the car. I will leave the rest of the details to your nightmares. It certainly plays over and over in mine.

Most mothers don’t have to “work” as hard as Batsheva to conceive a child. Nor do they have to save their child’s life as they relinquish their own.

Thirty three year old Batsheva Unterman makes me proud that I am a mother, proud that I am a Jewish woman. I’ll look differently at the choices I am making and that whole DNA thing. I am proud of all of it and grateful that someone like me can walk in the shadow of this brave Jewish Mother.

I ask for your prayers for her daughter and her husband. And while you are at it, pray for all mothers. May we all be as selfless and courageous and loving as Batsheva Unterman.