Considering the recent dust-up over anti-Semitism at New York’s prestigious Fieldston School and other schools associated with the Society of Ethical Culture, Judith Colp Rubin—who was among the third generation of her family to attend these institutions—considers the society’s founder:

Ethical Culture was the brainchild of Felix Adler (1851–1933). He was six years old in 1857 when his father, Samuel, moved his family from Germany to New York City to preside over Temple Emanu-El, the flagship of [American Reform Judaism]. Felix intended to become a rabbi himself. But his life was changed when he discovered Immanuel Kant’s supreme principle of morality, the categorical imperative.

When the twenty-three-year-old Adler returned to New York after studying in Germany, he made his first and last speech at Temple Emanu-El. It was called “The Judaism of the Future.” He called for an end to the trappings of ritual and theology and for a universal religion steeped in morality. Explicitly absent was the word “God.” His speech was considered revolutionary, but . . . when, in February 1877, the twenty-six-year-old Adler incorporated the Society of Ethical Culture, he did so with support from the Reform community. Although Ethical Culture dispensed with ritual and belief in a supernatural force, it incorporated certain aspects of religious life—such as holding Sunday services with sermons and designing its assembly hall to resemble a house of worship.

It should not then be surprising that Ethical Culture today finds itself grappling with the concept of Jewish identity. It has done so since its founding. Just how torn the school is about its Jewish roots became clear in 2015 when [its elementary school] instituted something it called “affinity groups,” a new mandatory part of the curriculum. A form arrived in an email to parents in which students, some as young as in third grade, were asked to pick their race. Their options were “African-American/Black,” “Asian/Pacific Islander,” “Latina/o,” “Multi-racial,” “White,” and “Not sure.” Students were then required to meet to discuss their self-affiliation and confront the affinities of others in a free-flowing mixed-race discussion.

Parents and others expressed concerns that the program was stoking the very racism it was designed to destroy by encouraging students to think in racial categories. Jewish parents had a special concern. Those who wanted “Jew” to be included among the [possible] racial identities were told by school officials . . . that this would not be an option.

This week, there have been numerous unconfirmed reports about the fate of Esmail Qaani, who is the head of the Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Benny Avni writes:

On Thursday, Sky News Arabic reported that Mr. Qaani was rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack. He became [the Quds Force] commander in 2020, after an American drone strike killed his predecessor, Qassem Suleimani. The unit oversees the Islamic Republic’s various Mideast proxies, as well as the exporting of the Iranian revolution to the region and beyond.

The Sky News report attempts to put to rest earlier claims that Mr. Qaani was killed at Beirut. It follows several reports asserting he has been arrested and interrogated at Tehran over suspicion that he, or a top lieutenant, leaked information to Israel. Five days ago, the Arabic-language al-Arabiya network reported that Mr. Qaani “is under surveillance and isolation, following the Israeli assassinations of prominent Iranian leaders.”

Iranians are desperately scrambling to plug possible leaks that gave Israel precise intelligence to conduct pinpoint strikes against Hizballah commanders. . . . “I find it hard to believe that Qaani was compromised,” an Iran watcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, Beni Sabti, tells the Sun. Perhaps one or more of [Qaani’s] top aides have been recruited by Israel, he says, adding that “psychological warfare” could well be stoking the rumor mill.

If so, prominent Iranians seem to be exacerbating the internal turmoil by alleging that the country’s security apparatus has been infiltrated.