After his ascension to the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1764, Stanislaw Poniatowski—Poland’s last king and a former lover of Catherine the Great—enacted a series of reforms intended to modernize his country in the face of external threats and internal disorders. As part of these reforms, he organized the first national census that would include the Jewish population. Lithuanian archivists, combing through the census records, have recently found information about one of the foremost rabbis of the day. Yochai Ben-Ghedalia writes:

The census documents are scattered over the archives of all the various states whose territory was then part of the kingdom of Poland. . . . The Lithuanian State Historical Archives in Vilnius houses numerous censuses, including examples from the early 1760s, as well as later censuses, [including that] taken in Vilnius (then: Wilno) in 1765.

The census was arranged according to streets. A few pages are dedicated to one of the main streets of old Vilnius—Niemieckiej, now known as Vokiečių Street (both names mean “German Street”), an area highly populated by Jews at the time. On one of the pages dedicated to the right side of the street, we find one Eliasz Zelmanowiz, his wife Chana, his son Zelman, [and] his daughter Basia, as well as the servant Nachama. The name of the paternal head of the family, combined with the names of the other family members, reveals that we are dealing with Rabbi Elijah, son of Shlomo Zalman, better known as the Vilna Gaon.

The rabbi was forty-five years old at the time. He lived in Wilno and dedicated his life to the study of Torah, but did not serve in any official position in the community. Of his eight known children, only two are mentioned here. Some of them passed away as infants, others were not born yet, and two of the older girls may have been married at the time.

For more than a year, the Iran-backed Houthis have been launching drones and missiles at ships traversing the Red Sea, as well as at Israeli territory, in support of Hamas. This development has drastically curtailed shipping through the Suez Canal and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, driving up trade prices. This week, the Trump administration began an extensive bombing campaign against the Houthis in an effort to reopen that crucial waterway. Burcu Ozcelik highlights another benefit of this action:

The administration has a broader geopolitical agenda—one that includes countering China’s economic leverage, particularly Beijing’s reliance on Iranian oil. By targeting the Houthis, the United States is not only safeguarding vital shipping lanes but also exerting pressure on the Iran-China energy nexus, a key component of Beijing’s strategic posture in the region.

China was the primary destination for up to 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports in 2024, underscoring the deepening economic ties between Beijing and Tehran despite U.S. sanctions. By helping fill Iranian coffers, China aids Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in financing proxies like the Houthis. Since October of last year, notable U.S. Treasury announcements have revealed covert links between China and the Houthis.

Striking the Houthis could trigger broader repercussions—not least by disrupting the flow of Iranian oil to China. While difficult to confirm, it is conceivable and has been reported, that the Houthis may have received financial or other forms of compensation from China (such as Chinese-made military components) in exchange for allowing freedom of passage for China-affiliated vessels in the Red Sea.