In honor of the recent platinum jubilee celebrated by Queen Elizabeth II, David Herman briefly surveys the numerous interactions between those Jews who fled Central Europe for England after the Nazis’ rise to power and the House of Windsor. Herman cites the observation of the historian Anthony Grenville that these refugees “developed a surprising degree of regard for the British royal family.” One story, not about Queen Elizabeth but about her mother, stands out:

Gretel Salinger . . . was invited to a garden party held at Buckingham Palace in 1945 for those who had done notable war work. She spoke to the queen (later the queen mother): “‘Where have you come from?’ [the queen asked]. I ought to have said: ‘From Paddington,’ but what did I say? I said: ‘I come from Germany.’ She looked at me and said: ‘And you are invited here to this party?’ I said: ‘Yes, Your Majesty. I have worked very hard during the war and I have collected millions [sic] of pounds for the war effort.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘You mean you are a refugee from Germany.’ ‘Of course, Your Majesty.’ ‘That’s different, my dear child. I’m glad you have escaped and made your way here.’

“Where I took my courage from I still cannot say, but I said: ‘Yes, Your Majesty, but may I tell you what happened to my family?’ She said: ‘Yes.’ ‘All my family have been killed in Auschwitz.’ She made a gesture, [as if] shielding herself. She said: ‘If only I hadn’t asked you.’ I said: ‘On the contrary, Your Majesty, ‘this is my kaddish, the prayer we Jews have for the dead, that I could tell their fate to my queen.’ She took both my hands and she pressed them and said: ‘My darling child, I hope nothing else bad will happen to you and that you will enjoy your life and God bless you.’ I stood there crying, crying.”

Israel will likely respond directly against Iran after yesterday’s attack, and has made known that it will calibrate its retaliation based not on the extent of the damage, but on the scale of the attack. The specifics are anyone’s guess, but Edward Luttwak has a suggestion, put forth in an article published just hours before the missile barrage: cut off Tehran’s ability to send money and arms to Shiite Arab militias.

In practice, most of this cash comes from a single source: oil. . . . In other words, the flow of dollars that sustains Israel’s enemies, and which has caused so much trouble to Western interests from the Syrian desert to the Red Sea, emanates almost entirely from the oil loaded onto tankers at the export terminal on Khark Island, a speck of land about 25 kilometers off Iran’s southern coast. Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “long arm” can reach them too. Indeed, Khark’s location in the Persian Gulf is relatively close. At 1,516 kilometers from Israel’s main airbase, it’s far closer than the Houthis’ main oil import terminal at Hodeida in Yemen—a place that was destroyed by Israeli jets in July, and attacked again [on Sunday].