When the U.S. entered World War I, the War Department gave the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA)—at the time a distinctly Protestant organization with an evangelizing mission—an official role in coordinating cultural and religious activities for men in uniform. The result, writes Allan Arkush, was that “Protestant Christianity was to be the de-facto religion of the American servicemen.” To counteract this trend, a group of prominent Jewish figures organized the Jewish Welfare Board (JWB), whose activities are the subject of a new book titled Making Judaism Safe for America. Arkush writes in his review:

The JWB . . . could provide the kind of activities that the YMCA provided: lectures, movies, and dances (with the right sort of women). And it could reinforce the patriotic message by stressing “that through engaged adherence to the tenets of Judaism, Jews could become better citizens and better Americans.” One of the most important actions it took to foster such adherence was to lobby successfully for the appointment (for the first time since the Civil War) of Jewish military chaplains to serve in the U.S. Army.

Once the necessary legislation had been passed, the JWB assumed responsibility for selecting the men who would fill the limited number of positions that had been created. The board made reasonable efforts to select a denominationally diverse crew of rabbis, but the criteria imposed by the government and endorsed by the board itself effectively ruled out anyone who lacked a good secular education, and thereby excluded practically all of the available Orthodox rabbis. The vast majority of the 25 candidates who were eventually approved were graduates of the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College.

Since a couple of dozen chaplains obviously couldn’t handle the job of providing religious services for tens of thousands of soldiers, the board hired an additional 30 or so “camp rabbis”—usually rabbis from communities near military bases—as well as hundreds of more- or less-qualified field workers, who became known as “Star of David men.”

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”