The city of Shanghai recently applied to have its former Jewish quarter added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. During World War II, the city, by then under Japanese occupation, became home to some 20,000 European Jewish refugees. In 1943, Japan succumbed to German pressure and forced the Jews into a ghetto. Although they suffered from disease, poor sanitary conditions, and lack of food, Shanghai’s Jews were far better off than their brethren in European ghettos. Gabe Friedman and Julie Wiener revisit their history:

[T]he first German Jewish refugees, many of them doctors and dentists, arrived soon after Hitler’s rise to power. The local community was apparently so grateful for the professional skills these refugees brought that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency headlined a 1934 article “German Jewish doctors cause China to be grateful to the Nazis.” . . . [A]n American journalist working in China said approximately 100 Jewish doctors had set up practices in Shanghai. . . .

In 1937, Japan’s occupation of China brought both good and bad news for Jews there. On the bad side, the conquest of Shanghai was preceded by months of fighting, and during that period . . . Shanghai rabbis reported the situation of the Jews was “desperate.” . . . On the plus side, under Japanese occupation, Shanghai became an “open city,” providing a haven for thousands of Jews with nowhere else to go.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”