At present, New York state’s policy for dealing with the coronavirus involves identifying specific areas as “red zones,” where particularly strict lockdown regulations must be applied. While there might be good reason that a number of these red zones overlap with Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish enclaves, the actions and public statements of the municipal and state authorities have given Jewish inhabitants there reason to think that they have been singled out, and the zealous enforcement of social-distancing measures has caused resentment. It has also led to a lawsuit. Michael A. Helfand explains the underlying problem:

[I]mposing restrictions on those communities based upon scientific metrics is certainly not anti-Semitic. Indeed, the state has clearly communicated its commitment that decisions must employ a “science-based approach . . . to stop any further spread of the virus.” But while the principle is sound, criticism—and legal challenge—has almost exclusively been based on the manner in which Governor Andrew Cuomo identified the hot spots.

Parsing out Cuomo’s intent may be an impossible task, although his continuing call-outs of religious Jews specifically certainly provides fodder for trying. One can certainly imagine, given the public-health stakes, granting him the benefit of the doubt. But maybe more curious than his word choice is the relative opacity of the actual new restrictions—an opacity that runs counter to the state’s [supposed] commitment to making decisions based upon public-health metrics.

Cuomo’s executive order is quite clear that “red zones,” “orange zones,” and “yellow zones” will be subject to heightened restrictions, including significant limitations on houses of worship. But the executive order is silent on how the state identifies which neighborhoods fall into these color-coded categories.

This failure [to make clear the criteria] certainly makes it hard to determine whether the state is applying the same restrictions to other neighborhoods that it is applying to predominantly ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. Failure to apply these same restrictions to all neighborhoods with comparable positivity rates—to engage in something akin to religious gerrymandering—would raise serious concerns as to whether the state is singling out particular Jewish communities for discriminatory treatment.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.