The Israeli film The Women’s Balcony, recently screened in the U.S., tells the story of an Orthodox congregation undergoing a period of upheaval and of the resulting conflict between, on the one hand, a charismatic but overzealous new rabbi and, on the other hand, a group of female congregants. In his review, Liel Leibovitz writes:

Despite the movie’s immense popularity in Israel, or maybe because of it, the country’s bien-pensant critics dismissed it as a feel-good folk comedy, the sort of fare that appeals only to the tragically unsophisticated. They were missing the point: entertaining as the movie may be, it still delivers one of the most profound meditations on religious life ever captured on film. Even more impressively, it does so not through metaphor or . . . through meditation, but by letting us in on ordinary lives powered by faith and fellowship. . . .

Socially, [the film’s heroines have] a far healthier approach than those taken these days by so many strident social-justice warriors who stand on principle and allow their spiraling rage to drain life of its comforts. When [the women trying to save the congregation] are approached by professional organizers, who suggest they take their fight public and launch a national media campaign, they refuse. They’re not interested in winning big, symbolic victories; they’re here to make sure that the tradition in which they so wholeheartedly believe continues to afford them the place and the space they need and deserve. Along the way, they teach us that reform is possible even without holy ire, that you can refuse to compromise your principles without becoming a mirthless zealot, and that, no matter what, you should never forget that Judaism regards ahavat yisrael, or kinship among Jews, just as highly as it does scholarly excellence or religious observance.

Most likely, it was the Israeli Air Force that attacked eastern Syria Monday night, apparently destroying a convoy carrying Iranian weapons. Yoav Limor comments:

Israel reportedly carried out 32 attacks in Syria in 2022, and since early 2023 it has already struck 25 times in the country—at the very least. . . . The Iranian-Israeli clash stands out in the wake of the dramatic events in the region, chiefly among them is the effort to strike a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and later on with various other Muslim-Sunni states. Iran is trying to torpedo this process and has even publicly warned Saudi Arabia not to “gamble on a losing horse” because Israel’s demise is near. Riyadh is unlikely to heed that demand, for its own reasons.

Despite the thaw in relations between the kingdom and the Islamic Republic—including the exchange of ambassadors—the Saudis remain very suspicious of the Iranians. A strategic manifestation of that is that Riyadh is trying to forge a defense pact with the U.S.; a tactical manifestation took place this week when Saudi soccer players refused to play a match in Iran because of a bust of the former Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Suleimani, [a master terrorist whose militias have wreaked havoc throughout the Middle East, including within Saudi borders].

Of course, Israel is trying to bring Saudi Arabia into its orbit and to create a strong common front against Iran. The attack in Syria is ostensibly unrelated to the normalization process and is meant to prevent the terrorists on Israel’s northern border from laying their hands on sophisticated arms, but it nevertheless serves as a clear reminder for Riyadh that it must not scale back its fight against the constant danger posed by Iran.