The great Hebrew poets and novelists of the 19th and 20th century, who revived Hebrew literature and paved the way for Zionism, for the most part began their literary careers in yeshivas, surreptitiously reading the works of Friedrich Schiller and Dmitri Pisarev—which they hid inside their large volumes of the Talmud. Thus the rejection of tradition became one of the main themes of this new literary genre. Yet who else but yeshiva students had sufficient knowledge of the sacred tongue to use it to craft new works? Shai Secunda reviews a new book about this generation of writers:

In The Yeshiva and the Rise of Modern Hebrew Literature, a short monograph with a bold thesis, Marina Zilbergerts [argues that], despite the complex transformations that Hebrew literature and its writers endured in the later 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a kind of alchemical conservation of energy at work. Of course, the redeployment of a sacred, scholastic language to forge a politically charged, sometimes sensuous, and frequently transgressive literature was revolutionary. Yet, Zilbergerts insists, despite the secular shift in the themes and tenor of the new Hebrew literature, “this revolution originated in the world of tradition”: the rabbinic ideal of pure intellectual devotion to even the most obscure traditional texts was secularized into a radical commitment to writing pristine prose in a largely inaccessible language.

The Yeshiva and the Rise of Modern Hebrew Literature is a blessedly jargon-free book. . . . Despite the historical twists and turns that her argument must take, Zilbergerts’s thesis retains a powerful simplicity. Modern Hebrew writing emerged in Eastern Europe as an enduring, modern literature in part due to the persistent traditionalist commitments of its first writers.

Yeshiva life, and Jewish life more generally, was an imaginatively rich existence, with an abundance of fictions—mainly of the legal sort—and a preference for prooftext over prosaic existence. (The famous Yiddish—and Hebrew—writer Mendele Mokher Seforim once satirized this by telling the story of shtetl mavens who, upon being introduced to a juicy exotic fruit, resorted to scripture to confirm its existence.) Even when budding Hebrew writers abandoned rabbinic learning and engaged in newfound secular pursuits, they continued to read texts voraciously and to spin new, beguiling webs in an updated version of rabbinic Hebrew. In this way we get Micha Yosef Berdichevsky’s indelible image of a formerly pious yeshiva boy holding a midnight study vigil, only now it is a secular Hebrew book over which he pores.

On Yom Kippur, Hizballah fired over 200 rockets and drones at Israel, with one drone hitting a retirement home in Herzliya, miraculously without casualties. Yesterday, however, proved less lucky: a drone launched by the Iran-backed group struck a military base, killing four and injuring another 58, about twenty moderately or seriously.

This attack reflects Iranian strategy: Israeli defensive systems are strong, but so are Iranian drones and missiles, and with enough attacks some will get through. As Ariel Kahana writes, such an approach is consistent with Tehran’s desire to fight a war of attrition, denying Jerusalem the chance to strike a decisive blow. Kahana explains how the IDF might turn the tables:

It’s worth noting that Iran’s strategy of wearing down Israel and other U.S. allies in the region is not merely a choice, but a necessity. Militarily, it’s the only card left in Tehran’s hand. Iran neither desires nor possesses the capability to deploy ground forces against Israel, given the vast geographical distance and intervening countries. Moreover, while Israel boasts one of the world’s most formidable air forces, Iran’s air capabilities are comparatively limited.

Israel’s trump card in this high-stakes game is its unparalleled air-defense system. For years, Iran had counted on its network of proxy organizations to provide a protective umbrella against Western strikes. However, a year into the current conflict, this strategy lies in tatters: Hamas is reeling, Hizballah is on the back foot, and the various militias in Iraq and Yemen amount to little more than an irritant for Israel. The result? Iran finds itself unexpectedly exposed.

And when it comes to direct attacks on Israel, Iran’s options may be limited. Its October 1 attack, which used its sophisticated Fateh-2 missiles, was more effective than that in April, but not much more so:

Oded Eilam, drawing on his experience as a former senior Mossad official, . .  estimates [Iran’s] stockpile of these advanced weapons is limited to between 400 and 800. With 200 already expended in a single attack, Iran’s reserves of truly effective missiles may be running low. This raises a critical question: can Iran sustain a prolonged ballistic exchange with Israel? The numbers suggest it’s capacity for attrition warfare may be more limited than it would like to admit.