In October, the British Library suffered a major cyberattack, apparently launched to extort money. The London-based library, which is an offshoot of the venerable British Museum, has still not succeed in fully restoring its online resources. Edward Reichman, an expert on the history of Jews in medicine, examines some of the rare Jewish manuscripts found in the library, which include dissertations composed by Dutch Jewish medical students in the 17th and 18th centuries:

Rodrigo de Castro was a Portuguese physician who escaped the Inquisition [and settled in] Hamburg. He authored a landmark work on gynecology, De Universa Mulierum Medicina, and was held in great esteem by both the medical and Jewish communities. His youngest son was Benedict (also known as Benedictus a Castro, Baruch Nahmias, or Benito).

Benedict was a physician to nobles and royalty, including Christina, queen of Sweden, to whom he dedicated a medical work in 1647 Due to his success, he was the victim of attacks by Christian doctors and Lutheran clergy. One particularly virulent diatribe precipitated his publication of a pseudonymous polemical defense entitled Flagellum Calumniantium. In this work, famous among the apologetic works of Jewish physicians, he counters the lies and slanders and enumerates the great achievements of Jewish physicians.

There is no consensus among scholars as to the medical education of de Castro, something we clarify here for the first time. . . . [From] November 16, 1620, . . . we have record of Benedict matriculating to the University of Leiden Medical School, making him the first Jewish student to attend this prestigious institution.

With the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program damaged, and its regional influence diminished, the U.S. must now prevent it from recovering, and, if possible, weaken it further. Benjamin Baird argues that it can do both through economic means—if Congress does its part:

Legislation that codifies President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policies into law, places sanctions on Iran’s energy sales, and designates the regime’s proxy armies as foreign terrorist organizations will go a long way toward containing Iran’s regime and encouraging its downfall. . . . Congress has already introduced much of the legislation needed to bring the ayatollah to his knees, and committee chairmen need only hold markup hearings to advance these bills and send them to the House and Senate floors.

They should start with the HR 2614—the Maximum Support Act. What the Iranian people truly need to overcome the regime is protection from the state security apparatus.

Next, Congress must get to work dismantling Iran’s proxy army in Iraq. By sanctioning and designating a list of 29 Iran-backed Iraqi militias through the Florida representative Greg Steube’s Iranian Terror Prevention Act, the U.S. can shut down . . . groups like the Badr Organization and Kataib Hizballah, which are part of the Iranian-sponsored armed groups responsible for killing hundreds of American service members.

Those same militias are almost certainly responsible for a series of drone attacks on oilfields in Iraq over the past few days