Everyone knows that sometimes ghost writers compose books that appear under the names of politicians or celebrities. But I’m not sure what exactly a “ghost editor” would do. “The Ghost Editor” happens to be the title of a new Hebrew-language novel by Ariel Horowitz. Herewith, an excerpt, translated by Yardenne Greenspan:

“Mordechai Yavin-Jesselson, that’s my name. Feel free to also call me ‘Rabbi’ or ‘Professor.’ Neither offends me. No, not ‘Motti.’ Never ‘Motti.’ If you want to call someone Motti, why don’t you go downstairs and talk to the guy at the corner store? For years, people referred to me as Professor Jesselson. The old-timers at the institute, those who’d been here from the start—some came over with me from Cincinnati, others attended Brownswood Yeshiva with me, I’m talking about the mid-1950s—call me Marty, but they are dwindling, dying out. Just last week I went to Bernie Auman’s funeral. He worked in the office across from mine for 40 years.

“A glass bookcase at the lobby of the institute features every single book written by our scholars, including my books—I’ve written six and I love them all. I love them almost as if they were my children. Six books. That’s not nothing. A fine number. Some of them have even won awards. I’ve toiled over each and every one of them, and now I’m writing the last one. Once I finish it, there will be no more. A memoir. An autobiography. The story of my spiritual and intellectual journey—from my childhood in Brooklyn through my university studies, my rabbinical certification, making aliyah, founding the institute, and everything that came along with it. I might also write about Paulina, our family, thoughts of the future, about what’s going to happen after I’m gone, I don’t know yet.”

Addressing a recent meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Committee, Mahmoud Abbas criticized Hamas more sharply than he has previously (at least in public), calling them “sons of dogs.” The eighty-nine-year-old Palestinian Authority president urged the terrorist group to “stop the war of extermination in Gaza” and “hand over the American hostages.” The editors of the New York Sun comment:

Mr. Abbas has long been at odds with Hamas, which violently ousted his Fatah party from Gaza in 2007. The tone of today’s outburst, though, is new. Comparing rivals to canines, which Arabs consider dirty, is startling. Its motivation, though, was unrelated to the plight of the 59 remaining hostages, including 23 living ones. Instead, it was an attempt to use an opportune moment for reviving Abbas’s receding clout.

[W]hile Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians soared after its orgy of killing on October 7, 2023, it is now sinking. The terrorists are hoarding Gaza aid caches that Israel declines to replenish. As the war drags on, anti-Hamas protests rage across the Strip. Polls show that Hamas’s previously elevated support among West Bank Arabs is also down. Striking the iron while it’s hot, Abbas apparently longs to retake center stage. Can he?

Diminishing support for Hamas is yet to match the contempt Arabs feel toward Abbas himself. Hamas considers him irrelevant for what it calls “the resistance.”

[Meanwhile], Abbas is yet to condemn Hamas’s October 7 massacre. His recent announcement of ending alms for terror is a ruse.

Abbas, it’s worth noting, hasn’t saved all his epithets for Hamas. He also twice said of the Americans, “may their fathers be cursed.” Of course, after a long career of anti-Semitic incitement, Abbas can’t be expected to have a moral awakening. Nor is there much incentive for him to fake one. But, like the protests in Gaza, Abbas’s recent diatribe is a sign that Hamas is perceived as weak and that its stock is sinking.