Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well. Iran itself is downplaying t ..read more

Yesterday, after several days of anti-Israel protests at Columbia that included the harassment of students, the obstruction of thoroughfares, and chants of “We are Hamas!,” the school’s Orthodox rabbi informed students that it has become clear “that Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme anti-Semitism and anarchy,” and recommending that they leave campus until the situation dies down. Meanwhile, at Yale, a Jewish student was poked in the eye with a Palestinian flag; thereafter protesters tried to prevent her from leaving ..read more

Those campus protesters may share something with the British Romantic poet Lord Byron, who died 200 years ago last Friday. Yet the same poet was claimed as an inspiration by several great Zionist leaders. Martin Kramer explains:  Byron may well be considered the secular saint of all Western enthusiasts for various foreign “liberation” struggles. He fit the description of such types offered by the Tory statesman George Canning in 1821: “a steady patriot of the world alone, the friend of every country but his own.” Today, every American and European campus teems with would-be Byrons, though ..read more

Since the Middle Ages, Jewish scribes, printers, and artists have produced magnificent and varied illustrated Haggadahs, including the 14th-century masterpiece known as the Lombard Haggadah, with its anomalous picture of the slaughter of a pig. Rebecca J.W. Jefferson describes some of those found in the University of Florida’s Judaica collection, among them a Dutch Haggadah printed in 1695: The Amsterdam Haggadah was illustrated by Abraham Bar Yaakov, a German pastor who converted to Judaism. Abandoning the standard use of woodcut images, Bar Yaakov created a series of copper engravings based ..read more

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 t ..read more

Yesterday, a Qatari newspaper reported that Washington has agreed to an IDF operation against the Hamas stronghold of Rafah in exchange for Israel’s abstention from retaliation against Iran. Such reports must always be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism, but regardless of the truth of this one, the war in Gaza will come to an end somehow, and Israel will then have to determine how the Strip should be administered afterward. Robert Silverman takes a look at this most difficult problem, and the domestic political considerations that make it even thornier: The current governing coalition wou ..read more

During the Iranian attack last Saturday, Jordanian jets took to the skies to shoot down munitions aimed at Israel, bringing into stark relief the contradictions in the country’s foreign policy. Lahav Harkov explains: If anyone thought Jordan’s part in intercepting drones Iran launched at Israel on the weekend marked a turning point in the Hashemite kingdom’s relations with the Jewish state, the Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi immediately tried to dispel that notion, insisting in media interviews that Israel was still the real problem. Leading figures in Jordan have for months been leve ..read more

In one of its many puzzling moments, the Passover Haggadah, in a midrashic reading of a section from Exodus, makes a point that God alone was responsible for the slaying of the Egyptian firstborn: “I and no angel. . . . I and no seraph. . . . I and no emissary. . . . It is I and no other.” Steven Weitzman offers an explanation as to why: Some scholars view this [passage] as a response to a Gnostic belief that a divine logos (a personified Wisdom) helped God to redeem the Israelites. However, it is more likely a response to Christianity and its claim that God redeemed humanity through a messian ..read more

Last month Zach Hyman, who plays for Canada’s Edmonton Oilers, joined the elite list of now 99 players in the NHL who have scored more than 50 goals in a single season. Hyman, Armin Rosen notes, is “a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto.” He is both the Ontario Junior Hockey League’s most gentlemanly player of 2011, and the University of Michigan athlete of the year for 2015. On the ice for Edmonton, he wears number 18—the traditional Jewish good luck symbol for chai, life. Fifty goals in a season means you’ve now vaulted over the New Jersey Devil ..read more

The well-known rabbi looks at the link between freedom and monotheism in the the text accompanying the seder service ..read more