A descendent of distinguished Protestant clergymen on both sides, Edmund Wilson (1895–1972) was a gifted journalist and perhaps the greatest American literary critic of his day. He began enthusiastically studying biblical Hebrew in the 1950s, and kept up his study for the remainder of his life. Writing for publications like the New Republic, Commentary, and the New York Review of Books, he also rubbed elbows with a number of prominent American Jewish intellectuals—not all of whom shared his views about Israel, of which, as Shalom Goldman writes, he “was an enthusiastic supporter.” Goldman continues:

What Wilson saw in the Jewish intellectual tradition was an affirmation of the scholarly, and an openness to criticism. As a representative of an American cultural world that he believed was disappearing, he sought allyship in the Jewish tradition. In his mind, what was noble about the American tradition was its “Hebraic” element. In Jewish culture he saw the possibility of American renewal or, at the very least, cultural preservation.

A bannerlike inscription in biblical Hebrew hung over his desk in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, and it was this phrase, Hazak hazak v’nithazek (“be strong and be strengthened” in Wilson’s translation), that is engraved on the base of his tombstone.

In his occasional excursions into short fiction, Wilson also took up Jewish themes. In Encounter, Wilson published a short story, “The Messiah at the Seder.” In that story the messiah appears in mid-20th-century Manhattan on the eve of Passover. He is invited to a seder on the Upper West Side. There he discovers that the fractious and contentious participants at the seder—which include a Freudian, a Marxist, and a religious thinker—are unable to accept that he is the redeemer. . . . This satire on the multiplicity of opinions in the Jewish world is anything but savage. The satirical effect is achieved with considerable subtlety and verve.

The short story is a delightful one and the most sensitive fictional portrait of Jewish life by a non-Jewish author that I’ve ever read.

The Biden administration’s apparent abandonment of Israel is matched by the White House’s feckless handling of rising anti-Semitism. Seth Mandel explains:

On Thursday, May 2, Biden made public remarks condemning the campus pro-Hamas protests. The very next day, major Jewish groups pulled out of a White House meeting on anti-Semitism with [the domestic policy adviser Neera] Tanden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. The reason? Jewish activists who have spent their careers opposing Israel, attacking the Jewish community, and now supporting the very anti-Semitic demonstrations [the meeting was called to address] were added to the meeting after the mainstream groups had already accepted.

When Joe Biden speaks about anti-Semitism, he usually says the right words. But in charge of his deeds, he has put political incompetents manifestly unqualified for this responsibility. He should fix that immediately, because his speeches won’t much matter without a way to implement the ideas animating them.