As a child, the celebrated 19th-century American novelist Louisa May Alcott was told that her maternal grandfather, Joseph May, was the descendant of Portuguese Jews. Although May was a practicing Unitarian, the family reportedly took pride in its Jewish ancestry. Alcott’s biographer and relative Eve LaPlante writes:

Joseph May [was] a late-18th-century Boston businessman whose Portuguese Jewish ancestors immigrated to Sussex, England, just before 1500. The Mays spent more than a century in England, becoming prosperous enough to cross the Atlantic. . . . Around 1640, the Mays—also spelled Mayes, Maies, and Maize—settled in Massachusetts, where one of their descendants was the quintessentially Yankee author of Little Women.

In 1496, King Manuel I of Portugal had given Jews and Muslims a choice between conversion and leaving the country. At the time, the country had a sizable Jewish population, which included tens of thousands of refugees from the Spanish expulsion four years earlier. Converted Jews often took new surnames; names of months, such as Maio, were popular choices. During the subsequent decades, there was a steady trickle of Portuguese Jews to Britain, Amsterdam, France, and the New World. LaPlante adds:

Today, only a few thousand Jews live in Portugal. But . . . nearly one in five Portuguese citizens, according to a recent study in the American Journal of Human Genetics, has Jewish ancestry. Apparently, the number of Portuguese Jews forced to convert to Christianity half a millennium ago was far larger than historians previously believed. As for the countless Jews who fled Portugal, their descendants include the economist David Ricardo and the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, as well as Louisa May Alcott.

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.