What is the first subject of conversation at the last Hanuka party we attended?  Missiles.  How long will this go on.  What are the odds.   What we wear. Where we were.  One couple left Tel Aviv for a Sabbath in Jerusalem so they could get a full night’s sleep, and awoke to sirens at 2 in the morning there.  We in Tel Aviv slept.  

No one asked what the alternatives were.  whether it was possible we would not succeed in fighting off all our enemies.  From the corner I whispered – yes the Macabees won, but  a hundred years later the Romans beat the Israelites, massacred them and took the remainder as slaves to Rome.