More than half a century ago, Salo Baron—the first person to hold a chair in Jewish history at an American university—criticized the “lachrymose conception” of Jewish history, which sees the story of the Jews as one of unending travail and persecution. Dara Horn in her recent book People Love Dead Jews, explores the flip side of this phenomenon, whereby Gentiles are eager to hold up Jewish suffering for the lessons it supposedly teaches, but have little interest in, or even tolerance for, Jews’ pursuit of their national, religious, or artistic goals. Recalling a very different encounter, with people who wished to learn from Jewish successes, Horn writes:

About six years ago, I participated in a small American academic conference whose subject was modern Hebrew; . . . the reason I remember it six years later isn’t because of any of the papers presented. It’s because of three attendees who sat in the back of the sessions, taking careful notes. They were representatives of the Wampanoag Nation, Native Americans with origins in today’s eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island—the people whose ancestors, centuries earlier, first encountered the Pilgrims who arrived on American shores. Their goal was to revive the Wampanoag language, which had not been spoken in over 200 years. They were at this Hebrew conference because, as one put it, “we want to know how you did it.”

And what if others sought to learn their lessons from Jewish flourishing?

That same textbook that mentions Jews only in the context of persecutions, for example, probably also describes how mass literacy for the poor was not possible until the invention of the printing press and later industrial production. But if Jewish history were included in world history, this would be revealed to be a lie, since, of course, Jewish communities had almost universal male literacy for many centuries before the printing press, even if only in that very dead language called Hebrew. Teaching this historical fact would reveal that societies actually didn’t require advanced technology or industrial production in order to achieve mass literacy, even among the poor; they merely needed to believe that reading was important.

As a history lesson, this might be rather depressing, because it would reveal the lost potential of untold millions of people left unnecessarily illiterate—as depressing as the lost potential of untold millions of women, including Jewish women. Obviously, there are many choices Jewish communities have made over the centuries that are profoundly depressing and limiting too, including choices Jewish communities are making right now. But as lessons about the future, these retroactively depressing facts might be profoundly inspiring.

Concluded in 1979, the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty ended nearly 30 years of intermittent warfare, and proved one of the most enduring and beneficial products of Middle East diplomacy. But Egypt may not have been upholding its end of the bargain, write Jonathan Schanzer and Mariam Wahba:

Article III, subsection two of the peace agreement’s preamble explicitly requires both parties “to ensure that that acts or threats of belligerency, hostility, or violence do not originate from and are not committed from within its territory.” This clause also mandates both parties to hold accountable any perpetrators of such acts.

Recent Israeli operations along the Philadelphi Corridor, the narrow strip of land bordering Egypt and Gaza, have uncovered multiple tunnels and access points used by Hamas—some in plain sight of Egyptian guard towers. While it could be argued that Egypt has lacked the capacity to tackle this problem, it is equally plausible that it lacks the will. Either way, it’s a serious problem.

Was Egypt motivated by money, amidst a steep and protracted economic decline in recent years? Did Cairo get paid off by Hamas, or its wealthy patron, Qatar? Did the Iranians play a role? Was Egypt threatened with violence and unrest by the Sinai’s Bedouin Union of Tribes, who are the primary profiteers of smuggling, if it did not allow the tunnels to operate? Or did the Sisi regime take part in this operation because of an ideological hatred of Israel?