On a day of grave news like today, it’s good to be able to end with a bit of poetry. The Argentine Jewish poet Juan Gelman (1930-2014), during a dark period in his country’s history, found himself drawn to the Jewish religious and literary tradition, and especially to the great works Spanish Jewry—from medieval poets like Samuel ha-Nagid to the 16th-mystic Isaac Luria. As Ilan Stavans explains, “Gelman, from the 1980s onward, rewrote scores of these sources in his own style. He wasn’t interested in translating them; his objective was to appropriate them flat out, projecting their echoes into our modern sensibility.” Gelman, a native Yiddish speaker, even studied Ladino and wrote a series of poems in that language.

Herewith, Stavans’s translation of Gelman’s take on a Hebrew prayer by the great poet-philosopher Judah Halevi (1075–1141):

you became my nest of love/and my love
lives where you live/the enemies
tormented me/let them be/let your ire be/
as long as I don’t find my path to you/
my bones tremble embracing a stranger/
the foreigner of his own skin/
let it be/
as long as you don’t absolve my pain/
seat me/redeem me/
rescue me from myself.

Israel’s goals of freeing the hostages and defeating Hamas (the latter necessary to prevent further hostage taking) are to some extent contradictory, since Yahya Sinwar, the ruler of the Gaza Strip, will only turn over hostages in exchange for concessions. But Jacob Nagel remains convinced that Jerusalem should continue to pursue both goals:

Only consistent military pressure on Hamas can lead to the hostages’ release, either through negotiation or military operation. There’s little chance of reaching a deal with Hamas using current approaches, including the latest Egyptian proposal. Israeli concessions would only encourage further pressure from Hamas.

There is no incentive for Hamas to agree to a deal, especially since it believes it can achieve its full objectives without one. Unfortunately, many contribute to this belief, mainly from outside of Israel, but also from within.

Recent months saw Israel mistakenly refraining from entering Rafah for several reasons. Initially, the main [reason was to try] to negotiate a deal with Hamas. However, as it became clear that Hamas was uninterested, and its only goal was to return to its situation before October 7—where Hamas and its leadership control Gaza, Israeli forces are out, and there are no changes in the borders—the deal didn’t mature.