Although he was an advocate of religious toleration, the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, like his counterparts in Germany, fervently opposed religion altogether in the name of reason. He was thus no friend of the Jews, believing that their “impertinent fables,” which were at permanent odds with reason, might one day make them “deadly to the human race.” Tracing the history of Enlightenment attitudes toward the Jews through the lens of attitudes toward religion, Gertrude Himmelfarb explains why, by contrast, Jews have fared so well in America:

If Americans can take any comfort in [the history of European philosophers’ anti-Semitism], it is in the thought of how exceptional (as we now say) American history has been—among other things, how different the American Enlightenment and Revolution were from those of the French. Far from seeing reason as antithetical to religion, American thinkers and statesmen, before and after the Revolution, believed reason to be entirely compatible with religion and religion an integral part of society. It was just eight years before Bruno Bauer’s [essay] “The Jewish Question,” [which also took Judaism as the most pernicious example of the evils of religion], that Alexis de Tocqueville decisively refuted it, at least with respect to America.

Unlike the philosophes, he wrote, who believed that “religious zeal .  .  . will be extinguished as freedom and enlightenment increase,” Americans thought religion an ally of both freedom and enlightenment. The first thing that struck Tocqueville on his arrival in the United States was the religious nature of the country. “Among us [the French] I had seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom almost always move in contrary directions. Here I found them united intimately with one another; they reigned together on the same soil.” The country where Christianity was most influential, he noted, was also “the most enlightened and free.”

Tocqueville, without ever mentioning Jews, may have had the last word on the Jewish question, as he did on so many others.

Ron Ben-Yishai, reporting from a visit to IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, analyzes the state of the fighting, and “the persistent challenge of eradicating an entrenched enemy in a complex urban terrain.”

Hamas, sensing the war’s end, is mounting a final effort to inflict casualties. The IDF now controls 65 percent of Gaza’s territory operationally, with observation, fire dominance, and relative freedom of movement, alongside systematic tunnel destruction. . . . Major P, a reserve company commander, says, “It’s frustrating to hear at home that we’re stagnating. The public doesn’t get that if we stop, Hamas will recover.”

Senior IDF officers cite two reasons for the slow progress: meticulous care to protect hostages, requiring cautious movement and constant intelligence gathering, and avoiding heavy losses, with 22 soldiers killed since June.

Two-and-a-half of Hamas’s five brigades have been dismantled, yet a new hostage deal and IDF withdrawal could allow Hamas to regroup. . . . Hamas is at its lowest military and governing point since its founding, reduced to a fragmented guerrilla force. Yet, without complete disarmament and infrastructure destruction, it could resurge as a threat in years.

At the same time, Ben-Yishai observes, not everything hangs on the IDF:

According to the Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman, the IDF is close to completing its objectives. In classical military terms, “defeat” means the enemy surrenders—but with a jihadist organization, the benchmark is its ability to operate against Israel.

Despite [the IDF’s] battlefield successes, the broader strategic outcome—especially regarding the hostages—now hinges on decisions from the political leadership. “We’ve done our part,” said a senior officer. “We’ve reached a crossroads where the government must decide where it wants to go—both on the hostage issue and on Gaza’s future.”