On display at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan through August 13, The Sassoons draws from the collection of the titular family, whose 19th-century commercial ventures won them great wealth, first in India and later in London. Ari Hoffman writes:

To walk into The Sassoons at the Jewish Museum is to time travel to an age when Jews from Baghdad traded opium at Beijing and bolts of cotton from Mumbai. . . . Outside of the Sassoon vault you are unlikely to see paintings by John Singer Sargent and Winston Churchill cohabitate with Karaite prayer books and Samaritan calendars, which in turn share space with Yuan-dynasty scrolls. This is eclecticism, and, it must be acknowledged, empire, at its most exquisite.

The story of the Sassoons begins in earnest with David, who served as Baghdad’s treasurer before leading the family to India when the tolerance of the pashas for Jews wore thin. He is captured in a luminous portrait attributed to William Melville, who worked in the 1840s. He wears a beige turban and robe, striped with reds and blues. This is an eminence, a 19th-century Moses who has led his family to safe harbor at Mumbai, here a peek of azure background.

Sargent, whose portraits structure the show like a spine, does painterly justice to Aline de Rothschild, Lady Sassoon. . . . Sargent also painted Sybil Sassoon, the countess of Rocksavage and Aline’s daughter. Charcoal sketches trace him finding his form before executing an oil portrait for her marriage. . . . The painting marks a contrast with, and a journey from, the k’tubot—marriage contracts—and Torah scrolls from old Baghdad. Those are just one room, and a world, away.

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.