Jiří (or Georg) Mordechai Langer forsook his bourgeois Jewish upbringing in Prague for a life of strict religious observance, studying in the hasidic centers of Poland. He later became a committed Zionist. But he is best known for his books on Jewish mysticism, which helped introduce hasidic thought to Western Jews, and for his friendship with Franz Kafka, whom he tutored in Hebrew. Langer was also a talented Hebrew poet. A collection of his poetry has now been translated into Hebrew, along with a biographical study, by Elana Wolff, that also explores the previously unexamined subject of his sexuality. Kenneth Sherman writes:

The collection Piyyutim ve-Shirei Yedidot is a sequence of sixteen poems written in Hebrew. . . with titles such as “Handsome Lad” and “To My Companion.” Their homoerotic imagery point[s] to the fact that Langer was gay—an item not mentioned by any of Kafka’s biographers. Langer’s older brother, František, who knew of his brother’s sexual orientation and whose Foreword to the English translation of [Langer’s] Nine Gates remains a prime source of biographical information, is also mum on the subject. The omission would hardly matter, except that Langer’s sexuality was an essential part of his art and philosophy. [His biographer Elana]Wolff calls Langer’s disclosure of his homosexuality through his poetry “a daring act of self-expression.”

On the same day the cease-fire went into effect along the Israel-Lebanon border, rebel forces launched an unexpected offensive, and within a few days captured much of Aleppo. This lightening advance originated in the northwestern part of the country, which has been relatively quiet over the past four years, since Bashar al-Assad effectively gave up on restoring control over the remaining rebel enclaves in the area. The fighting comes at an inopportune moment for the powers that Damascus has called on for help in the past: Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and Hizballah has been shattered.

But the situation is extremely complex. David Wurmser points to the dangers that lie ahead:

The desolation wrought on Hizballah by Israel, and the humiliation inflicted on Iran, has not only left the Iranian axis exposed to Israeli power and further withering. It has altered the strategic tectonics of the Middle East. The story is not just Iran anymore. The region is showing the first signs of tremendous geopolitical change. And the plates are beginning to move.

The removal of the religious-totalitarian tyranny of the Iranian regime remains the greatest strategic imperative in the region for the United States and its allies, foremost among whom stands Israel. . . . However, as Iran’s regime descends into the graveyard of history, it is important not to neglect the emergence of other, new threats. navigating the new reality taking shape.

The retreat of the Syrian Assad regime from Aleppo in the face of Turkish-backed, partly Islamist rebels made from remnants of Islamic State is an early skirmish in this new strategic reality. Aleppo is falling to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS—a descendant of Nusra Front led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani, himself a graduate of al-Qaeda’s system and cobbled together of IS elements. Behind this force is the power of nearby Turkey.