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Jews rejoiced across campus yesterday after it took a full week longer than generally expected for all their stuff to burn down.
“It seems like only yesterday that neo-Nazis broke in, murdered six freshmen and lit multiple fires throughout our synagogue,” said Rabbi Benjamin Levi as the last embers of the multimillion-dollar building smoldered behind him. “But it was actually seven days before yesterday when that happened. I bet those neo-Nazis are feeling pretty dumb right about now.”
News of the slow-moving fire spread like regular-moving fire through the nation’s Jewry. Within three days, over 100,000 worshipers had gathered to witness the purportedly miraculous Hillel-fire for themselves. They already speak in hushed tones of the building’s now-legendary defenders, who reportedly refused to abandon their building until they realized it was on fire and then abandoned their building.
“We really dodged a bullet here,” said prominent campus Jew Isaac Richardson ’13. “I mean, strictly speaking, it’s more like some torches and kerosene than a bullet, per se. And we didn’t really ‘dodge’ it so much as we were burned by it way more slowly than anyone had predicted, along with every valuable thing we own. It’s an imperfect metaphor, I guess, is what I’m trying to say.”
“God is great,” added Richardson.
Fire Chief Antonio Holmes described the blaze’s inexplicable pace: “Boy, when I first saw this fire, I thought it was headed straight for the massive pile of priceless flammable artwork they keep in there,” said Holmes. “But then all of a sudden it cuts right and heads for the slowest-burning stash of menorahs I’ve ever seen. Doesn’t reach the priceless artwork for three days. Call me crazy, but I think that something out there really loves the Jews.”
“What fools we were,” said Aaron Rowland, a prominent disliker of Jews, at a somber gathering of Rhode Island anti-Semites. “To think that we could just casually decide to destroy a major institution of a culture that has endured for millennia. We were completely right to think that, don’t get me wrong. But it took way longer than we expected.”
