The Pulitzer committee plans to announce its annual prize in investigative journalism on Monday, and it is expected that it will award it to the New York Times for an eighteen-part series on New York state’s ḥasidic schools. To Jonathan Tobin, the series is wholly underserving of such a prestigious accolade:

As I wrote when the series started last September, the question of adequate educational standards in these schools is a legitimate one. If they are truly failing their children, whether out of incompetence or a belief that non-religious subjects are unimportant, it would be a tragedy that might be contributing to the already troublingly high rates of poverty in these communities.

However, it soon became apparent that the Times was interested in more than just that narrow question. Even the initial broadside—to which the paper devoted enormous resources in terms of reporters’ time (two reporters spent a full year producing the report with the aid of who knows how many researchers), space, and even the publication of a special Yiddish edition of the account—seemed unable to stick to that concern.

While some of the articles might be defensible when viewed in isolation, taken together, the series revolves around a theme that would, if directed at any other minority group, be quickly denounced as bigotry. The Times’s series portrays New York’s ḥasidic Jews as a scheming, dishonest group interested solely in advancing an obscurant religious vision, as well as willing to sacrifice their own children’s well-being and profit at the expense of their non-Jewish neighbors’ gullibility.

Part of that involves the demonization of efforts by Orthodox Jews to defend their interests in the public square. . . . What would be regarded as a normal, even laudable effort by an embattled and often misunderstood minority community seeking representation and influence in the political system was painted as a sinister effort. Had it been about community activists trying to help African Americans or Hispanics, nothing about it would have been considered remarkable, since those groups are also often mobilized largely by their churches and pastors. But when ḥasidic Jews and their rabbis played the same game, the Times depicted it as an effort to strong-arm politicians willing to . . . sell favors for votes.

Ron Ben-Yishai, reporting from a visit to IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, analyzes the state of the fighting, and “the persistent challenge of eradicating an entrenched enemy in a complex urban terrain.”

Hamas, sensing the war’s end, is mounting a final effort to inflict casualties. The IDF now controls 65 percent of Gaza’s territory operationally, with observation, fire dominance, and relative freedom of movement, alongside systematic tunnel destruction. . . . Major P, a reserve company commander, says, “It’s frustrating to hear at home that we’re stagnating. The public doesn’t get that if we stop, Hamas will recover.”

Senior IDF officers cite two reasons for the slow progress: meticulous care to protect hostages, requiring cautious movement and constant intelligence gathering, and avoiding heavy losses, with 22 soldiers killed since June.

Two-and-a-half of Hamas’s five brigades have been dismantled, yet a new hostage deal and IDF withdrawal could allow Hamas to regroup. . . . Hamas is at its lowest military and governing point since its founding, reduced to a fragmented guerrilla force. Yet, without complete disarmament and infrastructure destruction, it could resurge as a threat in years.

At the same time, Ben-Yishai observes, not everything hangs on the IDF:

According to the Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman, the IDF is close to completing its objectives. In classical military terms, “defeat” means the enemy surrenders—but with a jihadist organization, the benchmark is its ability to operate against Israel.

Despite [the IDF’s] battlefield successes, the broader strategic outcome—especially regarding the hostages—now hinges on decisions from the political leadership. “We’ve done our part,” said a senior officer. “We’ve reached a crossroads where the government must decide where it wants to go—both on the hostage issue and on Gaza’s future.”