America’s Oldest Synagogue and the Death of Abraham Lincoln

Meir Soloveichik reflects on the reaction of American Jews to Abraham Lincoln’s death, and the influence of Judaic ideas on Lincoln’s worldview:

Because the president died on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, the first utterances from the pulpit in response to the assassination were heard in synagogues. . . . One of the most striking—and indeed, controversial—moments took place in Congregation Shearith Israel, in New York, the oldest Jewish congregation in America. There, [as historian Isaac] Marken recounts, “the rabbi recited the Hashkabah (prayer for the dead) for Lincoln. This, according to the Jewish Messenger, was the first time that this prayer had been said in a Jewish house of worship for any other than those professing the Jewish religion.” This seeming deviation from tradition in Shearith Israel—known to this day for its fierce devotion to preserving religious and liturgical tradition—was noted by many. . . .

The prayer for Lincoln . . ., one of the first religious reactions to Lincoln’s death, embodied the belief in human equality that lay at the heart of Lincoln’s worldview: that this was a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the idea that all men are created equal. At the same time, the recitation of the prayer—which asks on behalf of the deceased for a “goodly portion in the life of the world to come”—also embodied the belief the members of Congregation Shearith Israel had in Lincoln’s spiritual immortality.

Read more at Weekly Standard

More about: Abraham Lincoln, Afterlife, American Jewish History, History & Ideas, Religion & Holidays, Shearith Israel

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF