At his graduation from the New York City police academy, Allan Pearlman was one of seven recruits (in a class of 600) to be honored with the commanding officer’s award for exceptional police duty. Pearlman, born in Staten Island, joins the NYPD’s growing number of Orthodox Jewish officers. Luke Tress writes:

Pearlman joins the force as it grapples with the surge in anti-Semitism across the city and raucous anti-Israel protests that have disrupted city life on the streets, college campuses, during major events and, at prominent public gathering places. There have been at least 223 anti-Semitic hate crimes reported to police since January 1, according to preliminary police data. In one of the most recent incidents that is being investigated as a suspected hate crime, an arsonist lit a Hatzalah emergency services vehicle on fire in the Lower East Side.

Jewish officers can be an asset to their coworkers by explaining nuances about the Jewish community, said Mitch Silber, the former head of intelligence analysis for the NYPD and current director of the Community Security Initiative, which coordinates security for Jewish institutions in the New York area.

Pearlman doesn’t anticipate any problems coming up due to his religion, noting that he has spoken with other observant Jews on the force who have found the NYPD accommodating. “They always get Shabbat off; they get off holidays,” he said.

In other words, it’s possible Jews are more welcome at the NYPD academy than at Harvard or Columbia.

On the same day the cease-fire went into effect along the Israel-Lebanon border, rebel forces launched an unexpected offensive, and within a few days captured much of Aleppo. This lightening advance originated in the northwestern part of the country, which has been relatively quiet over the past four years, since Bashar al-Assad effectively gave up on restoring control over the remaining rebel enclaves in the area. The fighting comes at an inopportune for the powers that Damascus has called on for help in the past: Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and Hizballah has been shattered.

But the situation is extremely complex. David Wurmser points to the dangers that lie ahead:

The desolation wrought on Hizballah by Israel, and the humiliation inflicted on Iran, has not only left the Iranian axis exposed to Israeli power and further withering. It has altered the strategic tectonics of the Middle East. The story is not just Iran anymore. The region is showing the first signs of tremendous geopolitical change. And the plates are beginning to move.

The removal of the religious-totalitarian tyranny of the Iranian regime remains the greatest strategic imperative in the region for the United States and its allies, foremost among whom stands Israel. . . . However, as Iran’s regime descends into the graveyard of history, it is important not to neglect the emergence of other, new threats. navigating the new reality taking shape.

The retreat of the Syrian Assad regime from Aleppo in the face of Turkish-backed, partly Islamist rebels made from remnants of Islamic State is an early skirmish in this new strategic reality. Aleppo is falling to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS—a descendant of Nusra Front led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani, himself a graduate of al-Qaeda’s system and cobbled together of IS elements. Behind this force is the power of nearby Turkey.