My Gulf War Experience

A Bible Story Comes To Life

The Gulf War period was really amazing!

In 1991, I was in yeshiva in Kfar Chabad. At that time it was our habit to go up on the roof of the Yeshiva at night and watch the missiles come in. Officially, one was supposed to sit in our “Cheder Atum”, sealed rooms. However, boys being boys the roof is a more exciting place. Word got around and pretty soon despite the objections of the custodian, many more students joined us.

SAVYON, ISRAEL - FEBRUARY 12: (FILE PHOTO) Israeli Michael Duwer is buried alive in the ruins of his home shortly after it was hit by an Iraqi Scud missile February 12, 1991, in the town of Savyon, Israel.From where we were on the roof, we could see everything! It was like being on a movie set in Hollywood. Except this was real and we were the actors…

1991 - Patriot missiles shooting down an incoming Scud missile from the outskirts of Tel AvivEnter stage right would come the scud missile from Iraq. 

Flying very high to conserve fuel and go the distance it had to come from distant Iraq.

Scuds real name was V2.

It is just that when it got to Hollywood, it was afraid it would not get ahead in its career and so, its agent gave it a new name. It became called: The Scud.

A Scud missile is a souped up version of the deadly German V2 missile which plagued London in World War II. (see picture below) They are a bit longer with extra fuel and just as ugly. Other than that they contain the same lethal cargo, have the same designers, are manufactured in Germany and were driven by like minded German trained military.The infamous NAZI German V-2. It’s beginnings were wrapped in Jewish blood. It is estimated that more Jewish slave laborers died building the V-2 rockets than the people who were actually killed by it as a weapon. Over 27,000 Jewish slaves from the infamous Dora concentration camp were used for the program.

Stage left, towards Tel Aviv, was the American Patriot anti-missile missile batteries. Each Patriot battery contained souped up versions of the Russian Ketyusha rockets with advanced homing devices developed in Israel to knock out the incoming Scuds.

The Ketyusha’s were developed by the Russians during World War II just in time to drive the Germans out of Russia at the battle of Stalingrad.

It was World War II all over again being replayed in Eretz Yisrael.

While Werner Von Bron was welcomed in the US after the war, his other Jew hating friends were not. He brought German rocket technology minus the Jewish slave labor he used to build his rockets, to the United States.

His other friends the Nazis fleeing after the war ran to Iraq, Iran, Syria and Egypt. While Werner von Brun brought the rockets to America, his buddies brought the field of war to use them on, to the Middle East. They also brought with them advanced warfare technology and military training that changed the face of warfare in the Middle East from centuries of primitive tribal warfare, to deadly crack units that turned their energies on terrorizing the local populations in their traditional fashion and zeal.

On top of this, the fleeing Nazis brought with them their genocidal hatred of Jews and a burning desire for revenge. Seeing themselves as the spiritual successors of Haman, they now fulfilled this role by threatening the successors of Esther and Mordechai, the Jews, from the age old place of Haman in Iraq.

All of this was now brought to bear against Eretz Yisrael and her Jews.

From where I stood on the roof of the yeshiva dorm, Beit Pinchas, the highest point in Kfar Chabad, we could see everything. 

It was truly amazing. A living scene straight out of “Bible Times”, where the Jews are set upon by a very mean, cruel and ruthless dictator who would stop at nothing and surely destroy the poor hapless Jews. Yet they are saved in the nick of time by miracles from Above-

The Scud was in no hurry.

Lazily making its way across the black sky, its exhaust illuminating its trail, they usually came after 10pm in the evening when most people were home and would be assured of losing a good night’s sleep while huddling fearfully with gasmasks in bomb shelters next to their radios listening for an all clear signal.

Being an American, so my thought process went like this: “If something is coming, I want to see where it is coming from and get the …. out of the way!” I wasn’t going to be caught like some rabbit in a trap! I had read enough Holocaust stories to appreciate not waiting to be a sitting duck.

The Scuds moved pretty slowly at a very high altitude. This was done to conserve fuel coming from such a long distance. As such, it was not hard to guess where they would fall. 

The Yeshiva didn’t seem to be their target and anyway, if it was, there was plenty of time to get out of the way.

My parents had called frantic before the war begging me to come home and offering me a free plane ticket. “Ma! Don’t worry.” I told them. “What do you mean: “Don’t worry?” They’re sending 100,000 body bags to Tel Aviv!” came angry screams from the phone. Obviously I did not understand.

But I did understand. I understood very well.

I wasn’t hiding away from being a Jew. I was here in the Holy Land living it!

I felt that my being here would actually lend koach. But I how do you tell your frantic mother this?

Later, I was to learn that not only were our gas masks made in Germany, but the body bags too. Germany was making a lot of money from the war. Not much had changed. Germany made treasures of money from the Jews pillaging and murdering them during the war and now we were again a source of German income. History really does not change.

The Rebbe though had another idea: “Don’t be afraid! Nothing will happen”.

Well, we had “Rebbe Power” and I knew it. (Did I live it? That’s another story. There is a difference between “knowing something” intellectually and “Living the idea”, bringing it down into a state of poel, actuality.)

In would come the scud passing over us.

The Patriots were tracking its passage by radar. We would see ribbons of fire as the Patriots shot off into the sky to meet the incoming foe. Soon we would see a fireworks show that was more amazing than the fourth of July.

The Patriots were usually quite accurate and while some would miss, but others would hit the Scud busting it into a number of pieces that now fell on Tel Aviv. The head of the rocket would then serenely continue its deadly flight.

39 Scuds were fired at Israel. 

Of these a number were blown off course by high winds. BBC military commentators were amazed that due to high winds, few Scuds actually reached their destinations.

In case one thought that the Scuds were harmless, so one Scud fired at American troops in Kuwait killed over 250 soldiers in one fell swoop. It wasn’t that the Scuds were harmless to begin with. Au contraire! We lived on miracles-Scud with mobile launcher being targeted from the air.

Yet no one died from the Scud attacks.

A true Bible miracle!

The most famous picture of the Gulf War (in Israel anyways) was of an Israeli man whose building was struck by a Scud. The whole building fell down around him while he was stuck in a most compromising position; on the toilet!Michael Duver’s house in Savyon looked like this when they photographed it the next morning. (The missile hit at night) - Picture from LIFE Magazine

Israeli newspapers carried the story of the miracle the next day. Front pages displayed pictures of the man’s head sticking out of the rubble whilst he was stuck on the …. 

To see more and some of Chabad’s work at that time go to:http://www.chabad4israel.org/oldevnt/persgulfwar.shtmlhttp://www.chabad4israel.org/oldevnt/persgulfwar.shtml

Signing off for now,

Raanan from Brooklyn raanan@gushkatifmuseum.org

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