Now largely forgotten, Robert Nathan (1894–1985) was a prolific writer of fantasy novels who found commercial success in the 1920s and 30s. Michael Weingrad introduces him thus:

Nathan was a Jewish-American writer, but not in the way we tend to think of that category. He was not a product of the mass migration of Jews from Eastern Europe that took place during the last two decades of the 19th century and first two decades of the 20th, and that has so extensively shaped the very notions of Jewishness—and, for that matter, Americanness—in the United States to this day.

No, Nathan was born into one of the old, close-knit families of New York’s Sephardi Jewish aristocracy, with roots going back to the colonial period. He was a descendant of the eminent 18th-century rabbi Gershom Mendes Seixas, and related to both Emma Lazarus and Benjamin Cardozo. . . . Nathan attended private school in Switzerland and Philips Exeter Academy, and matriculated at Harvard, though he dropped out to get married—the first of seven marriages—and go to work in advertising.

Among his novels was Road of Ages, which Weingrad describes as a “Zionist allegorical fantasy.” Another, There Is Another Heaven, imagines Professor Wuthridge, a scholar of Semitics, and Mr. Lewis (né Samuel Levy), a convert to Christianity, arriving in a dystopian afterlife that exemplifies a sort of desiccated American Protestantism. Weingrad writes:

Wutheridge is curious as to why Lewis converted to Christianity. Lewis explains that it was largely out of a desire to escape exclusion and feel a sense of belonging, particularly given his sense of inferiority and shame about his family. “I was unhappy because nobody wanted me. Nobody, that is, except my family,” he says. “But who wanted my family? Nobody.” Christianity seemed a better option: “their religion gives them pleasure; while mine only keeps me out of things.” Yet his conversion did not give him the belonging he sought. In life he had acquaintances, but no friends. And in heaven he is all alone.

Lewis has a sweet vision of his family, on Friday evening with the Sabbath candles lighted. Memories of Jewish friends of his childhood are brought to him to show that valor and mystery were both part of his Jewish world, and not something he needed to seek elsewhere. There was a Jewish playmate who went on to die in the First World War: “he was a hero, Sammy,” Lewis hears. There was a “little girl who kissed you so sweetly.”

There Is Another Heaven is also a reminder that we often find among earlier generations of Sephardi writers in America a more intimate and comfortable relationship with Christianity than among the American Jewish mainstream with its East European origins.

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.