Yet not all is grim for European Jewry. There has been much talk this week about Germany expanding its military, given the fear that the U.S. will abandon the continent. Currently this force has about 300 Jewish soldiers, and a few years ago it appointed its first Jewish chaplain since before World War II. Israel National News recounts his remarkable story:

Rabbi Zsolt Balla was born in Budapest, but his family kept their Jewishness a secret for years. During his early childhood in Communist Hungary, his mother never mentioned that their family was Jewish. His father, a senior army officer who ran a large base, wasn’t Jewish and his mother defined herself as Jewish culturally but did not practice the faith.

At the age of nine Rabbi Balla began developing an interest in Bible stories and, not knowing he was Jewish, told his parents he would like to go to church. “That’s when my mother said, ‘we have to talk,’” he says. . . .

As an adult, Rabbi Balla went to study Judaism in Germany. . . . Rabbi Balla, forty-two, said the fact that the army has restored the position of Jewish military chaplain—a move that happened last year at the urging of Germany’s organized Jewish community—is a clear sign that Jews “have a future in Germany.”

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.”