In an upcoming episode of the Mosaic podcast, Yehudah Halper will discuss the medical works of Moses Maimonides, which continued to be studied by Jewish scholars in the centuries after his death. Later generations of Jews added their own contributions to the Jewish medical corpus, of which the most influential was likely a book titled Ma’aseh Tuviah by Tuviah Cohen, also known as Tuviah the Healer (1652–1729). Edward Reichman recently uncovered some documents related to Tuviah and his close friend and fellow physician Gabriel Felix. In his mind, the documents cast a very interesting light on the beginning of these two Polish Jews’ medical educations:

Tuviah and Gabriel were the very first Jewish students allowed to attend a medical school in Germany, the University of Frankfurt an der Oder. This was only possible through the intercession of Friedrich Wilhelm, the “great elector” of Brandenburg and duke of Prussia, who ruled from 1640 to 1688. Part of the arrangement in exchange for Tuviah and Gabriel’s matriculation, as explicitly stated by the duke, was for them to provide instruction in Hebrew language and grammar to the German university students. Tuviah and Gabriel happened to be particularly proficient in this area. Another transparent intent was for these young impressionable Jews to become “enlightened” and ultimately convert to Christianity.

Tuviah’s medical application took the form of a poem he wrote for the duke. . . . The choice of Hebrew as the language of the sonnet betrays the duke’s linguistic interests in Tuviah’s matriculation.

Unfortunately, the social experiment was a resounding failure. Not only did the young Jewish students soon transfer to the University of Padua; it would also be some years till another Jewish medical student set foot on campus.

Yesterday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Israeli representatives have been involved in secret talks, brokered by the United Arab Emirates, with their Syrian counterparts about the potential establishment of diplomatic relations between their countries. Even more surprisingly, on Wednesday an Israeli reporter spoke with a senior official from Syria’s information ministry, Ali al-Rifai. The prospect of a member of the Syrian government, or even a private citizen, giving an on-the-record interview to an Israeli journalist was simply unthinkable under the old regime. What’s more, his message was that Damascus seeks peace with other countries in the region, Israel included.

These developments alone should make Israelis sanguine about Donald Trump’s overtures to Syria’s new rulers. Yet the interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s jihadist resumé, his connections with Turkey and Qatar, and brutal attacks on minorities by forces aligned with, or part of, his regime remain reasons for skepticism. While recognizing these concerns, Noah Rothman nonetheless makes the case for optimism:

The old Syrian regime was an incubator and exporter of terrorism, as well as an Iranian vassal state. The Assad regime trained, funded, and introduced terrorists into Iraq intent on killing American soldiers. It hosted Iranian terrorist proxies as well as the Russian military and its mercenary cutouts. It was contemptuous of U.S.-backed proscriptions on the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield, necessitating American military intervention—an unavoidable outcome, clearly, given Barack Obama’s desperate efforts to avoid it. It incubated Islamic State as a counterweight against the Western-oriented rebel groups vying to tear that regime down, going so far as to purchase its own oil from the nascent Islamist group.

The Assad regime was an enemy of the United States. The Sharaa regime could yet be a friend to America. . . . Insofar as geopolitics is a zero-sum game, taking Syria off the board for Russia and Iran and adding it to the collection of Western assets would be a triumph. At the very least, it’s worth a shot. Trump deserves credit for taking it.