An animal-rights group has filed suit against four rabbis, several ḥasidic congregations, and the city of New York to stop ultra-Orthodox Jews from performing the pre-Yom Kippur ritual of kapparot, in which a chicken is ritually slaughtered and then donated to a poor family for consumption. The plaintiffs allege that the ritual involves cruelty to animals and constitutes a public-health hazard. Wesley Smith addresses the constitutional questions the suit raises:

[T]here is no question that the animal rightists seek to interfere with the free exercise of religion. But that is not the end of our inquiry. Does the government have a compelling state interest in preventing this ritual slaughter? Perhaps. . . .

[The] allegations [made in the suit] are sufficiently serious and weighty to warrant a thorough investigation, both as to the animal-cruelty and public-health issues. I don’t have an opinion on the “correct” answer. Free exercise of religion is not an absolute right, but the burden of proof should be on those who would interfere with religious freedom. . . . [But those] who don’t care about the religious angle should never call themselves civil libertarians. Any “civil libertarian” who doesn’t defend the free exercise of religion is no civil libertarian.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”