Reviewing the recently released English-language Complete Works of Primo Levi, Alvin Rosenfeld tackles the two major questions that remain about the Holocaust survivor, author, and chemist. Was his death in 1987 a suicide, as is the opinion of most biographers and the Italian authorities, or an accident? And to what extent should this assimilated and unbelieving Italian Jew, who famously declared “at Auschwitz I became a Jew,” be considered a Jewish writer? On the first question, Rosenfeld—basing himself not only on Levi’s correspondence and the accounts of his friends, but also on the literary evidence found in his final book, the haunted and guilt-ridden The Drowned and the Saved—sides with those who believe Levi’s death to have been self-inflicted. On the second, Rosenfeld writes:

During his time in the camp, Levi was thrown together with large numbers of East European Jews. The Ashkenazi culture they represented was barely known to him, and much about it both baffled and intrigued him. As chronicled in The Truce, his many months of wandering through Eastern Europe opened his eyes to “an exploded, mortally wounded Jewish world.”

Once back in Italy, he spent years investigating and paying tribute to the richness and nobility of that world. He taught himself Yiddish, picked up more Hebrew, and deepened his knowledge of Jewish folklore and folkways, Jewish humor, theater, and music, and Jewish texts. References to the Bible and Talmud, the Passover Haggadah and Shulḥan Arukh, Sholem Aleichem and Isaac Bashevis Singer appear in the Complete Works; the title of If Not Now, When? is, of course, taken from Hillel’s famous saying in Pirkei Avot.

He also wrote about Itzhak Katzenelson, Franz Kafka, Paul Celan, Léon Poliakov, and other Jewish writers. In sum, in the post-war decades Levi read and wrote his way into a Jewish cultural patrimony that was broader and richer than anything he had known in his early years. It shaped his sensibility as a man and author and also directed the response of many of his readers in ways that gratified him. . . . “[A]s a result of having been defined as a Jewish writer,” [Levi wrote], “I actually became one.”

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.