The protagonist of Children of the Ghetto, an immensely popular novel by the fin-de-siècle Anglo-Jewish writer Israel Zangwill, is Esther Ansell, a poor Jewish girl from an immigrant neighborhood who grows up to write an acclaimed novel of her own. An unsentimental depiction of the Jewish nouveaux riches, Ansell’s fictional novel is lambasted by her fellow Jews, who see it as lending credence to anti-Semitic stereotypes. While Zangwill would attract similar criticism for Children of the Ghetto, the inspiration for Ansell was an English author and poetess by the name of Amy Levy (1862-1889). Emma Garman writes:

During her short career, [Levy] published three volumes of poetry and three novels, and contributed journalism and short stories to periodicals including the Gentleman’s Magazine and Oscar Wilde’s Women’s World. Once hailed as a genius by Wilde, today Levy is little-known outside academic and poetic circles. . . .

In 1886, the British newspaper the Jewish Chronicle had published Levy’s essay “The Jew in Fiction,” wherein the twenty-four-year-old argued that no novelist had made a serious attempt “at grappling in its entirety with the complex problems of Jewish life and Jewish character. The Jew, as we know him today . . . has been found worthy of none but the most superficial observation.” Guilty of superficial portrayals, she charged, were Sir Walter Scott, [Charles] Dickens, and [William Makepeace] Thackeray. As for George Eliot, though Daniel Deronda was celebrated as the first Zionist novel in English literature, Levy dismissed its Jewish characters as unrealistic and overly noble. . . .

[Zangwill’s] Esther Ansell pays tribute to [Levy’s novel] Reuben Sachs, [which] focuses on an extended Jewish family who, living in bourgeois London splendor, overvalue success and prosperity while neglecting their spiritual and intellectual heritage. As such, they are a deliberate counterpoint to Eliot’s virtuous and idealized Jews. . . .

Reuben Sachs caused a dreadful scandal, with Levy accused in various quarters of vitriol and hatred of her own community. “She apparently delights in the task of persuading the general public,” wrote the reviewer for Jewish World, “that her own kith and kin are the most hideous types of vulgarity.”

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.