Since the 1960s, the proportion of Americans who marry has declined precipitously, while those who marry tend to do so later, and divorce rates have risen. Jews are by no means immune to these trends, but have been less affected that the overall population, marrying more than Catholics, Protestants, or Muslims, although less than Mormons and Hindus. More surprisingly, these trends hold true even when the Orthodox are removed from the picture. Charles Fain Lehman seeks an explanation.

The data point in several directions. Almost certainly, [the Jewish marriage rate] is linked to Jews’ socioeconomic advantages. . . . The more educated and wealthier you are, the more likely you are to be married. But at the same time, it appears that Jewish religious identity and communal bonds play a role as well.

Orthodox respondents [to a 2013 Pew survey] were, unsurprisingly, far more likely to be married—about 70 percent, in total. But respondents who identified as “Reform” or “Conservative” were also substantially more likely to be married than non-religious Jews—approximately 55 percent married for both, compared with 41 percent married for Jews of no religion.

Even after excluding Orthodox respondents, giving to a Jewish cause, being involved in a Jewish organization, having most or all of your friends be Jewish, and attending services at least monthly are all associated with a substantially higher probability of being married. In other words, there is a correlation between being involved with Jewish community and being married. . . . While the available data are not dispositive, there is at least a plausible argument that being involved in a religious and ethnic community promotes marriage.

As this newsletter noted last week, Gaza is not suffering from famine, and the efforts to suggest that it is—which have been going on since at least the beginning of last year—are based on deliberate manipulation of the data. Nor, as Shany Mor explains, does international law require Israel to feed its enemies:

Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention does oblige High Contracting Parties to allow for the free passage of medical and religious supplies along with “essential foodstuff, clothing, and tonics intended for children under fifteen” for the civilians of another High Contracting Party, as long as there is no serious reason for fearing that “the consignments may be diverted from their destination,” or “that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy” by the provision.

The Hamas regime in Gaza is, of course, not a High Contracting Party, and, more importantly, Israel has reason to fear both that aid provisions are diverted by Hamas and that a direct advantage is accrued to it by such diversions. Not only does Hamas take provisions for its own forces, but its authorities sell provisions donated by foreign bodies and use the money to finance its war. It’s notable that the first reports of Hamas’s financial difficulties emerged only in the past few weeks, once provisions were blocked.

Yet, since the war began, even European states considered friendly to Israel have repeatedly demanded that Israel “allow unhindered passage of humanitarian aid” and refrain from seizing territory or imposing “demographic change”—which means, in practice, that Gazan civilians can’t seek refuge abroad. These principles don’t merely constitute a separate system of international law that applies only to Israel, but prolong the suffering of the people they are ostensibly meant to protect:

By insisting that Hamas can’t lose any territory in the war it launched, the international community has invented a norm that never before existed and removed one of the few levers Israel has to pressure it to end the war and release the hostages.

These commitments have . . . made the plight of the hostages much worse and much longer. They made the war much longer than necessary and much deadlier for both sides. And they locked a large civilian population in a war zone where the de-facto governing authority was not only indifferent to civilian losses on its own side, but actually had much to gain by it.