In 1391, a horrifying wave of pogroms swept through Spain, leaving tens of thousands of Jews dead, and many others forcibly converted to Christianity. Among the latter was Profayt Duran of Perpignan, who took the name Honoratus de Bonafide and embarked on a successful career as court astrologer to the king of Aragon. But Duran—an accomplished rabbinic scholar, polymath, and author of a commentary on Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed—continued to write in Hebrew under the pseudonym Efod, and produced a number of works on Jewish theology, Hebrew grammar, and biblical exegesis, as well as two anti-Christian polemics. Duran’s life and work are the subject of Maud Kozodoy’s The Secret Faith of Maestre Honoratus. Eric Lawee writes in his review:

Kozodoy rightly lays stress on Duran’s rationalism as a key not only to his intellectual personality but religious identity. . . . [She] suggests, on the evidence of his writings, that Duran’s rationalism buttressed his Jewish pride and fortified his ongoing allegiance to Judaism after his conversion. Indeed, he seems to have identified rationality with Judaism, and Kozodoy shows how this conviction informed what are by far Duran’s most daring works: two brilliant and innovative polemics in which he subjected Christianity to theological ridicule and an exacting historical critique.

Duran wrote the first of his anti-Christian books about three years after his conversion. It takes the form of an epistle addressed to one of his contemporaries who was a genuine Jewish convert to Christianity. Here the innovation lies not so much in the work’s contents but in its form, especially the “barbed biblical allusion[s]” with which Duran pointed out the folly of an educated Sephardi Jew abandoning a faith in harmony with reason to embrace one at odds with it.

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.