In the United Kingdom, most ultra-Orthodox schools operate as public institutions and are therefore subjected to frequent scrutiny by the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED). Recently this has caused particular friction because these schools refuse to comply with requirements that they teach elementary-school students about homosexuality, transgenderism, and so forth. Ḥaredi schools have received frequent surprise inspections during which students were asked invasive questions about sex and “lifestyle choices,” to the consternation of teachers, parents, and administrators. Thus British Ḥaredim are understandably relieved that OFSTED ruled last month that their elementary schools would no longer be under pressure to teach about same-sex marriage. Eli Spitzer argues, however, that these schools now face a reckoning:

[OFSTED’s] move finally frees good ḥaredi primary schools from being punished for complying with the wishes of their parent bodies. Of course, the updated guidance leaves secondary-schools stuck in the same bind, but it is nevertheless a welcome step forward and long-overdue relief for school leaders.

The most important thing about this policy change, however, is not that it puts an end to the persecution of good primary schools. Even more crucially, it removes the fig leaf used by the bad ones, which, let us not forget, represent the majority of ḥaredi boys’ schools. For the last seven years, school leaders presiding over chaotic and ineffective Chol [secular-studies] departments have used the specter of a secularist campaign to sexualize children as a smokescreen for their failure to teach children how to read and write. Now that schools will be judged solely on criteria that are important to ordinary ḥaredi parents, they have no legitimate excuses left.

This has the potential to be a real turning point for our community. When I first became involved in secular education [at Orthodox schools], I found a culture of apathy, [but since then] the whole tone of the conversation about secular studies has been transformed. There are, of course, still extremists in the community who regard English literacy as intrinsically evil, but the consensus in most elementary schools is that secular studies are important, they are here to stay, and they need to be fixed.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.