On the occasion of what would have been the Scottish novelist Muriel Spark’s 100th birthday, Sarah Rindner comments on her Jewish origins and how they find expression in her work:

Born Muriel Camberg in Edinburgh to a Jewish father and a Presbyterian mother (who also had Jewish lineage), Muriel Spark was raised a Protestant with strong ties to her Jewish extended family. After a tumultuous young adulthood—including an abusive marriage, divorce, and her virtual abandonment of her son (he was raised by his grandparents)—Spark threw herself into her writing. At the age of thirty-six, Spark converted to Roman Catholicism, a move she believed contributed to her eventual success as a novelist. Her son, Robin, who became an Orthodox Jew, would eventually tell a different story about his mother’s origins, emphasizing the Jewishness of her maternal line. But Spark resisted her son’s narrative and continued to describe herself as a “Gentile Jewess.” . . .

This tension is explored most fully in The Mandelbaum Gate, which at more than 300 pages is also Spark’s lone “long novel.” Set in Jerusalem in 1961 during the period of the Eichmann trial, Mandelbaum Gate relates the Holy Land journey of Barbara Vaughan, an English schoolteacher in her late thirties who has recently embraced Roman Catholicism. In contrast with Spark, it’s Barbara’s father who is a Gentile and her mother who is Jewish. This swap only heightens Barbara’s identity conflict because it means that both religions can claim her. . . .

While Spark is far from a political writer, the novel contains a perceptible subtext contrasting the Arab and Israeli claims on Jerusalem. The Arabs whom Barbara encounters are constantly reimagining themselves, inventing histories of orange groves they once supposedly possessed in Jaffa, and nimbly adapting political affiliations and personal narratives for the edification of their Western listeners. This disposition both intrigues Barbara and puts her off. The Jews she meets generally present themselves as they are, and it is Barbara who is left fumbling for a firmer and more rooted identity.

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.