This week’s Torah reading of Lekh l’kha begins with God’s famous command to Abraham to leave his homeland and his father’s house to travel to Canaan. But at the end of the previous chapter, we get the impression that the journey had begun already:

Teraḥ begot Abram, Naḥor, and Haran; and Haran begot Lot. And Haran died before Teraḥ his father, in the land of his birthplace, in Ur of the Chaldeans [in Hebrew, Ur Kasdim]. And Teraḥ took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, . . and they went from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan, and they came until Ḥaran, and they dwelt there.

Since the 19th century, scholars have identified Ḥaran with the ancient city of Harran, in southern Turkey, and “Ur of the Chaldeans” with the Sumerian city of Ur, a major metropolis of the time, located on the west bank of the Euphrates in what is now southern Iraq. But Gary Rendsburg identifies a simple geographic problem with this theory:

Anyone traveling from Ur of Sumer [to Canaan] would first have traveled upstream on the Euphrates, since no one would travel due west from Ur in southern Mesopotamia through the Arabian desert; even with camels the journey would be too arduous and too dangerous to allow such a crossing.

Instead, people on such a journey either would stop at Mari, [further up the Euphrates], and then head west across the Syrian Desert, using the great oasis of Palmyra as the waystation before reaching Damascus, or they would continue even further north along the Euphrates, to the Great Bend, and then head west and south via such cities as Aleppo, Hama, [and] Homs en route to Damascus, from where it was a relatively easy jaunt to Canaan.

But this is not what Teraḥ and family do, according to those who would identify Ur Kasdim with Ur of Sumer in modern-day southern Iraq. These scholars would have one believe that, rather than heading toward Canaan, Teraḥ and company instead continued north [past Mari and the Great Bend] by traveling upstream along the Balih River, one of the tributaries of the Euphrates, to reach Ḥaran. If Ḥaran was not the destination, but rather only a waystation on the route from Ur to Canaan (as per Gen 11:31), it makes little or no sense for Teraḥ to have gone there.

For this and other reasons, writes Rendsburg, it is far likelier that Abraham and Teraḥ began their journey in what is now the Turkish city of Urfa, known in ancient texts as Ura, located some 27 miles due north of Harran. It’s quite likely that someone traveling from Urfa to Canaan would first go to Harran, and from there follow the major trade route through Syria. Indeed, notes Rendsburg, local legend—shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims—considers Urfa to be Abraham’s birthplace, and there is a mosque there dedicated to him. (Maps are included at the link below.)

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.