In a remote area of Kenya, a small community of Jews has recently established contact with other East African Jews. Although their origins are uncertain, they seem to have come to Judaism through Christianity in the 1990s, and were formally converted under the auspices of the American Conservative movement in 2006. Melanie Lidman writes:

The 60 members of the Kasuku Gathundia Jewish community are sprinkled across the Kenyan highlands, eking out a living as subsistence farmers during the week by raising cows and maize. On Saturday mornings they unwrap an old United Synagogue ḥumash—a bound copy of the Torah (not a scroll)—from a canvas bag and read the weekly Torah portion, partly in Hebrew and partly in the local Kikuya tribal language. . . .

Yosef ben Avraham Njogu, the community’s patriarch, . . . explained that Kasuku also happens to be the headquarters of Kenya’s sizable Messianic Jewish congregation. In the late 1990s, some Messianic Jews decided that it was time to fulfill the prophecy and move to Israel. So the leaders of the Messianic church reached out to the Israeli embassy in Nairobi, inquiring about the process of moving to the Holy Land. . . .

“We started to understand there’s a difference between Messianic Judaism and Judaism, and some of us chose to turn to Judaism,” said Njogu, sitting in his living room, [which is] adorned with an Israeli flag and a poster of the Hebrew alphabet.

But most of the Messianic church did not agree. So, Njogu and another church elder, Avraham Ndungu Mbugua, broke away and started studying Judaism in depth, keeping the Sabbath and other holidays based on books about Judaism they photocopied from the library.

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.