The Jews of 100 years ago were known for their fervent ideological attachments, in particular to Zionism and Communism. Eddy Portnoy observes that there was another -ism that is less remembered: vegetarianism.

While it’s not generally considered among the multiple “isms” to which immigrant Jews attached themselves in the early 20th century, vegetarianism was not an insignificant movement in Yiddish-speaking New York. According to Yiddish journalist A.M. Shtiglitz, vegetarianism attracted thousands of young Jews, many of whom saw it as a revolt against materialism. Jewish immigrants of this era founded a number of different vegetarian organizations and produced a variety of magazines and pamphlets designed to draw the Yiddish audience to meatless fare. The philosophy of anarcho-naturism, of which vegetarianism was a component, also appealed to immigrant Jews on the Lower East Side, among whom anarchism had been a nominally popular political ideology since the late 1880s.

Chief among the Jewish vegetarians was a man named Moyshe Yitzhok Littauer, who, after immigrating to New York from Poland in 1899,

grew out his hair and beard just before World War I and began to saunter about New York’s Jewish quarter wearing white robes and sandals, preaching the benefits of his chosen diet. With a deep interest in mysticism and Buddhism, he also had an aversion to modern technology and refused to take the subway or streetcars, and always went by foot.

Known as the “Ghandi of East Broadway,” Littauer later

founded a vegetarian nudist colony in New Jersey to which he and a group of about 60 Jewish immigrants decamped in 1917 to escape the stifling tenements of the Lower East Side, and where they communed with nature, ate vegetables, and got naked.

With the IDF engaged in ground maneuvers in both northern and southern Gaza, and a plan about to go into effect next week that would separate more than 100,000 civilians from Hamas’s control, an end to the war may at last be in sight. Yet there seems to be no agreement within Israel, or without, about what should become of the territory. Efraim Inbar assesses the various proposals, from Donald Trump’s plan to remove the population entirely, to the Israeli far-right’s desire to settle the Strip with Jews, to the internationally supported proposal to place Gaza under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA)—and exposes the fatal flaws of each. He therefore tries to reframe the problem:

[M]any Arab states have failed to establish a monopoly on the use of force within their borders. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Sudan all suffer from civil wars or armed militias that do not obey the central government.

Perhaps Israel needs to get used to the idea that in the absence of an entity willing to take Gaza under its wing, chaos will prevail there. This is less terrible than people may think. Chaos would allow Israel to establish buffer zones along the Gaza border without interference. Any entity controlling Gaza would oppose such measures and would resist necessary Israeli measures to reduce terrorism. Chaos may also encourage emigration.

Israel is doomed to live with bad neighbors for the foreseeable future. There is no way to ensure zero terrorism. Israel should avoid adopting a policy of containment and should constantly “mow the grass” to minimize the chances of a major threat emerging across the border. Periodic conflicts may be necessary. If the Jews want a state in their homeland, they need to internalize that Israel will have to live by the sword for many more years.