In 1391, a wave of violence against Jews swept through Christian Spain. In its wake, thousands of Jews converted to Christianity. The following century saw more conversions as Spain became increasingly hostile toward its Jews. Some of these conversos—as they were called—quickly returned to Judaism after the violence abated; others lived outwardly as Christians while practicing Judaism in secret; others sought to assimilate completely into Christian society; and still others followed intermediate courses of action. The status of the conversos in Jewish law produced a substantial body of rabbinic scholarship, which is the subject of a recent book by Dora Zsom. Andrew Apostolou writes:

The question of how we deal with estranged Jews turns out to be an enduring one. Similar groups to the conversos emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries in such different societies as Germany, the Soviet Union, and now the United States. The debate over how to define Jewish identity in the new state of Israel, for example, led Ben-Gurion in 1958 to write to rabbis across the world to seek their opinion on “who is a Jew?” . . .

These contemporary concerns bring us back to the question of how much impact the rabbis had. [Dora] Zsom’s narrow focus means that she cannot draw out the effect of their decisions. What we know, according to Arthur Hertzberg in his classic entry in the Encyclopedia Judaica on “Jewish Identity,” is that those conversos who wanted to become Jews often forced the gates open: “the determining act was their willingness to become part of the Jewish community, and all the halakhic doubts of rabbinic authorities remained theoretical in the face of acts of return.”

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 the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.