The Antebellum South’s Forgotten Jewish Poet

July 18 2024

Born in Savannah to a distinguished and well-to-do Jewish family, Gratz Cohen avoided military service when the Civil War broke out, but eventually loyalty to his state got the better of him and he enlisted—only to fall in battle in the final weeks of the war. Cohen was also, Richard Kreitner writes, “the first Jewish student at the University of Virginia, a sensitive poet,” and “apparently gay.” Kreitner reviews Liberty Street, a biography of this compelling figure by Jason K. Friedman:

Liberty Street is an unusual book. Though published by the University of South Carolina Press, the author is not an academic, and it’s not a scholarly text but rather a combination of memoir, travelogue, and amateur historical exhumation. Wherever the record comes up short, Friedman glides into a more novelistic mode. These transitions can be jarring—and the absence of citations or an index is sometimes frustrating—but the brazenly convention-defying mixture ends up serving the story well.

The centrality of Judaism in some of Gratz’s writings suggests he may indeed have followed debates over change and tradition, religion and modernity, even if his own early contributions to such debates were vague and unremarkable. He was far from the only 19th-century Jew to call for a reformation. However, Friedman also tells us almost offhandedly that “Jewish spirituality was the subject of the longest poem Gratz ever wrote,” comprising the final thirteen pages of his journal—although he gives us only seven lines of it.

Read more at Jewish Review of Books

More about: American Civil War, American Jewish History, American Jewish literature, Poetry

What Iran Seeks to Get from Cease-Fire Negotiations

June 20 2025

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.

Read more at Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs

More about: Iran, Israeli Security, U.S. Foreign policy