The mid-20th century was one of the golden ages of Jewish academic scholarship, and one of its outstanding figures was Yehezkel Kaufmann (1889–1963), an original historian of ancient Judaism whose works are still the subject of debate today. Aly Elrefaei writes:

Born in Ukraine, [Kaufmann] was educated at a modern yeshiva in Odessa, studied at the Academy of Oriental Studies in St. Petersburg, and, in 1918, earned his doctorate in Kantian philosophy at Berne University in Switzerland; he studied there alongside the great intellectual Walter Benjamin. He moved to Berlin in 1920 and then immigrated to Palestine in 1928.

Kaufmann disputed the theory, prevalent in his time, that Israelite religion in the Second Temple period represented a decline from an original religion of the people to a religion of law. . . . Kaufmann’s ultimate goal was to prove the authenticity of Pentateuchal literature as a source for history . . . in a manner that scholars had denied.

Kaufmann presented a paradigm where Israelite religion arose independently as a new idea from the collective folk spirit of the people. . . . He argued that both idealism and materialism failed to explain the origin of Israel’s cultural creativity. Rather, it was Israel’s intuitive notion of a supreme God, i.e. monotheism, which arose with Moses [and] permeated Israelite culture.

Kaufmann also devoted much attention to the mystery of Jewish survival in the Diaspora, arguing that “the endurance of Jewish national consciousness in exile could be attributed solely to Judaism, rather than external factors such as Gentile animosity or an objectified national will to survive.”

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.