Thanks in part to the popularity of Fiddler on the Roof, Sholem Aleichem is best known today as an author of short stories, and especially for his series of stories about Tevye the Dairyman. But he also wrote novels, the last of which, Moshkele the Thief, was long forgotten—and will soon be published in English for the first time. Curt Leviant, the translator, writes:

The mys­tery of this novel’s dis­ap­pear­ance goes back to the cre­ation of the clas­sic 28‑vol­ume Com­plete Works of Sholem Aleichem, a project that was begun after Sholem Aleichem’s death in New York City. Moshkeleh the Thief was left out of this endeav­or. We can only spec­u­late that per­haps the fam­i­ly thought that a work by Sholem Ale­ichem that deals with thieves and the Jew­ish under­world was not . . . fit­ting, or not rep­re­sen­ta­tive of his work.

And yet Sholem Ale­ichem him­self regard­ed the sto­ry of Moshkeleh as a great achieve­ment. His view that Moshkeleh Ganev (the orig­i­nal Yid­dish title) was impor­tant is reflect­ed in two let­ters he wrote in 1903. In one, the author pre­dicts that Moshkeleh Ganev will have the same suc­cess as his popu­lar sec­ond nov­el, Stem­penyu (1889). In anoth­er let­ter he states: ​“I now feel as if I’ve been born anew, with new—brand new—strength. I can almost say that now I’ve real­ly begun to write. [Sholem Aleichem’s empha­sis.] Until now I’ve only been fool­ing around.”

Yid­dish lit­er­a­ture had long main­tained a tra­di­tion of edelkeyt, refine­ment. Yid­dish and Hebrew authors eschewed vio­lence, the dark­er side of life, and peo­ple on the fringes of respectabil­i­ty. But Moshkeleh Ganev sig­nals Sholem Aleichem’s lit­er­ary thrust away from this almost self-imposed silence. With this nov­el he enters a Jew­ish are­na that had not hith­er­to been explored in Yid­dish fic­tion. . . . By tak­ing horse thieves as his sub­ject and focus­ing on a man who is reject­ed by soci­ety, Sholem Ale­ichem enters unchart­ed lit­er­ary ter­ri­to­ry.

In this sense, the novel anticipated the works of the next generation of Yiddish writers—such as Moshe Kulbak, Oyzer Varshavksi, and I.J. Singer—who would find their voices after the First World War.

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.