A book recently published in English, The Unknown History of Jewish Women through the Ages: On Learning and Illiteracy: On Slavery and Liberty, by the distinguished Israeli historian of Jewish mysticism Rachel Elior, examines the exclusion of Jewish women from the traditional rabbinic study. Leah Sarna praises the vast amount of data the book includes, but finds much about its analysis inadequate:

As Elior recognizes, “The universality of the right to education and knowledge is a new idea, formulated in the 19th century and put into practice only in the 20th century.” But if nobody had a concept of universal education before the modern period, can we really feel so angry at our ancestors for excluding their daughters? On the other hand, if the Jewish community prioritized education well beyond what was standard in the cultures around them, in which most men were illiterate, can we not feel some regret (and rage) as well?

Beyond all of this, though, is Elior’s remarkable omission of women’s Torah scholarship in modern times. The book, for instance, contains not a single mention of Nechama Leibowitz, who was undoubtedly the most influential Bible teacher in Israel in the second half of the 20th century (by contrast, Nechama’s brother, the scientist-theologian Yeshayahu Leibowitz, is cited several times).

Today’s female Torah learners desperately need a usable past; . . . a book dedicated to the claim that “women have no written past,” even if it occasionally recognizes that the historical record is more complex, cannot be the place for its construction. Others will have to pick up the work where Elior leaves off.

Yesterday, the beepers used by hundreds of Hizballah operatives were detonated. Noah Rothman puts this ingenious attack in the context of the overall war between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist group:

[W]hile the disabling of an untold number of Hizballah operatives is remarkable, it’s also ominous. This week, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant told reporters that the hour is nearing when Israeli forces will have to confront Iran’s cat’s-paw in southern Lebanon directly, in order to return the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along Lebanon’s border under fire and have not yet been able to return. Today’s operation may be a prelude to the next phase of Israel’s defensive war, a dangerous one in which the IDF will face off against an enemy with tens of thousands of fighters and over 150,000 rockets and missiles trained on Israeli cities.

Seth Frantzman, meanwhile, focuses on the specific damage the pager bombings have likely done to Hizballah:

This will put the men in hospital for a period of time. Some of them can go back to serving Hizballah, but they will not have access to one of their hands. These will most likely be their dominant hand, meaning the hand they’d also use to hold the trigger of a rifle or push the button to launch a missile.

Hizballah has already lost around 450 fighters in its eleven-month confrontation with Israel. This is a significant loss for the group. While Hizballah can replace losses, it doesn’t have an endlessly deep [supply of recruits]. This is not only because it has to invest in training and security ahead of recruitment, but also because it draws its recruits from a narrow spectrum of Lebanese society.

The overall challenge for Hizballah is not just replacing wounded and dead fighters. The group will be challenged to . . . roll out some other way to communicate with its men. The use of pagers may seem archaic, but Hizballah apparently chose to use this system because it assumed the network could not be penetrated. . . . It will also now be concerned about the penetration of its operational security. When groups like Hizballah are in chaos, they are more vulnerable to making mistakes.