Abraham Lincoln’s Triumph, and Death, through the Eyes of an American Hebrew Journalist

In the middle of the 19th century, before modern Zionism or Eliezer Ben-Yehuda’s quixotic effort to revive the language of the Bible, Russian Jews began publishing Hebrew newspapers. One such publication, Ha-Magid, employed Henry Vidaver, the rabbi of a St. Louis, Missouri synagogue, as its American correspondent. In honor of Lincoln’s birthday, David Geffen recounts some of Vidaver’s dispatches from the fateful year of 1865:

“The end of the month of April. . . . From the time I sent you my last dispatch, mighty acts has God performed, which could be readily seen in the eyes of the citizenry of this country. . . . Who can fathom the secrets of God, and who can know his plans? Suddenly, a strong voice is heard in the land that General Lee, the Confederacy commander-in-chief, had surrendered to General Grant, the Northern commander-in-chief. . . . When the announcement was made that Richmond had fallen, great was the joy of the North, but the entire nation, in its enthusiasm, shouted out ‘Heydad, heydad’!”

The joy, described earlier, did not last long, as can be seen in the continuation of Vidaver’s story. “A voice was heard wailing! Abraham Lincoln, the president of the United States, has been assassinated by a murderer who lay in wait for him in the theater.”

Vidaver then described how Lincoln and his family had come to the theater to celebrate with citizens of the nation. “But a man came from behind the curtains and shot Lincoln in his forehead and killed this tsaddik.”

Vidaver’s own synagogue in St. Louis was packed with men, women, and children, Christians as well as Jews. “I spoke in English, expressing our anguish for the death of this great leader.”

Read more at Jerusalem Post

More about: Abraham Lincoln, American Civil War, American Jewish History, Hebrew

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF