Founded in 1877 by Felix Adler, a German-born American Jew and the son of a prominent rabbi, the Society of Ethical Culture preached a quasi-secular ethical humanism that grew out of Adler’s own attempt to universalize Judaism. The elementary school Adler established—originally intended to cater to the children of the working poor—eventually evolved into the Fieldston School, a highly selective Manhattan private school that sends a number of its graduates to the Ivy League every year.

Last month, Kayum Ahmed, an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, came to Fieldston to speak to students about apartheid; in response to a question from the audience he made the follow comment regarding the destruction of European Jewry:

The attacks [i.e., the Holocaust] are a shameful part of history, but in some ways it reflects the fluidity between those who are victims becoming perpetrators. . . . That Jews who suffered in the Holocaust and established the state of Israel today—they perpetuate violence against Palestinians that [is] unthinkable.”

Needless to say, many Jewish students and parents were horrified, but, writes Sean Cooper, faculty and administrators were at best unsympathetic. For instance:

In the wake of the event, J.B. Brager, one of the history department’s instructors who teaches a Holocaust elective, posted several public Twitter messages about the event and the resulting upset—none of which acknowledged the feelings of Jewish students or parents, or even the history of the Holocaust. . . . Instead, Brager chose to use the moment to assert her support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. “I refuse to ‘reaffirm the value’ of ethnonationalist settler colonialism,” Brager wrote. “I support BDS and Palestinian sovereignty and I have for my entire adult life.”

As Cooper goes on to detail, this was hardly an isolated incident. When swastikas began to appear around the school, the administration organized a presentation about the symbol’s pre-Nazi history. Cooper argues that these and many other incidents are symptoms of the school’s adoption of a social-justice “catechism,” pervaded by notions of intersectionality, in which students are taught to see themselves, and the world, through the lens of racial and economic “privilege.” And students have caught on to the fact that Jews, since they are white, can’t be victims:

The story of the Jews directly threatens to undermine the core theory of oppressed-versus-oppressors on which the entire social-justice movement rests. There is no way for an institution successfully to embrace that ideology without, at best, ignoring or minimizing the Jewish experience—or, in more heated moments, erasing them entirely.

[But] it is also easy to imagine why Fieldston’s administrators and faculty might have no sense that they are doing anything wrong. Indeed, since these ideas are now the gospel preached at, and encoded into, the campus policy handbooks of America’s elite universities, which are the intended destinations for the school’s graduates, “social justice” is not just (or even) a set of personal and professional morals; it’s simply good business

The Mossad’s heist of a vast Iranian nuclear archive in 2018 provided abundant evidence that Tehran was not adhering to its commitments; it also provided an enormous amount of actionable intelligence. Two years later, Israel responded to international inspectors’ condemnation of the Islamic Republic’s violations by using this intelligence to launch a spectacular campaign of sabotage—a campaign that is the subject of Target Tehran, by Yonah Jeremy Bob and Ilan Evyatar. David Adesnik writes:

The question that remains open at the conclusion of Target Tehran is whether the Mossad’s tactical wizardry adds up to strategic success in the shadow war with Iran. The authors give a very respectful hearing to skeptics—such as the former Mossad director Tamir Pardo—who believe the country should have embraced the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Bob and Evyatar reject that position, arguing that covert action has proven itself the best way to slow down the nuclear program. They acknowledge, however, that the clerical regime remains fully determined to reach the nuclear threshold. “The Mossad’s secret war, in other words, is not over. Indeed, it may never end,” they write.

Which brings us back to Joe Biden. The clerical regime was headed over a financial cliff when Biden took office, thanks to the reimposition of sanctions after Washington withdrew from the nuclear deal. The billions flowing into Iran on Biden’s watch have made it that much easier for the regime to rebuild whatever Mossad destroys in addition to weathering nationwide protests on behalf of women, life, and freedom. Until Washington and Jerusalem get on the same page—and stay there—Tehran’s nuclear ambitions will remain an affordable luxury for a dictatorship at war with its citizens.