Born in the German city of Mannheim in 1654, Johann Andreas Eisenmenger spent nearly two decades studying the Talmud and other rabbinic texts with members of the Jewish community of Amsterdam, to whom he presented himself as a prospective convert. Then, in 1700, he published one of the best researched, and most influential, works of anti-Jewish slander. Henry Abramson writes:

Spanning 2,000 pages over two brick-like volumes, Entdecktes Judenthum (“Judaism Unmasked”) is an exhaustive survey of every possible passage from the Talmud that could be distorted to reflect badly on Jews and Judaism. Its verbose subtitle thoroughly describes his intent, which was to prove how “the stubborn Jews frightfully blaspheme and dishonor the Holy Trinity . . . . and despise and curse to the uttermost extreme the whole of Christianity.” He also promised “ridiculous and amusing stories” to boot, “written for the honest information of all Christians.”

Eisenmenger’s purpose and even his methodology were hardly new. Jew-haters have been mining the Talmud for talking points since the 13th century, when the apostate Nicholas Donin first denounced it before Pope Innocent III. Few, however, were able to penetrate the depths of this massive, ancient text written in a mixture of highly coded Aramaic and Hebrew.

Eisenmenger began his lifelong deception in 1680 at the age of twenty-four. By the time he was ready to bring his malicious book to print, he could count many rabbis among his teachers, including the prolific David ben Aryeh Leyb of Lida [in modern-day Belarus]— then chief Ashkenazi rabbi of Amsterdam.

For the past three centuries, from John Peter Stehelin’s [1748 English-language abridgment] to the ugliest parts of the Internet, anti-Semites have relied on Eisenmenger’s [perverse] research to promote hatred. Eisenmenger strove for accuracy in citation and translation, but criminally distorted the meaning of the passages in context with unacceptably tendentious commentary to promote awful lies like the infamous blood libel.

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.