The portrait of the Jewish gangster Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby, along with other passages and comments in his writings, suggest that F. Scott Fitzgerald was less than well-disposed toward Jews. But in the last year of his life he employed a Jewish secretary—Frances Kroll Ring, who died last month—and was involved with a Jewish woman. Arthur Krystal suggests they might have changed his attitude:

In the summer of 1939 [around the time he hired Ring], Fitzgerald started to work in earnest on his Hollywood novel, the unfinished The Last Tycoon, in which the hero, Monroe Stahr, is based on Irving Thalberg. Although Stahr’s Jewishness is occasionally alluded to, it’s never disparaged. At one point, a director gazes . . . at Stahr and muses, “He had worked with Jews too long to believe legends that they were small with money.” Elsewhere, the narrator describes Stahr enigmatically as “a rationalist who did his own reasoning without benefit of books—and had just managed to climb out of a thousand years of Jewry into the late 18th century.” It’s hard to know what Fitzgerald meant by this. Was Stahr among the few Jews capable of making the transition from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment? In that case, the remark has a distinctly condescending flavor. And why the tail end of the Enlightenment rather than the middle? Every once in a while, you have to wonder if maybe Hemingway was right: Fitzgerald really “couldn’t think.”

That line aside, there’s no trace of anti-Semitism in the novel. Stahr is admirable in almost every respect. . . . It might be that Fitzgerald was now compensating for his distasteful portrayal of Wolfsheim, or maybe he didn’t want to be labeled anti-Semitic in an industry populated by Jews, or maybe he was mindful of what was going on in Europe in 1939. Or just maybe the fact that he spent the greater part of his days and nights with two Jewish women contributed to his portrait of Stahr.

On Tuesday, representatives of Hamas met with their counterparts from Fatah—the faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) once led by Yasir Arafat that now governs parts of the West Bank—in Beijing to discuss possible reconciliation. While it is unlikely that these talks will yield any more progress than the many previous rounds, they constitute a significant step in China’s increasing attempts to involve itself in the Middle East on the side of Israel’s enemies.

By contrast, writes Tuvia Gering, Taiwan has been quick and consistent in its condemnations of Hamas and Iran and its expressions of sympathy with Israel:

Support from Taipei goes beyond words. Taiwan’s appointee in Tel Aviv and de-facto ambassador, Abby Lee, has been busy aiding hostage families, adopting the most affected kibbutzim in southern Israel, and volunteering with farmers. Taiwan recently pledged more than half a million dollars to Israel for critical initiatives, including medical and communications supplies for local municipalities. This follows earlier aid from Taiwan to an organization helping Israeli soldiers and families immediately after the October 7 attack.

The reasons why are not hard to fathom:

In many ways, Taiwan sees a reflection of itself in Israel—two vibrant democracies facing threats from hostile neighbors. Both nations wield substantial economic and technological prowess, and both heavily depend on U.S. military exports and diplomacy. Taipei also sees Israel as a “role model” for what Taiwan should aspire to be, citing its unwavering determination and capabilities to defend itself.

On a deeper level, Taiwanese leaders seem to view Israel’s war with Hamas and Iran as an extension of a greater struggle between democracy and autocracy.

Gering urges Israel to reciprocate these expressions of friendship and to take into account that “China has been going above and beyond to demonize the Jewish state in international forums.” Above all, he writes, Jerusalem should “take a firmer stance against China’s support for Hamas and Iran-backed terrorism, exposing the hypocrisy and repression that underpin its vision for a new global order.”