During the first half of the 20th century, writes Joseph Epstein, boxing played a role in American popular culture that even overshadowed baseball. Also, before World War II, Jews were wildly overrepresented among the country’s leading pugilists. Mike Silver tells the story of these Jewish boxing champions in Stars in the Ring. In his review, Epstein comments on the book’s appeal:

No other ethnic or religious group is likely to have been the subject of a work like Stars in the Ring. This is because no one exults like American Jews in the athletic prowess of their co-religionists. Who asks if Peyton Manning is a Lutheran, Tiger Woods a Catholic, Buster Posey a Presbyterian? For a superior athlete to be Jewish, though, is a high point of pride among Jewish men. I have myself sat in on countless conversations in which the question of whether one or another contemporary athlete is Jewish is discussed. . . .

Is this because Jews, the “People of the Book,” prefer not to be taken as altogether too bookish? A successful Jewish jock, demonstrating strength and physical courage, nicely rounds out Jews’ sense of completeness as human beings.

Truly great Jewish athletes nonetheless have been less than abundant. . . . [And, of] Mike Silver’s list of the “Top 25 Jewish Boxers of All Time,” only four were middleweights or above. One could of course be a hard hitter even at 112 pounds, and some of the Jewish boxers listed had high knockout ratios over their careers, but the lighter-weight divisions required speed, savvy, and general prowess. Brains over brawn seems to have been the tendency in Jewish boxers.

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.