JTA — After a century-old synagogue in Essen, Germany, was struck by two bullets last November, news reports connected it to the shooting at a synagogue in Halle three years earlier that had been perpetrated by a far-right German extremist. Last summer, as a record number of Israelis visited Turkey, Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad, and its Turkish counterpart, hunted through Istanbul for an Iranian cell. AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members