Produced jointly by the Jewish Museum in Rome and the Vatican Museum, a current exhibition displays images of, and artifacts related to, the menorah of the ancient Jerusalem temples, ranging from a Jewish engraving of the candelabrum from the 1st century BCE to a painting by Marc Chagall. The exhibit gives the lie to the persistent legend that the menorah, Ark of the Covenant, and other sacred objects from the temples are being held in the Vatican. Reviewing the exhibit, Fredric Brandfon describes one of the earliest versions of this legend:

As one enters the exhibit in the Jewish Museum, the first object on display is a cast of the Tabula Magna Lateranensis, an inscription in mosaic tiles housed in the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano and visible today on the left of the entrance of the sacristy. The basilica is the cathedral of Rome where, until 1870, popes were crowned. The Tabula Magna is a 37-line Latin inscription from the time of Pope Nicholas IV (1288–1292) listing the treasure kept in the cathedral of Rome and in the nearby chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum. Among the treasures listed is the Temple menorah, which, the inscription says, is the one pictured on the Arch of Titus.

Despite this attestation that the menorah had been kept in Rome as a treasure as late as the mid-13th century CE, it is thoroughly unlikely that such was the case. The Tabula Magna also lists as the basilica’s treasures Christ’s cloak, John the Baptist’s raiment of camel’s hair, the Ark of the Covenant, and the two Tablets of the Law. The Tabula Magna is an artifact of a time obsessed with holy relics, and it testifies only to a legend concerning the menorah propagated for the glory of its surrounding basilica.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.