When the “Me-Too” movement eventually caught up with Jewish studies and Jewish communal institutions, some academics and journalists put forth a novel argument: that discussions of Jewish continuity—which necessarily involve the topics of intermarriage and marriage and fertility rates—endorse “surveillance over women’s bodies,” viewing them as “objects to be controlled and policed” based on the belief that “women’s primary role in Jewish continuity” is to produce babies. These attitudes, the argument goes, are somehow connected to sexual harassment. As one writer claimed, “it becomes very hard to disentangle the sexism of the alleged abuse from the patriarchal agenda” endorsed by a particular abuser.

The Biden administration took office with promises to “end” the civil war in Yemen and ease the humanitarian crisis there. And so it has reduced U.S. assistance to the Saudi-led Arab coalition that has been supporting the country’s pre-2015 government against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, and pressured Riyadh to scale down its military efforts. By doing so, Washington hopes it will encourage the two sides to negotiate a compromise, rather than simply encourage the Houthis to keep fighting until they conquer the whole country. Oved Lobel argues that this entire line of thinking is based on a fundamental misapprehension of the situation: