According to the Talmud, Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Zakkai convinced the Roman emperor to spare “Yavneh and its sages” before destroying Jerusalem in 70 CE. As a result, this city in the Galilee became for a time the major center of Jewish intellectual life. Archaeologists recently discovered a Byzantine-era mosaic there, JNS reports:

The flooring, which dates back to the . . . 4th or 5th century CE, was unearthed during large-scale excavations launched ahead of the development of a new neighborhood in the ancient city. The Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists Elie Haddad and Hagit Torgë said that though they initially believed the flooring to be “simple white mosaic paving belonging to yet another industrial installation,” [but] once they treated it with a special acid to remove its patina coat, “a colorful mosaic carpet was revealed, ornamented with geometric motifs.”

They assessed that the well-preserved flooring “may have been part of a splendid residential building in a wealthy neighborhood adjacent to the industrial zone.”

This week, there have been numerous unconfirmed reports about the fate of Esmail Qaani, who is the head of the Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Benny Avni writes:

On Thursday, Sky News Arabic reported that Mr. Qaani was rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack. He became [the Quds Force] commander in 2020, after an American drone strike killed his predecessor, Qassem Suleimani. The unit oversees the Islamic Republic’s various Mideast proxies, as well as the exporting of the Iranian revolution to the region and beyond.

The Sky News report attempts to put to rest earlier claims that Mr. Qaani was killed at Beirut. It follows several reports asserting he has been arrested and interrogated at Tehran over suspicion that he, or a top lieutenant, leaked information to Israel. Five days ago, the Arabic-language al-Arabiya network reported that Mr. Qaani “is under surveillance and isolation, following the Israeli assassinations of prominent Iranian leaders.”

Iranians are desperately scrambling to plug possible leaks that gave Israel precise intelligence to conduct pinpoint strikes against Hizballah commanders. . . . “I find it hard to believe that Qaani was compromised,” an Iran watcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, Beni Sabti, tells the Sun. Perhaps one or more of [Qaani’s] top aides have been recruited by Israel, he says, adding that “psychological warfare” could well be stoking the rumor mill.

If so, prominent Iranians seem to be exacerbating the internal turmoil by alleging that the country’s security apparatus has been infiltrated.