Zerubbabel Tzidkiya, born Segundo Villanueva in 1927 in the Andean village of Rodacocha, died in 2008 and was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. While his story, and those of the hundreds of his fellow Peruvians whom he led to Judaism, has been told before, Graciela Mochkofsky contends that it has often been gotten wrong—including, she admits, by herself. In a new edition of her 2006 book on the subject, she hopes to set the record straight. Renee Ghert-Zand writes in her review:

The story . . . began with Villanueva, at the time a young carpenter, reading the Bible and gathering groups of people around him to read and discuss it with him. Villanueva’s questions and desire to comprehend the true meaning of the word of God were ceaseless. He would engage anyone willing to study. He reached out to local religious scholars and leaders at the Protestant congregations that were cropping up for the first time in Cajamarca, where he lived.

But when he started to ask challenging questions, doors were closed in his face. Taking the Bible in a very literal sense, Villanueva could not understand why the Christians he knew observed the Sabbath on Sunday, in contradiction to what was written in the Five Books of Moses. He eventually joined a church that not only made sense to him but was also welcoming: the Seventh-Day Adventist Reform Movement.

But after some time, Villanueva still didn’t feel right about where he was. So, in 1962, he founded his own church, Israel of God. . . . Still identifying as Christians, members of Israel of God set up congregations in several locations in central-northern Peru, including a small settlement they build themselves in the Amazon in 1967 that they named Hebron.

It wasn’t until Villanueva was able to access a religious bookstore in Peru that sold a variety of translations of the Bible that he realized that translation by default involves errors and interpretations. . . . Ultimately he concluded that Jesus was not the messiah and that he and his flock must become Jews. They would be known as the Bnei Moshe. . . . Then began the complicated politics of the Bnei Moshe’s conversion to Judaism and aliyah to Israel.

Tamir Hayman analyzes the latest reports about an offer by Hamas to release three female soldiers in exchange for 150 captured terrorists, of whom 90 have received life sentences; then, if that exchange happens successfully, a second stage of the deal will begin.

If this does happen, Israel will release all the serious prisoners who had been sentenced to life and who are associated with Hamas, which will leave Israel without any bargaining chips for the second stage. In practice, Israel will release everyone who is important to Hamas without getting back all the hostages. In this situation, it’s evident that Israel will approach the second stage of the negotiations in the most unfavorable way possible. Hamas will achieve all its demands in the first stage, except for a commitment from Israel to end the war completely.

How does this relate to the fighting in Rafah? Hayman explains:

In the absence of an agreement or compromise by Hamas, it is detrimental for Israel to continue the static situation we were in. It is positive that new energy has entered the campaign. . . . The [capture of the] border of the Gaza Strip and the Rafah crossing are extremely important achievements, while the ongoing dismantling of the battalions is of secondary importance.

That being said, Hayman is critical of the approach to negotiations taken so far:

Gradual hostage trades don’t work. We must adopt a different concept of a single deal in which Israel offers a complete cessation of the war in exchange for all the hostages.