Among the many outstanding and venerable religious leaders the Jewish world lost in the past year was Rabbi Norman Lamm, a scholar and congregational rabbi as well as the long-time president of Yeshiva University. Zev Eleff relates yet another of Lamm’s many accomplishments: his role in founding Tradition, which has for decades been Orthodox Judaism’s most serious and ambitious English-language periodical.

Launched in 1958, Tradition benefited from Rabbi Lamm’s originality. More important, however, was his resolve. . . . Orthodox leaders started several journals during the 1950s. They were motivated by the earlier initiatives of other members of the American Jewish elite such as Rabbis Robert Gordis and Samuel Dresner of the Conservative movement. The Orthodox reckoned that such projects were useful to help jumpstart a renaissance amid allegations that their community was stuck in a rut, mired in what sociologist Marshall Sklare described as institutional and intellectual “decay.”

The most ambitious attempt to cultivate a class of Orthodox public intellectuals was the brainchild of Norman Lamm and Marvin Fox. The latter was an important Jewish philosopher, first at Ohio State University and then at Brandeis. He was a leading scholar of Moses Maimonides, long before Jewish studies was fashionable in academe. Both men shared a vision of elevating Jewish ideas through mentoring young scholars and writing in an accessible manner for general readers.

Soon Tradition was involved in lively and heated arguments with leading Conservative journals, demonstrating that Orthodoxy could hold its own. Indeed, Eleff credits Lamm and Fox most with their “uncanny” conviction, at a time when Sklare’s evaluation was that of many astute observers, that there could be “an unforecasted Orthodox comeback in American Jewish life.”

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.