A team of researchers excavating the destroyed main synagogue in what is now the Lithuanian city of Vilnius (formerly Vilna) have found its bimah—the elevated central platform holding a table on which the Torah is read. Jewish Heritage Europe reports:

Following the discovery, Vilnius’s mayor, Remigijus Šimašius, announced that the school [built on the synagogue’s ruins in the 1950s and] vacated last year will be demolished in the coming years and a commemorative site about the synagogue will be developed and inaugurated by 2023, when Vilnius marks its 700th anniversary.

The Great Synagogue was built in the early 1600s in the Renaissance-baroque style. It became the center of Jewish life in Vilnius, towering over the shulhoyf (“synagogue courtyard”), a teeming complex of alleyways and Jewish community buildings and institutions including twelve [smaller] synagogues, ritual baths, the [offices of the] community council, kosher meat stalls, [and the famed] Strashun library. It was ransacked and torched by the Nazis in World War II, and the postwar Soviet regime tore down the ruins and built the school on the site.

The bimah was built in the 18th century following a destructive fire in 1748. Its construction was financed by a local benefactor, a writer and [rabbinic] judge named Yehudah ben Eliezer. . . . The archaeologists describe the bimah as having been “a two-tier baroque structure built of four Corinthian and eight Tuscan columns, decorated with lions facing the holy ark [where the Torah scrolls were kept].”

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.