In a memoir of his life in New Square, Shulem Deen tells about leaving a tight-knit ḥasidic community and discovering the outside world. Jessica Kasmer-Jacobs writes in her review:

[A]s the years pass, [Deen] wonders more and more: “Does God exist? Does our faith really contain the universe’s essential truths?” Desperate for guidance, he finds no salve for his growing doubts in the community’s leaders. If anything, he is treated with disdain by those he hoped might offer help. “The evasiveness that characterized so many of the responses,” he writes, “. . . suggested that the answers were a tangled spaghetti of sophistry meant to obfuscate rather than illuminate.” But in a village so small, word travels fast. Mr. Deen’s façade crumbles as his neighbors whisper about what books he reads and wonder whether he prays on the Sabbath.

Mr. Deen’s curiosity grows as quickly as his expanding family. In his early twenties, already the father of two children, he begins sneaking off to the children’s section of the nearby public library, slowly expanding his limited education with touches of the “new world.” From his perch on a tiny orange chair, Mr. Deen leafs through the pages of the World Book Encyclopedia with “heady delight.” . . . He starts listening to the radio in his car and reading newspapers. His wife grows uneasy, worried that her husband “would not be content to transgress alone, but would try to get her to join . . . and reel in the kids.”

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.