In Europe, for much of Jewish history, Passover was a particularly dangerous time, as malicious reports of Jews using the blood of Christians to make matzah circulated just as preaching in churches, in preparation for Easter, focused on the trial and crucifixion of Jesus—for which Jews were historically blamed.

America’s only documented blood libel, however, took place not in the spring but in the fall, in the town of Massena, New York, just across the St. Lawrence River from Canada. Edward Berenson discusses this disturbing 1928 incident, its causes, its consequences, and what it says about the exceptionally low levels of anti-Semitism in the U.S. Also of interest is the close relationship between hatred of Jews and hatred of Catholics, as well as the presence of a very telling, and familiar, pattern: even once it became clear to all that none of the Jews of Massena had harmed a young Christian girl, the incident still led to an increase in local anti-Semitism. (Interview by Nachi Weinstein. Audio, 47 minutes.)

While I’ve seen much speculation—some reasonable and well informed, some quite the opposite—about why Jerusalem chose Friday morning to begin its campaign against Iran, the most obvious explanation seems to be the most convincing. First, 60 days had passed since President Trump warned that Tehran had 60 days to reach an agreement with the U.S. over its nuclear program. Second, Israeli intelligence was convinced that Iran was too close to developing nuclear weapons to delay military action any longer. Edward Luttwak explains why Israel was wise to attack:

Iran was adding more and more centrifuges in increasingly vast facilities at enormous expense, which made no sense at all if the aim was to generate energy. . . . It might be hoped that Israel’s own nuclear weapons could deter an Iranian nuclear attack against its own territory. But a nuclear Iran would dominate the entire Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, with which Israel has full diplomatic relations, as well as Saudi Arabia with which Israel hopes to have full relations in the near future.

Luttwak also considers the military feats the IDF and Mossad have accomplished in the past few days:

To reach all [its] targets, Israel had to deal with the range-payload problem that its air force first overcame in 1967, when it destroyed the air forces of three Arab states in a single day. . . . This time, too, impossible solutions were found for the range problem, including the use of 65-year-old airliners converted into tankers (Boeing is years later in delivering its own). To be able to use its short-range F-16s, Israel developed the “Rampage” air-launched missile, which flies upward on a ballistic trajectory, gaining range by gliding down to the target. That should make accuracy impossible—but once again, Israeli developers overcame the odds.