In 1492—after a century of massacres and persecution that had already led tens of thousands of Jews to convert to Catholicism or to leave Spain—King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella decreed the expulsion of all Jews who refused to accept the cross. Recently a monument of this vanished Jewish community, once Europe’s largest and most prestigious, has come to light. The Times of Israel reports:

Archaeologists in the southern Spanish town of Utrera confirmed on Tuesday they had uncovered a 14th-century synagogue hidden within a building that was later converted into a church, hospital, and most recently a bar. The archaeologist Miguel Ángel de Dios told journalists that “the first thing to confirm is the presence of the prayer room” following years of analysis of the building’s walls and floor.

“The fundamental elements of the synagogue, such as the entrance hall,” he said, “or the perimeter benches that have emerged in this survey, now confirm that we are indeed in the prayer hall.”

The only hint of the [synagogue’s] existence came from a priest and historian, Rodrigo Caro, who wrote in 1604 that a hospital now stood on a site where Jews used to pray. There are a tiny handful of medieval synagogues surviving in Spain, including in the cities of Toledo and Cordoba. The Utrera synagogue was converted into a church in the 16th century, de Dios added.

Last week, the New York Times reported, based on unnamed sources within the Trump administration, that the president had asked Israel not to carry out a planned strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. That is, somebody deliberately gave this information to the press, which later tried to confirm it by speaking with other officials. Amit Segal writes that, “according to figures in Israel’s security establishment,” this is “the most serious leak in Israel’s history.” He explains:

As Israel is reportedly planning what may well be one of its most consequential military operations ever, the New York Times lays out for the Iranians what Israel will target, when it will carry out the operation, and how. That’s not just any other leak.

Seth Mandel looks into the leaker’s logic:

The primary purpose of the [Times] article is not as a record of internal deliberations but as an instrument of policy itself. Namely, to obstruct future U.S. and Israeli foreign policy by divulging enough details of Israel’s plans in order to protect Iran’s nuclear sites. The idea is to force Israeli planners back to the drawing board, thus delaying a possible future strike on Iran until Iranian air defenses have been rebuilt.

The leak is the point. It’s a tactical play, more or less, to help Iran torpedo American action.

The leaker, Mandel explains—and the Times itself implies—is likely aligned with the faction in the administration that wants to see the U.S. retreat from the world stage and from its alliance with Israel, a faction that includes Vice-President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and the president’s own chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Yet it’s also possible, if less likely, that the plans were leaked in support of administration policy rather than out of factional infighting. Eliezer Marom argues that the leak was “part of the negotiations and serves to clarify to the Iranians that there is a real attack plan that Trump stopped at the last moment to conduct negotiations.”