Anyone used to eating at upscale, or even less-than-upscale, establishments is apt to find most kosher eateries overpriced, the tables too close together, and the service less than exemplary—even when the food is very good. Anna Rahmanan explores why this might be so:

“Kosher restaurants can’t be open 365 days a year—the number is probably closer to 200-and-something because of Shabbat and all the holidays,” explained [the kosher-food blogger] Dani Klein. “Right off the bat, then, they are losing almost 30 percent of the year.” It is only logical, then, that to be financially viable, kosher restaurants have to earn more than similar non-kosher establishments during the days that they are fully operational.

In addition to buying kosher ingredients, restaurateurs . . . have to pay for kosher-certification and a mashgiaḥ (basically, a supervisor who will make sure all kitchen-related activities abide by kashrut laws), [which] can cost upwards of $100,000 a year. To account for these additional expenditures, a lot of kosher eateries end up cutting corners in other aspects of the business, such as service, and, of course, raising the price of their dishes.

Add to it all the fact that finding waiters, chefs, and busboys willing not to work on Fridays and Saturdays—historically, the busiest and most tip-heavy days for a restaurant—automatically lessens the quality of the staff, and you’ve got yourself a pretty dire situation.

Even in cities like New York, where kosher restaurants are abundant in number, strictly kosher customers are relatively forgiving: no matter how bad the food or the experience as a whole, the majority of consumers tend to go back to an eatery because, after all, there are only so many kosher ones around.

Critics of the American bombing raid on Iran have warned that it could lead to dangerous retaliation, and risk dragging the U.S. into a broader conflict. (How this could be a greater risk than allowing the murderous fanatics who govern Iran to have nuclear weapons is a separate question.) Yesterday, Iran indeed retaliated. Noah Rothman writes:

On Monday, Iranian state media released a high-production-value video revealing [the government’s] intention to strike U.S. forces inside neighboring Qatar. A bombastic statement from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council accompanying the video claimed that Iran had launched a salvo of ten missiles at the U.S.-manned Al Udeid Air Base, which “pulverized” American forces. In reality, the missiles seem to have all been intercepted before they reached their targets. No casualties have been reported.

In fact, the Iranians quietly gave Qatar—the Gulf state with which they have the best relations—advance warning of the attack, knowing that the Qataris would then pass it on to the U.S. Thus prepared, American forces were able to minimize the damage. Rothman continues:

So far, Iran’s retaliatory response to U.S. strikes on its nuclear program looks a lot like its reaction to the 2020 attack that killed the Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Suleimani—which is to say that it seems like Tehran is seeking an offramp to avoid a potentially existential conflict with the United States.

Now, it’s important to note that this is only a face-saving climb-down if that’s how we want to interpret it. The only reason why we remember the Iranian operation aimed at avenging Soleimani’s death as a cease-fire overture is because we decided to take it that way. We didn’t have to do that. One-hundred-and-ten U.S. service personnel were treated for injuries as a result of that direct and unprecedented ballistic-missile attack on U.S. forces in Iraq. . . . The U.S. could have regarded that strike as an unacceptable precedent, but the Trump administration had made its point. By simply deeming deterrence to have been restored, the U.S. helped bring that condition about.

It appears that is precisely what the U.S. has done this time. Last night both Washington and Tehran announced a cease-fire, one that includes Israel. Whether it will hold remains to be seen; Iran already managed to get in a deadly, eleventh-hour attack on civilians in Beersheba. If Jerusalem knew such an arrangement was in the cards—and there is every reason to think it did—then its military activities over the past few days start to make a great deal of sense.

Since June 13, there has been some lack of clarity about whether Israel’s goal is to destroy Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile capabilities, or to destabilize the regime. Now it seems that the IDF has been doing precisely what it has done in the final phase of almost every prior war: try to inflict as much damage as possible upon the enemy’s military infrastructure before the U.S. blows the whistle and declares the war over—thus reestablishing deterrence and leaving its enemy’s offensive capabilities severely weakened.

In the next item, I’ll turn to some of the nonmilitary targets Israel chose.