This spring, the restoration of the shrine in the northern Iraqi city of Alqosh that houses—according to tradition—the tomb of the prophet Nahum was completed. Also restored was the adjacent synagogue, which dates back at least to the Middle Ages and whose walls and columns bear extensive Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic inscriptions. The project, led by Israeli experts, has its origins in 2016, when, shortly after the area was liberated from Islamic State control, a Jewish officer in the Maryland National Guard saw the tomb, robbed of its former glory. Tal Schneider tells the story, the details of which have been kept secret until now:

The World Health Assembly—the annual meeting of the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO)—will conclude in Geneva tomorrow. As it has every year since 1968, it dedicated part of its time to discussing “health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan.” The fact that this is a permanent yearly agenda item for the assembly has nothing to do with any special medical circumstances in these areas, nor with any particular ability the WHO has to provide healthcare to their inhabitants. Rather, it is another example of the capture of the United Nations by the anti-Israel movement. David May explains: