In the process of researching a novel, Michele Levy familiarized herself with the story of Balkan Jewry, and in particular with the history of the synagogue in the Croatian capital of Zagreb:

Jews lived in the Balkans from at least the 1st century CE; waves of Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews came to the area—some as traders, many to flee persecution farther west. Synagogue ruins and graves along the Adriatic coast place Jews of the late Roman empire in Croatia nearly 2,000 years ago. Evidence shows, too, that Byzantine oppression caused some Jews to relocate even farther east, to the kingdom of Bulgaria. With the Crusades [and the pursuant anti-Semitic persecutions], many Jews from northern Europe spread southeast to avoid pogroms, and from 1492 the Spanish [expulsion] spawned Sephardi migration to the Ottoman empire. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with political anti-Semitism on the rise in the Hapsburg empire, many Ashkenazi Jews again looked eastward for safety.

A radical change for Jews came in 1299, when the Ottoman Turks conquered Byzantium and launched their vast empire. While classifying Jews, along with Catholics, Roma, and Orthodox Serbs, as raya, second-class citizens, the Ottomans safeguarded their minorities. This assured Jews better treatment than they had experienced under Byzantium or in the West. With Muslims, they were exempt from the devshirme, the “child tax,” which every four or five years conscripted young Christian boys, mostly Serbs, brought them back to Istanbul, educated them, and made from them a military and bureaucratic force.

The story of Zagreb’s synagogue embodies the fate of many Balkan Jews from post-World War II to the present. Completed in 1867, the synagogue became the first important building erected in Kaptol, Zagreb’s “lower town.” Hailed as a model of Moorish revival architecture, it drew many public officials and citizens to its opening and soon became a source of civic pride.

The synagogue was destroyed during World War II, when the Croatian government sided with the Nazis, and since then local Jews have struggled to mark its former location with a memorial.

How did Qatar, an American ally, become the nerve center of the leading Palestinian jihadist organization? Natalie Ecanow explains.

When Jordan expelled Hamas in 1999, Qatar offered sanctuary to the group, which had already become notorious for using suicide-bombing attacks over the previous decade. . . . Hamas chose to relocate to Syria. However, that arrangement lasted for only a decade. With the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, the terror group found its way back to Qatar.

In 2003, Hamas leaders reportedly convened in Qatar after the IDF attempted to eliminate Hamas’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, following a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed seven people, including two American citizens. This episode led to one of the first efforts by Qatar to advocate for its terror proxy.

Thirteen years and five wars between Hamas and Israel later, Qatar’s support for Hamas has not waned. . . . To this day, Qatari officials maintain that the office came at the “request from Washington to establish indirect lines of communication with Hamas.” However, an Obama White House official asserted that there was never any request from Washington. . . . Inexplicably, the United States government continues to rely on Qatar to negotiate for the release of the hostages held by Hamas, even as the regime hosts the terror group’s political elite.

A reckoning is needed between our two countries. Congressional hearings, legislation, executive orders, and other measures to regulate relations between our countries are long overdue.