Restoring Morocco’s Synagogues

As part of a larger project to restore Casablanca’s old quarter, Morocco is launching a renovation of the city’s Beth El synagogue. Larbi Arbaoui writes (with video):

In 2013, Morocco, with the contribution of Germany, finished a two-year-long renovation of the “Slat Alfassiyine” synagogue in Fez, which was until the last century one of the largest in the country.

Among the 30 synagogues located in Casablanca, the Temple Beth El synagogue is probably the most beautiful. Beth El, . . . also called the Algerian Temple, is the venue where the Jewish community celebrates religious events. With its stained-glass windows, giant chandeliers, and unique architecture, made of white and gilded plaster, the synagogue is among the city’s [most popular] tourist attractions.

Read more at Morocco World News

More about: Architecture, Jewish World, Mizrahi Jewry, Moroccan Jewry, Morocco, Synagogues

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF