During the period of British rule, Burma (now Myanmar) became home to small but thriving Jewish community, of which now little remains. Joe Freeman looks for traces of Jewish life in the mountain town of Maymyo, where well-to-do Burmese Jews and British colonists once vacationed:

The Jewish presence in Maymyo included a few full-time residents and dozens of vacationers in the late 19th to the mid-20th century. Apart from an even smaller community with roots in India, the majority of Burmese Jews came from Iraq, spoke Arabic at home, were fair-skinned, prized learning English over Burmese, and, in public, aspired to suits, not sarongs. . . . Most came to Rangoon, establishing a synagogue that is now more than 100 years old. Other arrivals spread out across the country, especially in the north, or Upper Burma. Although Burma’s Jewish community prospered, living in some cases with mansions and retinues of servants, it never numbered more than a few thousand. Most left during World War II. Today, by some estimates there are only about twenty Jews in Yangon [formerly Rangoon, Burma’s largest city].

But in Maymyo, their old villas still stand. This elite colonial destination in the far north of the country also had something to say about the Burmese Jews’ standing in the British Raj: a complicated system of social castes with the British at the top and the Jews grasping upwards.

Last Tuesday, the Houthis—the faction now ruling much of Yemen—said that they intend to renew attacks on international shipping through the Red and Arabian Seas. They had for the most part paused their attacks following the January 19 Israel-Hamas cease-fire, but their presence has continued to scare away maritime traffic near the Yemeni coast, with terrible consequences for the global economy.

The U.S. responded on Saturday by initiating strikes on Houthi missile depots, command-and-control centers, and propaganda outlets, and has promised that the attacks will continue for days, if not weeks. The Houthis responded by launching drones, and possibly missiles, at American naval ships, apparently without result. Another missile fired from Yemen struck the Sinai, but was likely aimed at Israel. As Ari Heistein has written in Mosaic, it may take a sustained and concerted effort to stop the Houthis, who have high tolerance for casualties—but this is a start. Ron Ben-Yishai provides some context:

The goal is to punish the Houthis for directly targeting Western naval vessels in the Red Sea while also exerting indirect pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program. . . . While the Biden administration did conduct airstrikes against the Houthis, it refrained from a proactive military campaign, fearing a wider regional war. However, following the collapse of Iran’s axis—including Hizballah’s heavy losses in Lebanon and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria—the Trump administration appears unafraid of such an escalation.

Iran, the thinking goes, will also get the message that the U.S. isn’t afraid to use force, or risk the consequences of retaliation—and will keep this in mind as it considers negotiations over its nuclear program. Tamir Hayman adds:

The Houthis are the last proxy of the Shiite axis that have neither reassessed their actions nor restrained their weapons. Throughout the campaign against the Yemenite terrorist organization, the U.S.-led coalition has made operational mistakes: Houthi regime infrastructure was not targeted; the organization’s leaders were not eliminated; no sustained operational continuity was maintained—only actions to remove immediate threats; no ground operations took place, not even special-forces missions; and Iran has not paid a price for its proxy’s actions.

But if this does not stop the Houthis, it will project weakness—not just toward Hamas but primarily toward Iran—and Trump’s power diplomacy will be seen as hollow. The true test is one of output, not input. The only question that matters is not how many strikes the U.S. carries out, but whether the Red Sea reopens to all vessels. We will wait and see—for now, things look brighter than they did before.