When asked what makes a work of fiction qualify as Jewish literature, Philip Roth famously replied that a book is Jewish “if it doesn’t shut up.” Regardless of whether they accept this answer, many readers believe that Jewish literature exists as a meaningful category. Adam Kirsch, in conversation with Abraham Socher, explores the question of what could possibly unite such disparate authors as Susan Sontag, Amos Oz, Franz Kafka, and Cynthia Ozick. Drawing on his recent book on the subject, Kirsch takes a literary tour through time that begins with Kafka and his fellow Hapsburg subject Arthur Schnitzler, through the golden age of American Jewish writers—exemplified by Saul Bellow, Roth, and Ozick—and beyond. (Video, 64 minutes.)

Commenting on the wave of anti-Hamas demonstrations in the Gaza Strip, Seth Mandel writes:

Gazans have not have been fully honest in public. There’s a reason for that. To take just one example, Amin Abed was nearly beaten to death with hammers for criticizing Hamas. Abed was saved by bystanders, so presumably the intention was to finish him off. During the cease-fire, Hamas members bragged about executing “collaborators” and filmed themselves shooting civilians.

Which is what makes yesterday’s protests all the more significant. To protest Hamas in public is to take one’s life in one’s hands. That is especially true because the protests were bound to be filmed, in order to get the message out to the world. The reason the world needs to hear that message is that Westerners have been Hamas’s willing propaganda tools. The protests on campus are not “pro-Palestinian,” they are pro-Hamas—and the people of Gaza are Hamas’s victims.