A descendent of distinguished Protestant clergymen on both sides, Edmund Wilson (1895–1972) was a gifted journalist and perhaps the greatest American literary critic of his day. He began enthusiastically studying biblical Hebrew in the 1950s, and kept up his study for the remainder of his life. Writing for publications like the New Republic, Commentary, and the New York Review of Books, he also rubbed elbows with a number of prominent American Jewish intellectuals—not all of whom shared his views about Israel, of which, as Shalom Goldman writes, he “was an enthusiastic supporter.” Goldman continues:

What Wilson saw in the Jewish intellectual tradition was an affirmation of the scholarly, and an openness to criticism. As a representative of an American cultural world that he believed was disappearing, he sought allyship in the Jewish tradition. In his mind, what was noble about the American tradition was its “Hebraic” element. In Jewish culture he saw the possibility of American renewal or, at the very least, cultural preservation.

A bannerlike inscription in biblical Hebrew hung over his desk in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, and it was this phrase, Hazak hazak v’nithazek (“be strong and be strengthened” in Wilson’s translation), that is engraved on the base of his tombstone.

In his occasional excursions into short fiction, Wilson also took up Jewish themes. In Encounter, Wilson published a short story, “The Messiah at the Seder.” In that story the messiah appears in mid-20th-century Manhattan on the eve of Passover. He is invited to a seder on the Upper West Side. There he discovers that the fractious and contentious participants at the seder—which include a Freudian, a Marxist, and a religious thinker—are unable to accept that he is the redeemer. . . . This satire on the multiplicity of opinions in the Jewish world is anything but savage. The satirical effect is achieved with considerable subtlety and verve.

The short story is a delightful one and the most sensitive fictional portrait of Jewish life by a non-Jewish author that I’ve ever read.

Robert Clark explains why the resumption of hostilities is both just and necessary:

These latest Israeli strikes come after weeks of consistent Palestinian provocation; they have repeatedly broken the terms of the cease-fire which they claimed they were so desperate for. There have been numerous [unsuccessful] bus bombings near Tel Aviv and Palestinian-instigated clashes in the West Bank. Fifty-nine Israeli hostages are still held in captivity.

In fact, Hamas and their Palestinian supporters . . . have always known that they can sit back, parade dead Israeli hostages live on social media, and receive hundreds of their own convicted terrorists and murderers back in return. They believed they could get away with the October 7 pogrom.

One hopes Hamas’s leaders will get the message. Meanwhile, many inside and outside Israel seem to believe that, by resuming the fighting, Jerusalem has given up on rescuing the remaining hostages. But, writes Ron Ben-Yishai, this assertion misunderstands the goals of the present campaign. “Experience within the IDF and Israeli intelligence,” Ben-Yishai writes, “has shown that such pressure is the most effective way to push Hamas toward flexibility.” He outlines two other aims:

The second objective was to signal to Hamas that Israel is not only targeting its military wing—the terror army that was the focus of previous phases of the war up until the last cease-fire—but also its governance structure. This was demonstrated by the targeted elimination of five senior officials from Hamas’s political and civilian administration. . . . The strikes also served as a message to mediators, particularly Egypt, that Israel opposes Hamas remaining in any governing or military capacity in post-war Gaza.

The third objective was to create intense military pressure, coordinated with the U.S., on all remaining elements of the Shiite “axis of resistance,” including Yemen’s Houthis, Hamas, and Iran.