In 1961, a prominent American Orthodox activist named Moshe Sherer testified at a congressional hearing in favor of legislation that would grant federal funds to religious as well as secular private schools. By doing so, he broke with the mainstream of U.S. Jewish opinion, and the major Jewish advocacy organizations, which have consistently favored the strictest possible application of separation of church and state. His position has since then grown even more popular with Orthodox Jews in America, who must pay significant sums to send their children to religious schools. But, Michael A. Helfand explains, this position is not based solely on pragmatic concerns:

At their core, such calls for including religious schools in government funding programs were grounded in principles of equal standing and equal citizenship. Sherer, in his testimony, did highlight the budgetary struggles of Jewish day schools, noting that they “labor under the pall of constant financial crises.”

The bulk of his testimony, however, pressed for an inclusive approach to government funding on the basis of “American ideals.” . . . On this account, the denial of government funding to religious schools was wrong not because of the financial impact, but because it harmed religious citizens due to their faith, which Sherer described as discrimination.

[Yet] the core values underlying Orthodoxy’s advocacy for equal funding—anti-discrimination and equal citizenship—have often been ignored. Instead, the thrust of such advocacy is often misdescribed, in the form of characterizations that lionize separationists as advancing “principled” arguments against government funding, while describing Orthodox advocates as advancing “pragmatic” arguments in favor.

In this way, continued debates within the Jewish community over the appropriate degree of separation between church and state amount to principled clashes going to the heart of American Jewish identity. Both visions of church and state—one that demands absolute separation and another that requires a commitment to neutrality—draw from different visions of the appropriate space for religious pluralism in the public square.

Last week, the New York Times reported, based on unnamed sources within the Trump administration, that the president had asked Israel not to carry out a planned strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. That is, somebody deliberately gave this information to the press, which later tried to confirm it by speaking with other officials. Amit Segal writes that, “according to figures in Israel’s security establishment,” this is “the most serious leak in Israel’s history.” He explains:

As Israel is reportedly planning what may well be one of its most consequential military operations ever, the New York Times lays out for the Iranians what Israel will target, when it will carry out the operation, and how. That’s not just any other leak.

Seth Mandel looks into the leaker’s logic:

The primary purpose of the [Times] article is not as a record of internal deliberations but as an instrument of policy itself. Namely, to obstruct future U.S. and Israeli foreign policy by divulging enough details of Israel’s plans in order to protect Iran’s nuclear sites. The idea is to force Israeli planners back to the drawing board, thus delaying a possible future strike on Iran until Iranian air defenses have been rebuilt.

The leak is the point. It’s a tactical play, more or less, to help Iran torpedo American action.

The leaker, Mandel explains—and the Times itself implies—is likely aligned with the faction in the administration that wants to see the U.S. retreat from the world stage and from its alliance with Israel, a faction that includes Vice-President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and the president’s own chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Yet it’s also possible, if less likely, that the plans were leaked in support of administration policy rather than out of factional infighting. Eliezer Marom argues that the leak was “part of the negotiations and serves to clarify to the Iranians that there is a real attack plan that Trump stopped at the last moment to conduct negotiations.”