Having spent Passover as the only Jew at a medical mission in East Africa, where patients routinely die from conditions easily treated or prevented in the U.S., Aaron Rothstein considers the frustrations and disappointments of his work in light of Jewish history:

This Passover overflows with a sense of displacement, disorder, and exile. This is not an unusual feeling for a Jewish physician. It is probably closer to what most Jewish physicians have experienced throughout Jewish history, not merely because of what they saw and whom they treated but because of who they were. . . . In the 14th century, a prominent Gentile physician, Arnold of Villanova, told Pope Boniface VIII [that] “every Christian who entrusts his body to the medical treatment of Jews merits excommunication and is guilty of a capital crime.”

[Nonetheless], Jewish physicians occasionally had more freedom than their fellow Jews. True, Jewish physicians were maligned, but often with a wink and a nod. When Queen Isabella married King Ferdinand in 1479, thus creating a unified Christian Spain that would hunt down the Jews, exceptions were made. Ferdinand and Isabella retained Jewish physicians in the court. . . .

The royal courts persecuted the Jews but defended the retention of Jewish court physicians in the same breath. Thus, the tension between exile and redemption, or freedom and bondage, is inextricably linked in Jewish history and in the medical profession. Indeed, for Jewish physicians that tension is particularly poignant as Jewish physicians had some sense of freedom but mostly remained in bondage.

To be sure, I have been fortunate not to experience any kind of discrimination here. . . . But I still recognize that tension and experience it, being in a city devoid of Jews and saturated with tragic medical outcomes. . . . As Jews we know freedom never exists without exile; redemption never exists without slavery. We are poised on the brink of freedom, but it is a freedom that is always in question, always with an asterisk.

Below, today’s newsletter will return to some other reflections on the one-year anniversary of the outbreak of the current war, but first something must be said of its recent progress. Israel has kept up its aerial and ground assault on Hizballah, and may have already killed the successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader it eliminated less than two weeks ago. Matthew Levitt assesses the current state of the Lebanon-based terrorist group, which, in his view, is now “a shadow of its former self.” Indeed, he adds,

it is no exaggeration to say that the Hizballah of two weeks ago no longer exists. And since Hizballah was the backbone of Iran’s network of militant proxies, its so-called axis of resistance, Iran’s strategy of arming and deploying proxy groups throughout the region is suddenly at risk as well.

Hizballah’s attacks put increasing pressure on Israel, as intended, only that pressure did not lead Israelis to stop targeting Hamas so much as it chipped away at Israel’s fears about the cost of military action to address the military threats posed by Hizballah.

At the same time, Levitt explains, Hizballah still poses a serious threat, as it demonstrated last night when its missiles struck Haifa and Tiberias, injuring at least two people:

Hizballah still maintains an arsenal of rockets and a cadre of several thousand fighters. It will continue to pose potent military threats for Israel, Lebanon, and the wider region.

How will the group seek to avenge Nasrallah’s death amid these military setbacks? Hizballah is likely to resort to acts of international terrorism, which are overseen by one of the few elements of the group that has not yet lost key leaders.

But the true measure of whether the group will be able to reconstitute itself, even over many years, is whether Iran can restock Hizballah’s sophisticated arsenal. Tehran’s network of proxy groups—from Hizballah to Hamas to the Houthis—is only as dangerous as it is today because of Iran’s provision of weapons and money. Whatever Hizballah does next, Western governments must prioritize cutting off Tehran’s ability to arm and fund its proxies.