Yesterday was the 34th anniversary of the refusenik Natan Sharansky’s release from Soviet prison. In honor of the occasion, Burton Caine recalls his 1974 visit to Moscow, where he met Sharansky for the first time at the apartment of Vladimir and Masha Slepak—then the epicenter of Soviet Jews’ struggle for freedom. During the same trip, he attended a picnic in a birch forest, organized by the Slepaks in honor of the holiday of Sukkot:

Clinging to an artificial distinction rejected by the U.S., the UK, and several of its own member states, the European Union considers Hizballah’s “military wing” a terrorist group, but not its “political wing.” Not only is the Iran-backed organization responsible for countless acts of terror, it also has slaughtered civilians in Syria, helped to bring about Lebanon’s current political and financial meltdown, and has tens of thousands of missiles aimed at Israel. Hans-Jakob Schindler argues that Brussels should be taking a different approach: