In his new book, The Pater: My Father, My Judaism, My Childlessness, Elliot Jager engages in a deeply personal exploration of the subjects listed in the title, buttressed by observations gleaned from interviews with other childless men. Varda Epstein writes in her review:

What is it like to be childless as a Jew, when the very first Jewish commandment is to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28) and Scripture likens the childless to the dead? What is it like to be childless in Israel, a country that values children above all, as a supreme value? . . . Jager frames these questions from his perspective as having been abandoned as a young child by his father—the “Pater” as Jager has come to call him in his mind. What does it mean to be a father, he ponders. Was he robbed of a chance to prove himself a better man, a better father? Would he have been a better parent than his own father?

We hear of his loneliness, having no one to talk to about being childless, his isolation. Many of the men Jager interviewed felt the same sense of being alone, being different, being unmanned somehow, and how no one in their circles quite knew what to do with them.

[Throughout, Jager’s] writing is just superb. Take the breathtaking ending of the prologue:

Like some kind of metaphysical fog, the reality of my childlessness lightly blankets my soul. On a sunny day it gets burned off by life’s routine. It doesn’t hang oppressively, incessantly, unremittingly over my being.

And yet it changes everything.

For more than a year, the Iran-backed Houthis have been launching drones and missiles at ships traversing the Red Sea, as well as at Israeli territory, in support of Hamas. This development has drastically curtailed shipping through the Suez Canal and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, driving up trade prices. This week, the Trump administration began an extensive bombing campaign against the Houthis in an effort to reopen that crucial waterway. Burcu Ozcelik highlights another benefit of this action:

The administration has a broader geopolitical agenda—one that includes countering China’s economic leverage, particularly Beijing’s reliance on Iranian oil. By targeting the Houthis, the United States is not only safeguarding vital shipping lanes but also exerting pressure on the Iran-China energy nexus, a key component of Beijing’s strategic posture in the region.

China was the primary destination for up to 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports in 2024, underscoring the deepening economic ties between Beijing and Tehran despite U.S. sanctions. By helping fill Iranian coffers, China aids Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in financing proxies like the Houthis. Since October of last year, notable U.S. Treasury announcements have revealed covert links between China and the Houthis.

Striking the Houthis could trigger broader repercussions—not least by disrupting the flow of Iranian oil to China. While difficult to confirm, it is conceivable and has been reported, that the Houthis may have received financial or other forms of compensation from China (such as Chinese-made military components) in exchange for allowing freedom of passage for China-affiliated vessels in the Red Sea.