Marc Michael Epstein, editor of a recent book on Jewish illuminated manuscripts, explains the symbolism used by the artists who designed these works:

The visual culture of Jews is an extension and amplification of their verbal culture. For Jews, art doesn’t merely serve to illustrate texts, . . . it actually becomes exegesis in and of itself. The illustration of the plague of frogs in the Golden Haggadah (Catalonia, ca. 1320) simultaneously illustrates 1) the biblical text, 2) the midrash that speaks of a gigantic frog that emerged from the Nile, . . . from which the other frogs emerged, and, finally, 3) [an invention added by the book’s illustrators] to polemicize against the “pharaohs” of their own time—the distinctly scatological detail of the horde of frogs emerging from the gigantic frog’s rear end.

Or—from the ridiculous to the sublime—[consider] the opening folio of the book of Numbers in the so-called Duke of Sussex Pentateuch, illuminated in the Lake Constance region around 1300, on which four knights hold banners with the symbols of the major tribes camped around each of the four sides of the Tabernacle in the wilderness. The Tabernacle is represented as a word—the opening word of the book of Numbers, vayyedabber, “and he [God] spoke.” It is thus the word of God manifest as the sacred center of everything. It literally stands in for the Tabernacle in the center of the Israelite camp, which was, after all, built to enshrine the tablets of the covenant: a physical manifestation of God’s word. It represents, by extension, the centrality of scripture—of God’s words to Moses—in the Israelite experience, in this biblical book, in the entirety of Pentateuch, and in subsequent Jewish tradition. This concept is profound in itself, but it is most fascinating that the creators of this manuscript chose to represent it visually: they chose to represent the primacy of the word in [Jewish] tradition with an image.

Last Tuesday, the Houthis—the faction now ruling much of Yemen—said that they intend to renew attacks on international shipping through the Red and Arabian Seas. They had for the most part paused their attacks following the January 19 Israel-Hamas cease-fire, but their presence has continued to scare away maritime traffic near the Yemeni coast, with terrible consequences for the global economy.

The U.S. responded on Saturday by initiating strikes on Houthi missile depots, command-and-control centers, and propaganda outlets, and has promised that the attacks will continue for days, if not weeks. The Houthis responded by launching drones, and possibly missiles, at American naval ships, apparently without result. Another missile fired from Yemen struck the Sinai, but was likely aimed at Israel. As Ari Heistein has written in Mosaic, it may take a sustained and concerted effort to stop the Houthis, who have high tolerance for casualties—but this is a start. Ron Ben-Yishai provides some context:

The goal is to punish the Houthis for directly targeting Western naval vessels in the Red Sea while also exerting indirect pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program. . . . While the Biden administration did conduct airstrikes against the Houthis, it refrained from a proactive military campaign, fearing a wider regional war. However, following the collapse of Iran’s axis—including Hizballah’s heavy losses in Lebanon and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria—the Trump administration appears unafraid of such an escalation.

Iran, the thinking goes, will also get the message that the U.S. isn’t afraid to use force, or risk the consequences of retaliation—and will keep this in mind as it considers negotiations over its nuclear program. Tamir Hayman adds:

The Houthis are the last proxy of the Shiite axis that have neither reassessed their actions nor restrained their weapons. Throughout the campaign against the Yemenite terrorist organization, the U.S.-led coalition has made operational mistakes: Houthi regime infrastructure was not targeted; the organization’s leaders were not eliminated; no sustained operational continuity was maintained—only actions to remove immediate threats; no ground operations took place, not even special-forces missions; and Iran has not paid a price for its proxy’s actions.

But if this does not stop the Houthis, it will project weakness—not just toward Hamas but primarily toward Iran—and Trump’s power diplomacy will be seen as hollow. The true test is one of output, not input. The only question that matters is not how many strikes the U.S. carries out, but whether the Red Sea reopens to all vessels. We will wait and see—for now, things look brighter than they did before.