Born in Jerusalem and educated in Egypt, Isaac Luria (1534–1572), also known as the Arizal, was one of the foremost rabbinic thinkers of his day, and his kabbalistic theories formed the basis for virtually also subsequent Jewish mysticism. Yet he left behind no written works, and his teachings are known solely through the writings of his disciples. Any contemporary documents connected to him are therefore precious to historians, as Hanan Greenwood explains:

[T]he National Library of Israel has revealed a letter sent to the rabbi during his sojourn in Egypt in the 16th century that discusses everyday matters, providing new firsthand evidence about his life. . . . The writer, a man named David, wrote to Luria to enlist his support for an emissary who had been dispatched from Safed to raise money among Diaspora Jews for Jews living in the Holy Land. Although the kabbalist was known for his simple, even ascetic, lifestyle, he was an important figure whom Jews asked for advice, even on financial and national matters.

The letter was preserved because it had been used to bind another book, a common practice before the invention of cardboard. Bookbinders would take paper or vellum pages from worn-out volumes and stick them together into dense stacks that would serve as stiff enough material for book covers.

The National Library is making the letter to Luria public for the first time in honor of the late Jerusalem collector Ezra Gorodesky, who devoted his career to the painstaking work of picking apart the old bindings and revealing the treasures within.

On March 5, Riyadh appointed Salman al-Dosari—a prominent journalist and vocal supporter of the Abraham Accords—as its new minister of information. Hussain Abdul-Hussain takes this choice as one of several signals that Saudi Arabia is inching closer to normalization with Israel:

Saudi Arabia has been the biggest supporter of Palestinians since before the establishment of Israel in 1948. When the kingdom’s founder Abdulaziz Ibn Saud met with the U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard the USS Quincy in the Red Sea in 1945, the Saudi king demanded that Jews in Palestine be settled elsewhere. But unlimited Saudi support has only bought Palestinian ungratefulness and at times, downright hate. After the Abraham Accords were announced in August 2020, Palestinians in Gaza and Ramallah burned pictures not only of the leaders of the UAE and Bahrain but also of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS).

Since then, many Palestinian pundits and activists have been accusing Saudi Arabia of betraying the cause, even though the Saudis have said repeatedly, and as late as January, that their peace with Israel is incumbent on the establishment of a Palestinian state.

While the Saudi Arabian government has practiced self-restraint by not reciprocating Palestinian hate, Saudi Arabian columnists, cartoonists, and social-media activists have been punching back. After the burning of the pictures of Saudi Arabian leaders, al-Dosari wrote that with their aggression against Saudi Arabia, the Palestinians “have liberated the kingdom from any ethical or political commitment to these parties in the future.”