Filling seven volumes, the French novelist Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is widely considered one of the great masterpieces of the 20th century. Several of the work’s characters, including one of the most important, Charles Swann, are Jews, and Proust himself was the baptized son of a Catholic father and Jewish mother. According to one of his biographers, notes Joseph Epstein, he “never thought himself a Jew, though he did not protest being called one—and yet this did not, of course, stop others from considering him a perfect example of the Jews of that day.”

Epstein asks, “to what extent did Marcel Proust’s Jewishness contribute to the making of In Search of Lost Time?”

Proust, while theologically uninterested in Judaism, thought Jewishly. By thinking Jewishly, I mean that in [his writing he] showed an essentially Jewish point of view—a slightly self-deprecating, sometimes comic, yet ultimately serious view of the world. In our time, not all Jewish writers had it. Saul Bellow did; Norman Mailer, who in his penchant for violence and hipness wasn’t especially keen on being a Jew, didn’t; Bernard Malamud did; Philip Roth, who viewed the world through a rather coarse Freudianism and callow liberal politics, also didn’t; among poets, Karl Shapiro had it, while Allen Ginsberg distinctly did not, as Gregory Corso or Lawrence Ferlinghetti could as easily have written “Howl.”

In the end, there is something ineluctably Jewish about his novel. Proust’s maternal family was well established among French Jews, to the point of having its members buried in the Jewish section of the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. At his mother’s death in 1905, Proust sought a Jewish burial for her, with a rabbi in attendance to say the mourner’s kaddish.

The author of this In Search of Lost Time is someone who calibrated every element of status in French society and did so with just that modicum of insecurity that a less than altogether secure status itself makes possible. . . . In Search of Lost Time could have been written only by a Jew.

On Monday night, the IDF struck a group of Hamas operatives near the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis, the main city in southern Gaza. The very fact of this attack was reassuring, as it suggested that the release of Edan Alexander didn’t come with restraints on Israeli military activity. Then, yesterday afternoon, Israeli jets carried out another, larger attack on Khan Yunis, hitting a site where it believed Mohammad Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza, to be hiding. The IDF has not yet confirmed that he was present. There is some hope that the death of Sinwar—who replaced his older brother Yahya after he was killed last year—could have a debilitating effect on Hamas.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is visiting the Persian Gulf, and it’s unclear how his diplomatic efforts there will affect Israel, its war with Hamas, and Iran. For its part, Jerusalem has committed to resume full-scale operations in Gaza after President Trump returns to the U.S. But, Gabi Simoni and Erez Winner explain, Israel does not have unlimited time to defeat Hamas:

Israel faces persistent security challenges across multiple fronts—Iran, the West Bank, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon—all demanding significant military resources, especially during periods of escalation. . . . Failing to achieve a decisive victory not only prolongs the conflict but also drains national resources and threatens Israel’s ability to obtain its strategic goals.

Only a swift, forceful military campaign can achieve the war’s objectives: securing the hostages’ release, ensuring Israeli citizens’ safety, and preventing future kidnappings. Avoiding such action won’t just prolong the suffering of the hostages and deepen public uncertainty—it will also drain national resources and weaken Israel’s standing in the region and beyond.

We recommend launching an intense military operation in Gaza without delay, with clear, measurable objectives—crippling Hamas’s military and governance capabilities and securing the release of hostages. Such a campaign should combine military pressure with indirect negotiations, maximizing the chances of a successful outcome while minimizing risks.

Crucially, the operation must be closely coordinated with the United States and moderate Arab states to reduce international pressure and preserve the gains of regional alliances.