Nicolae Ceaușescu’s rule of Romania from 1965 to 1989 stood out for its brutality even among eastern-bloc dictatorships. Yet, unlike his Warsaw Pact colleagues, Ceaușescu did not try to extinguish Jewish life and never severed relations with Israel. In fact, Jewish institutions survived under his rule, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) was allowed to provide assistance to Romanian Jews, and a sizable number managed to leave for Israel—in large part thanks to the effort of Romania’s chief rabbi. Liam Hoare writes:

Around 40,000 Jews lived in Romania in 1978, and at that time the community owned 120 operating synagogues, 61 of which had daily morning and evening services. There were Talmud Torah classes and community choirs, kosher restaurants, Jewish cemeteries, magazines in Hebrew and Yiddish, a [communal] seder on Passover, festivities for Hanukkah, Purim, and Sukkot, and a Jewish museum in Bucharest. . . .

Romania was the only eastern-bloc state to maintain relations with Israel after the Six-Day War. . . . Romanian Jews were also allowed to make aliyah, although . . . Ceaușescu turned Jewish emigration into a profit-making venture. . . . It is thought that Israel paid the regime $112,498,800 between 1968 and 1989 for 40,577 Jews, at a price of $2,500-$3,300 a head, at a rate of around 1,500 Jews per annum.

All of this—the survival of Jewish life, the contribution of the JDC, and the continuation of aliyah—was made possible, in no small part, due to the work of Rabbi Moses Rosen. It was Rosen who acted as a conduit between Romania and the United States to help secure the return of the JDC, in turn developing a system of social assistance within the community, and between Romania and Israel to set up the cash-for-olim system that thinned the ranks of Romanian Jewry so dramatically.

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.