Like his father Shmuel, Matisyahu Strashun (1817-1885) was a successful businessman and an accomplished talmudic scholar, as well as a prominent member of Vilna’s Jewish community. He also participated in the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), then in its heyday in Eastern Europe. In his lifetime, he amassed one of the world’s most extensive Judaica libraries. After his death, the collection took on a life of its own. Dan Rabinowitz writes:

At the time of his death, [Strashun had] amassed a collection of over 5,700 books and manuscripts. His collection included incunabula, rare and controversial works, and manuscripts. . . . Strashun’s collection included rabbinic and Haskalah works, and books in non-Hebrew languages.

At his death in 1885, Strashun left no direct heirs. He did, however, provide for the disposition of his library in his will. In the past, those with large libraries had sold [them] or left [them] to relatives; Strashun [instead] bequeathed his library to the Vilna Jewish community writ large, with instructions to establish a . . . public library. His vision for the library was modeled on “the non-Jewish libraries that he saw in the Diaspora.” To that end, Strashun provided not only the books but also the funds to support the creation and maintenance of the library. . . .

[In the early 20th century], many Vilna scholars donated their collections to the library, and, by the 1930s, [it] had grown to over 35,000 volumes.

In the aftermath of World War II, during which the Nazis had looted the library and removed some of its books to Frankfurt, many of its remaining holdings found a home at the YIVO Institute in New York.

Robert Clark explains why the resumption of hostilities is both just and necessary:

These latest Israeli strikes come after weeks of consistent Palestinian provocation; they have repeatedly broken the terms of the cease-fire which they claimed they were so desperate for. There have been numerous [unsuccessful] bus bombings near Tel Aviv and Palestinian-instigated clashes in the West Bank. Fifty-nine Israeli hostages are still held in captivity.

In fact, Hamas and their Palestinian supporters . . . have always known that they can sit back, parade dead Israeli hostages live on social media, and receive hundreds of their own convicted terrorists and murderers back in return. They believed they could get away with the October 7 pogrom.

One hopes Hamas’s leaders will get the message. Meanwhile, many inside and outside Israel seem to believe that, by resuming the fighting, Jerusalem has given up on rescuing the remaining hostages. But, writes Ron Ben-Yishai, this assertion misunderstands the goals of the present campaign. “Experience within the IDF and Israeli intelligence,” Ben-Yishai writes, “has shown that such pressure is the most effective way to push Hamas toward flexibility.” He outlines two other aims:

The second objective was to signal to Hamas that Israel is not only targeting its military wing—the terror army that was the focus of previous phases of the war up until the last cease-fire—but also its governance structure. This was demonstrated by the targeted elimination of five senior officials from Hamas’s political and civilian administration. . . . The strikes also served as a message to mediators, particularly Egypt, that Israel opposes Hamas remaining in any governing or military capacity in post-war Gaza.

The third objective was to create intense military pressure, coordinated with the U.S., on all remaining elements of the Shiite “axis of resistance,” including Yemen’s Houthis, Hamas, and Iran.