Of Genomes and Jews

A recent collection of essays, Jews and Genes, addresses the implications for Jewish identity and Jewish peoplehood of recent discoveries in the field of genetics. Jonathan Kirsch writes in his review:

Significantly, some of the richest and most provocative essays in the collection have nothing to do with science. For example, Yosef Leibowitz . . . deconstructs the text of Genesis to extract the distinction between “the nature of the human soul and the image of God within it.” Leibowitz argues that the power bestowed upon humankind by the Creator is always checked by moral boundaries, and the constant tension that exists between power and morality “lie[s] at the core of our humanity.” Contrary to many of his fellow contributors, Leibowitz concludes with an unsettling question: “If God’s ‘image’ is within us so long as our physical bodies are here to embrace it, are we to nurture and protect it from the moment of the first living cell until the last?”

Read more at Jewish Journal

More about: Abortion, Genesis, Genetics, History & Ideas, Judaism

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF