The island nation of Cape Verde, an archipelago some 300 miles off the coast of Senegal, was first settled by Portuguese colonists in the 15th century, and only gained independence in 1975. In the 19th century, Sephardi Jews whose ancestors had fled persecution in Spain and Portugal four centuries earlier began to migrate there. Now all that remains of the Jewish community are graves, which a group of American Jews and Cape Verdeans is trying to preserve. Rosanne Skirble writes:

Four cemeteries were identified for restoration. Modeled after Jewish burial grounds in Morocco, each has white horizontal stones with inscriptions in Hebrew and Portuguese. All [have] languished and were in various stages of deterioration. One was overrun with grasses and weeds, so much so that the graves were barely visible. . . .

Archival records [suggest] that about 100 Jewish settlers immigrated to Cape Verde. The small Jewish cemeteries scattered in the islands contain dozens of graves. Cape Verde’s [current] population hovers around 550,000. Among them, more than 1,000 claim Jewish [descent], which is held in high esteem. . . .

[The historian] Angela Sofia Benoliel Coutinho [believes] a confluence of events in the 19th century—[most importantly] the end of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1821 and the economic treaty between Portugal and England in 1842—sent Jewish Moroccans to the seas in search of greater religious freedom and a better life. . . . The new Jewish arrivals were largely single men; they married Catholic women and quickly assimilated. They never built a synagogue, but . . . they did build cemeteries.

In this way, Cape Verde’s Jews resembled Jewish communities throughout history and across the globe, which generally built cemeteries before synagogues since prayers could always be held informally in a private home, but custom dictates that Jews must be buried together in a graveyard of their own.

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.