Last week, the Supreme Court ruled five to four in favor of Catholics and Orthodox Jews seeking relief from New York State’s stringent limits on attendance at religious services in certain neighborhoods. As Michael McConnell and Max Raskin explain, the ruling does not by any means assert that religious institutions are exempt from public-health measures, only that there needs to be a less discriminatory attempt to balance safety and First Amendment freedoms:

The restrictions, which are far more draconian than those approved by the court in the earlier cases, are both extraordinarily tight and essentially unexplained. In “red zones,” where infection rates are the highest, worship is limited to ten persons, no matter how large the facility—whether St. Patrick’s Cathedral (seating capacity: 2,500) or a tiny shul in Brooklyn. Because Orthodox Jewish services require a quorum (“minyan”) of ten adult men, this is an effective prohibition on the ability of Orthodox women to attend services. “Orange zones” are only slightly less restrictive; 25 congregants may attend.

In both red and orange zones, “essential” businesses—a broad category that includes everything from big-box retailers to pet shops to lawyers’ offices—may remain open without capacity limitations. One reads the parties’ briefs in vain for a cogent explanation of the difference in treatment.

[T]he justices in the majority seemed to have little sympathy for a general rebellion against all COVID-19 mandates. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, specifically noted that he did not “doubt the state’s authority to impose tailored restrictions—even very strict restrictions—on attendance at religious services and secular gatherings alike.” During a public-health emergency, individual freedoms can be curtailed where necessary to protect against the spread of disease. Most of this authority is at the state and local, not the federal, level. But when public-health measures intrude on civil liberties—not just religious exercise, but other constitutional rights—judges will insist that the measures be nonarbitrary, nondiscriminatory, and no more restrictive than the facts and evidence demand.

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.