Anyone who has looked carefully at a High Holy Day prayerbook that follows the Ashkenazi tradition will have noticed the presence of liturgical poems (piyyutim) written by a man named Kalonymos or his son, Meshullam. This oddly named pair were part of a dynasty of medieval scholars who traced their roots to Italy. If the prayerbook is annotated, an even closer look might reveal several works by other sacred poets from Italy, like Amittai ben Shephatiah of Oria. Tamar Marvin explains how migration from Italy shaped the earliest Ashkenazi communities.

The many-branched Kalonymos family . . . turns up in early medieval southern Italy, from where they immigrate around the second half of the 9h century to the Rhineland. This move is said to have occurred under charters of settlement granted by a Carolingian ruler. Some sources state explicitly that the Carolingian king responsible was Charlemagne (ca. 747–814), but this is likely a later emendation and the date is considered improbably early. Rather, the consensus suggests that the king in question was Charles II “the Bald,” the grandson of Charlemagne and son of Louis I “the Pious,” who granted two extant charters of settlement to Jews, probably from Italy, to live in the Rhineland. There are also many individuals with the name Kalonymos in Provence, which are probably, though there is not definitive evidence, from the same family.

According to one of the family’s most famous members, Rabbi Eleazar of Worms, one of his ancestors received esoteric teachings from a mysterious figure named Abu Aharon, who had fled Babylonia for Lombardy.

In 2003, the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, spooked by the American display of might in Iraq, decided to destroy or surrender his entire nuclear program. Informed observers have suggested that the deal he made with the U.S. should serve as a model for any agreement with Iran. Robert Joseph provides some useful background:

Gaddafi had convinced himself that Libya would be next on the U.S. target list after Iraq. There was no reason or need to threaten Libya with bombing as Gaddafi was quick to tell almost every visitor that he did not want to be Saddam Hussein. The images of Saddam being pulled from his spider hole . . . played on his mind.

President Bush’s goal was to have Libya serve as an alternative model to Iraq. Instead of war, proliferators would give up their nuclear programs in exchange for relief from economic and political sanctions.

Any outcome that permits Iran to enrich uranium at any level will fail the one standard that President Trump has established: Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Limiting enrichment even to low levels will allow Iran to break out of the agreement at any time, no matter what the agreement says.

Iran is not a normal government that observes the rules of international behavior or fair “dealmaking.” This is a regime that relies on regional terror and brutal repression of its citizens to stay in power. It has a long history of using negotiations to expand its nuclear program. Its negotiating tactics are clear: extend the negotiations as long as possible and meet any concession with more demands.