Despite all the bad news about rising anti-Semitism, America remains a land of opportunity for Jews, including those who make no efforts to hide their identity. Take Richie Taylor of Brooklyn, who today will be sworn in as a deputy chief of the New York Police Department, making him the force’s highest-ranking kippah­-wearing officer. Reuvain Borchardt writes:

At forty-one, Taylor will be the youngest deputy chief currently in the Department. Richard (Yechiel) Taylor grew up in Manhattan Beach and Midwood, attending Yeshiva of Manhattan Beach and Touro College. Before becoming a police officer, Taylor was a member of [the Orthodox emergency medical service] Hatzalah, and responded to the World Trade Center on 9/11.

He became a police officer in 2005. . . . Taylor has served in over ten commands across the city, and was the recipient of the 61st Precinct Cop of the Month Award in September 2016 for making a firearm arrest solo. He currently serves as commanding officer of Community Affairs, and he will continue in the Community Affairs Bureau after his promotion.

This week, there have been numerous unconfirmed reports about the fate of Esmail Qaani, who is the head of the Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Benny Avni writes:

On Thursday, Sky News Arabic reported that Mr. Qaani was rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack. He became [the Quds Force] commander in 2020, after an American drone strike killed his predecessor, Qassem Suleimani. The unit oversees the Islamic Republic’s various Mideast proxies, as well as the exporting of the Iranian revolution to the region and beyond.

The Sky News report attempts to put to rest earlier claims that Mr. Qaani was killed at Beirut. It follows several reports asserting he has been arrested and interrogated at Tehran over suspicion that he, or a top lieutenant, leaked information to Israel. Five days ago, the Arabic-language al-Arabiya network reported that Mr. Qaani “is under surveillance and isolation, following the Israeli assassinations of prominent Iranian leaders.”

Iranians are desperately scrambling to plug possible leaks that gave Israel precise intelligence to conduct pinpoint strikes against Hizballah commanders. . . . “I find it hard to believe that Qaani was compromised,” an Iran watcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, Beni Sabti, tells the Sun. Perhaps one or more of [Qaani’s] top aides have been recruited by Israel, he says, adding that “psychological warfare” could well be stoking the rumor mill.

If so, prominent Iranians seem to be exacerbating the internal turmoil by alleging that the country’s security apparatus has been infiltrated.