The artist Marc Chagall left the Belarusian city of Vitebsk in 1922. Although he spent most of the remainder of his life in France and the U.S., scenes of Jewish life in his native city provided subject matter for much of his artistic work. Only recently, however, has Vitebsk begun to remember Chagall, as Celestine Bohlen writes:

Today, all that remains of [the artist’s] neighborhood is Chagall’s one-story childhood home, now an evocative museum that bears witness to a life once sheltered by family, tradition, and culture—all of it gone. Across the river, a handsome Chagall Arts Center holds a collection of his graphic works, donated by the artist’s family and friends.

Chagall’s legacy is publicly honored here today, but it took a long time. For half a century, long after his work had been celebrated around the world, he was scorned by the Soviet cultural establishment for both his dreamy modernism and his Jewishness. He was listed in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia as a “French painter and graphic artist.”

In 1987, on the centenary of his birth, at a time when Soviet taboos were being swept away by glasnost, a leading Moscow museum honored him with a major exhibition, but in Vitebsk, his name still inspired contempt. “Chagall doesn’t suit us politically,” said a local Communist boss back then. “He’s a Zionist.”

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.