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.

I am now running the first ever course at Yad Vashem for South African educators. At the request of the South African organizers, we spent a day in the center of the country – near Hadera – visiting Givat Haviva Educational Foundation

Founded in 1949, its goals are the promotion of peace, democracy, and co-existence. You understand this is a Jewish organization in a Jewish country and our guide was a Jewish woman? This particular Jewish woman is originally from Wales. She came to Israel to escape antisemitism in the land of her birth.

She spent the entire day enthralling these people of color with her stories. And she was a great storyteller. The problem – for me – was that the only story she seems to know is the one about the plight of the Arabs/Palestinians.

Two of the South Africans participants left the introductory session believing that we – the Jewish people – started the 1948 War of Independence and the 1967 Six Day War. We never got any farther chronologically or I am sure the Yom Kippur War would have been our fault as well. So much for historical accuracy, let alone “objectivity”!

In a full day of anecdotes centering on the infamous Green Line and the plight of Arab citizens of Israel and Palestine, only one terror attack committed against Jews was mentioned.

November 10, 2002, Kibbutz Metzer, a young mother is murdered attempting to protect her two young children. Our guide did not mention that the 34 year old mother was literally riddled with bullets, attempting to shield her four and five year old sons, or that she was reading a bedtime story to her two little boys as the time of the attack. She didn’t tell us that these little ones had names or that Matan was five and Noam was four. Nor was there any mention of the two other Israelis killed in this attack.

One might innocently believe – for instance if you were from a far away place like South Africa – that this was an isolated incident. Yet there have been 6 incidents just in 2008, the last taking the lives of 8 teenagers studying in a Yeshiva in Jerusalem.

Our guide, you should know, identified herself as a freelance journalist. Maybe that is where her objectivity went.

I am tired of hearing about the lack of schools and services in these Arab places. No one asked our guide why there were no services or if it wasn’t possible for Hamas to build hospitals instead of rockets. No one was told that suicide bombers – the unsuccessful ones - have been treated in Israeli hospitals so that they would not die in their attempt to kill us.

Doesn’t anyone wonder why any Arabs would stay in Israel, avail themselves of the schools and medical care if it is so bad or if they feel such Palestinian pride? No one has forced them to stay in Israel. They are free to move to Gaza or Jordan.

Maybe in the days to come, as we present the history, maybe that one day in Givat Haviva will be viewed less enthusiastically and more objectively.

I’ll try to keep you informed, but I am not always very objective.

For an up-to-date list of terror attacks, you can check this site:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/victims.html

In Minnesota – I know because I called – it was –25F. But in Jerusalem, the sun was shining, and the snow was quickly becoming a memory. A friend – a very close friend - and colleague drove 30 miles to make sure that her three-year old daughter, Hallel, saw snow. That is what Israelis called this sloppy, momentary, metrological inconvenience.

And while all of this was news worthy in Jerusalem, what was the situation in Gaza?

I presume they were not making snowmen. I think for the most part they were – thousands of them – hiding out in Egypt. Someone(s) knocked down the fence. It doesn’t matter who because it is Israel’s fault. It’s always our fault – whatever they do or don’t do – whatever we do or don’t do – its all our fault. For my part, I wish them long and healthy lives in Egypt. Better for them, better for us.

Add to all this excitement the publication of the Winograd Report. This is the long time coming evaluation of the behavior of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense, and the Army in the second (is it really only the second?) Lebanon war.

A lot of money was spent on the conclusions now public. And what do we know that we didn’t before this? What did Winograd say?

1.The Prime Minister is ultimately responsible for the actions of his government.

Wow! There is a new concept.

2. The Prime Minister made up his mind hastily.

3. He did not have a clear rationale for the war.

4. He did not adjust his plan as needed.

and

“All of these add up to a serious failure in exercising judgment, responsibility and prudence.”

We had any doubt of any of this? We needed a committee?

Let’s go on.

The Minister of Defense is responsible for the military.

Wow! It’s good they told us that. I was thinking maybe he was in charge of the fence. ( da fence get it?)

“He did not have good knowledge of the basic principles of using military force to achieve political goals…he made his decisions during this period without systemic consultations with experienced political and professional experts…The Minister of Defense did not act within a strategic conception of the systems he oversaw. He did not ask for the IDF's operational plans and did not examine them; he did not check the preparedness and fitness of IDF...”

The report goes on to say that the Chief of Staff is the supreme commander of the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) and that he didn’t take into consideration that the Minister of Defense knew nothing and the Prime Minister didn’t have a plan.

Well duh! Duh! And Duh !!!!!!

The final paragraph reads as follows:

“We believe that - beyond the important need to examine the failures in conducting the war and the preparation for it, beyond the need to identify the weaknesses ( and strengths ) ( my emphasis ) in the decisions made in the war - these are the main questions raised by the Second Lebanon War. These are questions that go far beyond the mandate of any particular commission of inquiry; they are the questions that stand at the center of our existence here as a Jewish and democratic state. It would be a grave mistake to concentrate only on the flaws revealed in the war and not to address these basic issues.”

My overly excessive tax dollars at work.

I would really like to know what the strengths were.

Most depressing of all, vital, courageous young men gave their lives to protect the State of Israel, to protect and defend democracy and innocent men, women and children. I knew one of these brave committed soldiers. He loved his life and his family and his country. He believed in what he was doing. He was killed trying to evacuate other wounded soldiers… greater love than this …

The Hizbollah started this war. We should have finished it quickly and effectively, but on our side it was run by three “men” who were making no personal sacrifice at all. Three “men” who took advantage of the devotion to G-d and country that soldiers like Eliel Ben Yehuda gave their life for.

In the end, this war was run by three BOZOS that wouldn’t know how to run a mailroom let alone a war room. We didn’t need a report to tell us that. Two of them resigned. But the PM is still at the helm of a ship he has capsized.

I know you pray for us. Please don’t stop now. We need you more than ever.

Stephanie McMahon-Kaye

February 5, 2008