Founded in 1962 in Berkeley, California as a consortium of five Protestant institutions, the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) has since expanded to include eight schools, each representing a different Christian denomination, and several academic centers for the study of other religions, Judaism and Islam among them. In October of last year, it formally inaugurated its first non-Christian president—Rabbi Daniel Lehman—who had already held the job for a year. While GTU celebrated Lehman’s inauguration with much fanfare as a milestone of pluralism and tolerance, it had little to say when he left the position four months later.

Since the year began, the IDF has stepped up its attacks on Iranian positions in Syria, striking more targets and going deeper into Syrian territory than usual. Meanwhile, Tehran has increased its enrichment of uranium, moving ever closer to building nuclear weapons. Efraim Inbar addresses the situation in depth: