Parable of the Exocet Missile / Lloyd

An AM39 aircraft-launched Exocet

I have been mulling over the following comment to our last posting, Senator Orrin Hatch writes a Hanukkah song and Jewish reaction: 

. . . I've been trying to decipher my own feelings toward the Jewish people. The simplest way I can describe it is: I love them. I don't know why I feel such charity towards them. I really can't explain it to myself much less anyone else. I wish I could because then I could show them my love without it being misinterpreted as Sen. Hatch's song was by the "angry" commentator.

Since I was age 13 I have been very pro-Israel and all things Jewish and for this reason attended Yeshiva University. But I would like to offer a cautionary note. I call it the "Parable of the Exocet Missile:"

In 1982 Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland and South Georgian Islands, British territories in the South Atlantic. In the ensuing military conflict the Argentine Navy used an Exocet anti-ship missile to sink the HMS Sheffield, a British destroyer. Given advanced anti-missile naval defenses, the Exocet Missile should have been easily intercepted and destroyed. However, the Argentines had acquired the Exocet from the French Navy, and the HMS Sheffield's anti-missile defense computer classified the Exocet as a French allied weapon, and let it pass unchallenged.

Bernard Madoff's $50 billion dollar Ponzi scam particularly hit Jewish investors, including among many: the Wunderkinder Foundation, a Steven Speilberg charity, and Elie Wiesel's Foundation for Humanity. It appears that many financially savvy Jewish investors, not only charities but also officers in corporations and banks the world over, may have suspended their professional skepticism because Bernie was himself Jewish.

Then there was James P. Lewis, Jr. in Orange Country California and, more recently, Shawn R. Merriman in the Intermountain West, who were both Mormons and Merriman a Bishop," who ran Ponzi-schemes that defrauded many, many Mormons. Just as Bernie Madoff worked his fellow Jews, Lewis and Merriman leveraged their Church membership to swindle many in the Latter-day Saint community.

Some will blame the victims of greed, but I believe that many good people were blinded because their on-board computers classified these scoundrels as friendly, allies, members of an admired and trustworthy group.

In Indications and Warning Intelligence the watchword is: Evaluate true risk, disregard perceived motive and intentionality; rather focus on the capability to do harm. Analysts must be especially careful to discover within themselves unexamined prejudices, both positive and negative, that may blind them to real threat. To this end I offer the "Parable of the Exocet Missile."

Senator Orrin Hatch Writes A Hanukkah Song And Jewish Reaction / Lloyd

Joseph reveals himself to his brothers

Tonight Jews begin eight days celebrating Hanukkah, or Festival of Lights, in which families light an additional Menorah candle each night for eight days to commemorate the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem following the victory of the Maccabees over an occupying empire.

The miracle of the rededication was that there was only enough consecrated olive oil to fuel the eternal flame in the Temple for one day, but it burned for eight days, which was the time required to press, prepare, and consecrate fresh olive oil.

Recently Senator Orrin Hatch wrote a new song for Hanukkah at the urging of a national correspondent for the Atlantic. The song and video can be seen at “The Eight Days of Hanukkah,” and coverage of Senator Hatch’s efforts with lots of comments can be found at the on-line Tablet Magazine. There was even a follow-up article to comment on the comments:”‘Eight Days,’ the Reactions.”  Many comments were very favorable, some sarcastic and "Angered."

I found one of the comments in the Angered category particularly interesting:

“Well with friends like Orrin Hatch, who needs enemies?! Let’s just put this out there: Orrin, we are not your [expletive omitted] placeholders of the Holy Land until Jesus rises again, ok? And we don’t want your help…. This makes me want to vomit.”

—Ellenjudith commenting on ”Mormon Utah Senator Orrin Hatch Wrote a Hanukkah Song,” New York

This sentiment about being placeholders until Jesus rises again resonates with Michael Chabon’s 2007 novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

The Angered responder to Senator Hatch’s Hanukkah song may not realize that the Second Coming of Christ will be a solemn but also joyful reunion between Jesus and his Jewish family. The promised Messiah that ministers to his family may even quote the very words spoken by Joseph to his stricken brothers:

"Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life . . . And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance." (Genesis 45:5,7)

Meanwhile, at the Second Coming most gentiles, perhaps most especially the sanctimonious religious ones who have no concern whatsoever for Jewish welfare, will wish they’d treated the Jews better — perhaps even left them alone entirely.

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Comment: For a more traditional Yiddish sound of Hanukkah check out “Oh, Chanukah, Oh, Chunkah!” sung by the TzlilV'zemer Children's Choir.  Yiddish music, contrasted to Israeli, is most often characterized by its minor key. After attending Yeshiva University and studying the Holocaust at the YIVO, I find that the Yiddish minor key especially speaks to me.