At the beginning of the 20th century, the Lower East Side of Manhattan was home to one of the world’s densest Jewish populations, and a first stop for the waves of immigrants arriving from Eastern Europe. Although the Jewish presence—along with nearby Italian and Irish enclaves—began to dissipate rapidly after World War II, some of its shops, restaurants, and synagogues remained in place even as the millennium drew to a close. Now, barely any traces are left. A London-born Ḥasid used his pseudonymous Twitter account to post a series of side-by-side images of the neighborhood then and now. Herewith, two examples:

A century ago, a barefoot boy stood outside a mens dry goods store and watched toiling workmen.

Now, the corner of Delancey and Suffolk is home to a defunct Burger King, an AT&T store, and an urgent care center. pic.twitter.com/Gi1WLLAA6S

— Hungry Chipmunk (@hungrychipmunk) August 22, 2022

Identifying himself only as S., the amateur photo-archivist spoke about the project with Julia Gergely.

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.