In the many lands of their dispersion, Jews have often developed their own distinctive dialects, the most famous of them being Yiddish and Ladino. Much less well known is the peculiar Jewish variation of Papiamento—a creole spoken in Curaçao that blends Portuguese, Dutch, and some Spanish and that seems to have originated with the island’s African slave population. The Jews of this Dutch-ruled territory constitute one of the oldest Jewish communities in the New World. Dor Shabashewitz writes:

Sephardi Jews came [to Curaçao] from other Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies in the region to trade and work as interpreters on the island. These Jews quickly learned the language of the island’s majority, the enslaved Africans, and after a while Papiamento became their own home language. Today virtually all Curaçaoans, including white Dutch people, speak Papiamento, but that has not always been the case. According to the historians, Curaçao’s Sephardim were the first non-African group to pick up the local creole.

Just like all other Jewish communities in various countries, the Curaçao Jews began changing the local language, adding loanwords from Hebrew and creating a new dialect or ethnolect. As the linguist Neil G. Jacobs writes, the phonetic appearance of Hebrew and Aramaic words used in Curaçao demonstrates their Sephardi origin.

The Hebrew words that are mostly used in religious contexts are not the only difference between the speech of the Curaçao Jews and the “general Papiamento” spoken by everyone else on the island. . . . In many cases, the Jewish forms are closer to the European source languages. The word for dignitary is dignitario in Spanish and Portuguese and sounds exactly the same in Judeo-Papiamento, whereas non-Jewish Curaçaoans say dignatario—with a different vowel in the middle.

One more example is the word that the Curaçao Jews pronounce as granmersi and their non-Jewish neighbors as gremesi. It comes from French where it means “many thanks” but has a completely different meaning in both versions of Papiamento: it is a verb that means “to live on another’s expense.”

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.