In the Lebanese city of Sidon, once home to a vibrant Jewish presence, at least one synagogue, built in 1850, still stands in the former Jewish quarter, and legally belongs to the community. But its last congregants departed in 1982. Currently, a Syrian family lives in the men’s section and a Palestinian family in the women’s section. Rana Moussaoui writes:

On the walls, Hebrew renderings of the Book of Genesis and Jewish laws have been daubed over with red paint. But while little remains of the synagogue’s former life, its past has not been forgotten. “I’ve received visitors from Canada, France, and Brazil who showed me photos of their [Jewish-Lebanese] ancestors from Sidon,” said Muhammad, [one of the current residents].

In 2012, two rabbis from Neturei Karta—a sect of anti-Zionist Jews who believe that the state of Israel should not exist—prayed in the synagogue, much to the surprise of its residents. It was the first prayer held in the building for 40 years, and came as part of a tour that also included a visit to the nearby tomb of Zebulun, one of the sons of the biblical patriarch Jacob.

Nagi Gergi Zeidan, a specialist on the Jews of Lebanon, says the synagogue once housed 50 Torah scrolls dating to the Roman era, which were [rescued] by Israelis during their 1982 invasion.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.