Shlomo-Zaynvl Rapaport (1863–1920), best known by his pen name S. An-Sky, was a leading figure in the Russian socialist movement, a supporter of Zionism, a great Jewish ethnographer, and the author of the classic Yiddish play The Dybbuk. His novel, Pioneers, about the experience of late-19th-century Russian Jews shedding religious observance to embrace modernity and the Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment movement), has recently been rendered into English by Michael R. Katz. Polly Zavadivker writes in her review:

What makes [the novel’s characters] compelling . . . is not so much their zealous quest for enlightenment as the doubts that plague them as they set out to remake themselves. [The protagonist] guiltily questions himself after he casts off his familiar garb: has he acted too rashly, made superficial changes that simply mask an old worldview, speech, and thoughts still intact beneath the surface? As he observes others in [his] circle break off ties with their disapproving families, and witnesses an aggrieved mother lose her son to [join a group of “enlightened” Jews], he doubts whether their cause is so righteous as to justify such suffering. An-sky’s sympathetic portrayal of the emotional and mental anxiety bred by this process of rupture surely must have reflected his own inner conflicts as a young man.

Adding further irony to the pioneers’ quest to master the world of Russian letters is their discovery of an abiding love for their native languages. In the course of a raucous debate about Russian radical thought, they revert to Yiddish and use sing-song methods of talmudic study as they take apart the writings of [the Russian radical authors] Dmitrii Pisarev and Nikolai Chernyshevskii.

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.