As a child, the celebrated 19th-century American novelist Louisa May Alcott was told that her maternal grandfather, Joseph May, was the descendant of Portuguese Jews. Although May was a practicing Unitarian, the family reportedly took pride in its Jewish ancestry. Alcott’s biographer and relative Eve LaPlante writes:

Joseph May [was] a late-18th-century Boston businessman whose Portuguese Jewish ancestors immigrated to Sussex, England, just before 1500. The Mays spent more than a century in England, becoming prosperous enough to cross the Atlantic. . . . Around 1640, the Mays—also spelled Mayes, Maies, and Maize—settled in Massachusetts, where one of their descendants was the quintessentially Yankee author of Little Women.

In 1496, King Manuel I of Portugal had given Jews and Muslims a choice between conversion and leaving the country. At the time, the country had a sizable Jewish population, which included tens of thousands of refugees from the Spanish expulsion four years earlier. Converted Jews often took new surnames; names of months, such as Maio, were popular choices. During the subsequent decades, there was a steady trickle of Portuguese Jews to Britain, Amsterdam, France, and the New World. LaPlante adds:

Today, only a few thousand Jews live in Portugal. But . . . nearly one in five Portuguese citizens, according to a recent study in the American Journal of Human Genetics, has Jewish ancestry. Apparently, the number of Portuguese Jews forced to convert to Christianity half a millennium ago was far larger than historians previously believed. As for the countless Jews who fled Portugal, their descendants include the economist David Ricardo and the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, as well as Louisa May Alcott.

Below, today’s newsletter will return to some other reflections on the one-year anniversary of the outbreak of the current war, but first something must be said of its recent progress. Israel has kept up its aerial and ground assault on Hizballah, and may have already killed the successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader it eliminated less than two weeks ago. Matthew Levitt assesses the current state of the Lebanon-based terrorist group, which, in his view, is now “a shadow of its former self.” Indeed, he adds,

it is no exaggeration to say that the Hizballah of two weeks ago no longer exists. And since Hizballah was the backbone of Iran’s network of militant proxies, its so-called axis of resistance, Iran’s strategy of arming and deploying proxy groups throughout the region is suddenly at risk as well.

Hizballah’s attacks put increasing pressure on Israel, as intended, only that pressure did not lead Israelis to stop targeting Hamas so much as it chipped away at Israel’s fears about the cost of military action to address the military threats posed by Hizballah.

At the same time, Levitt explains, Hizballah still poses a serious threat, as it demonstrated last night when its missiles struck Haifa and Tiberias, injuring at least two people:

Hizballah still maintains an arsenal of rockets and a cadre of several thousand fighters. It will continue to pose potent military threats for Israel, Lebanon, and the wider region.

How will the group seek to avenge Nasrallah’s death amid these military setbacks? Hizballah is likely to resort to acts of international terrorism, which are overseen by one of the few elements of the group that has not yet lost key leaders.

But the true measure of whether the group will be able to reconstitute itself, even over many years, is whether Iran can restock Hizballah’s sophisticated arsenal. Tehran’s network of proxy groups—from Hizballah to Hamas to the Houthis—is only as dangerous as it is today because of Iran’s provision of weapons and money. Whatever Hizballah does next, Western governments must prioritize cutting off Tehran’s ability to arm and fund its proxies.