In the 1920s, the Soviet Union authorized Jewish sections of the Communist Party to bring government propaganda, often in Yiddish, to the Jewish masses; the same bureaucrats also worked to discourage, sometimes forcibly, Jewish belief and practice. Henry Abramson describes an attempt to turn Passover into a secular, socialist holiday:

Recognizing the powerful hold that religion had on Soviet Jews, the Jewish sections . . . attempted to co-opt the population by capturing and transforming Jewish traditions and texts, including the Passover Haggadah. Called “Red Haggadahs,” several were published in the 1920s with the explicit goal of replacing belief in God with faith in the Soviet Union. . . .

The traditional text . . . reads . . . “If the Holy One, Blessed be He, did not take our ancestors out of Egypt, then we, our children, and our children’s children would remain slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.” The officially atheistic Soviet Union could not tolerate such a passage, so the text of a Red Haggadah read instead: “We were slaves to capitalism until October [i.e., the Communist Revolution of 1917] led us out of the land of exploitation with a strong hand. Were it not for October, we and our children would still be slaves.” . . .

At the seder’s conclusion, Jews famously proclaim “This year we are here—next year in Jerusalem!” Following the Red Haggadah, participants at the seder are urged to pronounce, “This year, we have revolution in this land—next year we will have a world revolution!”

Tamir Hayman analyzes the latest reports about an offer by Hamas to release three female soldiers in exchange for 150 captured terrorists, of whom 90 have received life sentences; then, if that exchange happens successfully, a second stage of the deal will begin.

If this does happen, Israel will release all the serious prisoners who had been sentenced to life and who are associated with Hamas, which will leave Israel without any bargaining chips for the second stage. In practice, Israel will release everyone who is important to Hamas without getting back all the hostages. In this situation, it’s evident that Israel will approach the second stage of the negotiations in the most unfavorable way possible. Hamas will achieve all its demands in the first stage, except for a commitment from Israel to end the war completely.

How does this relate to the fighting in Rafah? Hayman explains:

In the absence of an agreement or compromise by Hamas, it is detrimental for Israel to continue the static situation we were in. It is positive that new energy has entered the campaign. . . . The [capture of the] border of the Gaza Strip and the Rafah crossing are extremely important achievements, while the ongoing dismantling of the battalions is of secondary importance.

That being said, Hayman is critical of the approach to negotiations taken so far:

Gradual hostage trades don’t work. We must adopt a different concept of a single deal in which Israel offers a complete cessation of the war in exchange for all the hostages.