In response to the rising tide of Jewish immigration to the U.S. from Eastern and Central Europe in the 1880s, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise—the pioneer of American Reform Judaism—founded the Hebrew Union Agricultural Society to help these new arrivals settle in the Midwest, where the federal government was giving away land to anyone who cultivated it. Wise’s scheme was one of several contemporaneous projects to encourage Jews to take up farming, whether in the land of Israel, the Americas, or elsewhere. As the society’s flagship program, he created the colony of Beersheba, Kansas. Naomi Sandweiss writes:

By July 1882, the society [had] selected 59 men and their families, “all sound and robust-looking people,” to populate the settlement. Rabbi Wise’s own son, Leo Wise, accompanied the colonists to Kansas City to furnish them with supplies and guide them to their new home near the Pawnee River. In addition to a Torah scroll and a shofar, the agricultural society provided tents, farming implements, and livestock.

Initially, Beersheba’s progress was promising. The colonists built a 60-foot sod schoolhouse that doubled as a synagogue. They dug wells, farmed sorghum and kitchen vegetables, cared for . . . livestock, and warmed their houses with cow chips collected from the nearby cattle trails. They celebrated at the synagogue . . . and observed the Sabbath. . . . By most accounts, the newcomers were welcomed by their Gentile neighbors, with cowboys even offering meals of antelope steak, coffee, onions, and bread out of their chuck wagons to the settlers. . . .

After Beersheba’s initial success, disputes erupted between community members and the administrator Joseph Baum, a Hungarian-born Jew appointed by Rabbi Wise and the agricultural society. The conflict came to a head in 1884 when settlers began to explore other enterprises, including leasing part of their properties to cattle herders. In retribution, Wise and the agricultural society abruptly recalled the livestock and farming implements that they had supplied to the offenders. . . .

Shortly thereafter, the Beersheba colonists began dispersing and seeking their fortunes elsewhere, operating meat markets and dry-goods stores in the nearby [Kansas] boomtowns of Eminence and Ravanna and further afield in Garden City, Dodge City, and Wichita. At least half of the residents remained long enough to claim ownership of their 160-acre parcels [from the federal government] and on May 24, 1887, nine colonists filed their intent for U.S. citizenship. Several of the new land owners quickly mortgaged their properties for $200 each to fund future enterprises.

In short, like other similar projects, Wise’s agricultural society succeeded in helping Jews settle in the U.S. and find a path to self-sufficiency, even as it failed to create a new breed of Jewish farmers.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.