In a recent novel, Alexis Landau follows the lives of a German Jew, his Gentile wife, and their two children through World War I and the 1920s. Adam Kirsch writes in his review:

Picking up a book with the lush title The Empire of the Senses, you probably wouldn’t guess that it was a historical novel about German Jews in the early 20th century. Given the inevitable conclusion of any such story in the Holocaust, a title with words like “darkness” or “shadow” or “fate” might seem more appropriate. But in her richly appointed debut novel, Alexis Landau deliberately defies such expectations. Life at any time and place, her title and her prose seem to say, is full of sensual beauty, if you choose to live it that way and write about it that way. And her book functions as a kind of extended séance, conjuring up the look and feel of experiences from the glamorous—a decadent party in Weimar Berlin—to the arduous—a field hospital on the eastern front. . . .

For German Jews, the period Landau writes about was an Indian summer. Never were they more prosperous or seemingly accepted; under the democratic Weimar regime, Jews made great strides in law, academia, medicine, and business. Yet there are plenty of signs of trouble on the horizon, from the “Jewish census” conducted during World War I to make sure Jews weren’t slacking in their military duty, to the postwar street battles involving young members of the SA, the Nazi militia.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.