A few days ago, a member of the Illinois legislature attracted national attention by calling to abolish the teaching of history in public schools statewide, until a “suitable alternative” is developed that lives up to current standards of political correctness. This radical suggestion is of a piece with the recent moves to tear down statues and rename buildings, institutions, and even cities named for historic figures deemed by activists worthy of contempt rather than honor, and it is also related to the New York Times’s “1619 Project,” a misguided and error-laden attempt to rewrite American history so that the country’s sins take precedence over all else. Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy argue that Judaism and Jewish history can provide an important antidote to this nihilistic impulse:

Starting yesterday evening, Hamas and its allies in Gaza fired over 150 rockets into Israel—and not only at towns and cities in the south of the country but also at Jerusalem. These attacks followed days of sporadic rocket and mortar fire, incendiary devices attached to balloons, and other acts of terror, as well as rioting in Jerusalem and elsewhere. Benny Avni comments on the response from abroad: