Having been an enthusiastic reader of the Encyclopedia Brown mysteries as a child, Andrew Silow-Carroll sometimes imagined what a Jewish version of the once-popular children’s books would be like. He recently discovered such a thing indeed exists, thanks to a collection of essays tilted Artifacts of Orthodox Childhoods, edited by the scholar Dainy Bernstein:

Gemarakup (roughly, “talmudic brain”) is a children’s book series created for the ḥaredi, or fervently Orthodox, market. Its hero, according to Volume 2, loves “solving mysteries, almost as much as he love[s] studying Torah” (note that “almost”).

Artifacts of Orthodox Childhood . . . is an introduction to a world that a non-Orthodox Jew like me may only have glimpsed through the window of a Borough Park Judaica store. Its titular artifacts are an alternative universe of pop culture: Lego-like sets featuring tiny rabbis in their studies and modestly dressed moms making challah; children’s songs that rework secular genres to teach sexual restraint and the power of prayer; a coloring book in which even Adam and Eve are fully dressed in the clothing of ḥasidic Jews.

The books, toys and songs are meant to reinforce values many of the authors find stifling, including strict gender segregation, narrowly prescribed roles for boys and girls, and distrust of outsiders. . . . Examples include The B.Y. Times, a haredi version of The Babysitters Club books (“sans boyfriends,” as contributor Meira Levinson points out) and the Devora Doresh mystery series, a cross between Nancy Drew and, yes, Encyclopedia Brown.

And yet, as Levinson explains in her essay on the Devora Doresh books, (gently) subversive messages can slip past the gatekeepers: created by Carol Korb Hubner, the books “feature an Orthodox Jewish girl having adventures of the kind that were otherwise normally limited either to Orthodox Jewish boys or non-Jewish girls.”

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.