Ten years ago, researchers discovered in the Vatican archives a rare manuscript of Benedict Spinoza’s Ethics, which had come into the possession of the Roman Inquisition in 1667 because of its theologically suspicious content. While the Church banned the book much as, decades earlier, the Amsterdam Jewish community had expelled the philosopher for his unorthodox opinions, the 18th-century German intellectual Novalis would later proclaim Spinoza “a God-intoxicated man.” In England, Spinoza’s work would later appeal to the secular proto-Zionist novelist George Eliot as well as the religious conservative Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

The head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)—which provides educational and social services to the descendants of Palestinian refugees—recently predicted disaster if the organization is unable to raise $100 million in the next few months. Ruthie Blum explains why this official’s claim that UNRWA “is indispensable in the lives of Palestinian refugees” is simply false: