In the 1979 film The Frisco Kid, Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford star as, respectively, a greenhorn Polish rabbi and an American bank robber who together make their way from Philadelphia to San Francisco. The musicologist and composer Velvel Pasternak relates his brief stint as the movie’s wardrobe consultant, tasked with obtaining some ḥasidic garments, including a tall hat trimmed with beaver pelts known in Yiddish as a biber-hitl:

At the time, the central shopping area for ḥasidic clothing was in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. On a Monday morning, two weeks before the beginning of the High Holy Days, without thinking carefully, I dressed in a Pierre Cardin brown checked suit, and a wide-brimmed brown hat complete with colorful feather, and drove to Brooklyn. It was the height of the pre-holiday shopping season, and, as I entered the narrow Selko Hat Store, I saw the proprietress assisting eight Ḥasidim, who were busily engaged in trying on hats. . .

I approached her and said: “I would like to see a Polish-style biber hat in size seven and also in size seven-and-a-quarter.” (The studio had asked for a second hat needed for the understudy.) She gave me a strange look but went up a ladder and brought down two boxes. By this time, I had caught the attention of the Ḥasidim. With large grins, they left an open path to the mirror, and placing myself squarely in front of it, I removed one of the hats from its box. Aside from the ludicrous picture I must have created by trying on a biber hat while wearing a Pierre Cardin brown checked suit, neither hat was my size. . . .

While the film was being shot, I had the opportunity to answer several questions about Hasidim that others could not answer. I responded to such queries as, “Mr. Pasternak, is it proper for a Ḥasid to wear a shtreimel while traveling across the Rockies on a horse?” In addition, I gave Hollywood two pieces of unsolicited advice. It was not realistic, I informed the studio, that a ḥasidic rabbi, or any Orthodox rabbi for that matter, would dance with his future bride in public. I also advised them that in keeping with the subject of the film, the music score should, at the very least, have some elements of ḥasidic or East European Jewish motifs. Both of my suggestions were ignored. In the final scene, the rabbi danced with his bride-to-be, and the music was in lush Hollywood style.

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.