It’s widely believed that—perhaps because Jewish rituals encouraged hygiene—outbreaks of the Black Death in the Middle Ages didn’t affect Jews nearly as severely as their Gentile neighbors, who therefore blamed them for spreading the plague. But this is false: all the evidence suggests Jewish mortality rates were just as high as everyone else’s. Christians blamed Jews anyway.

This myth, and its origins, is one of the many topics Jeremy Brown addresses in his new book on Jews and epidemics, which covers everything from a possible reference to the bubonic plague in the book of Samuel, to debates over inoculation and vaccination, to rabbinic responses to cholera, to COVID-19. Brown discusses all this with Nachi Weinstein. (Audio, 105 minutes.)

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.