Why Jews Should Be Wary of Attacks on a Supreme Court Nominee’s Religion

Today, the Senate begins deliberations over the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Drawing on George Washington’s famous letter to Moses Seixas, leader of the synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, Meir Soloveichik explicates the importance of not allowing religion to determine who is or is not fit for public office:

Much attention has been paid to Judge Barrett’s faith, and to “People of Praise,” a religious community of both Catholics and Protestants to which she belongs. Articles have described the oath, or “covenant,” taken by its members to act in loving service to one another. Another topic raised was a speech delivered by Barrett, describing her ultimate aspiration as serving “the kingdom of God.” These stories insinuate that her religion marks her as out of the mainstream, or unable to serve fairly as a Supreme Court justice.

Traditional Jews in America who read these broadsides against Judge Barrett can easily imagine similar ones about themselves. We might wonder what the reaction would now be were a member of our own religious community appointed to a position of prominence. After all, the Jewish liturgy’s expressed aspiration, in an existence filled with injustice, is “to fix the world through the kingship of God.” We believe ourselves bound by a covenant to other Jews, and many of our observances mark us as different, just as they did in Seixas’s day. Like Muslims, Sikhs, and other minority faith communities, we dream of our daughters and sons experiencing American equality without suffering for their beliefs. We continue to celebrate Seixas’s legacy, and work for an America where what Justice Elena Kagan, [speaking of the correspondence at Seixas’s synagogue] said about her grandparents will be true about our grandchildren: that their Jewishness, “strange as it may seem to some, would prove no barrier to their accomplishments.”

A judge’s jurisprudence—as well as the propriety of such a nomination so close to an election—are worthy matters of debate, and they are appropriate reasons to oppose or support Judge Barrett’s nomination. But her faith is not.

Read more at New York Times

More about: American Jewish History, Freedom of Religion, George Washington, Supreme Court, Touro Synagogue

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF