Born in Frankfurt-am-Main, Shimon Schwab (1908-1995) spent a formative five years studying in yeshivas in Poland and Lithuania, before returning to his native Germany and then immigrating to the U.S., where he became an influential congregational rabbi. Schwab was very much the heir of Samson Raphael Hirsch, the 19th-century theologian who pioneered the ideal of Torah im Derekh Erets—by which he meant a synthesis of Judaism and Western culture very different from the model of Orthodoxy that prevailed in Eastern Europe. Shmuel Lesher explains Schwab’s struggle with that legacy in the wake of the Shoah:

In a speech he delivered in 1990, [Schwab] recalled how the events of Kristallnacht, and later the Holocaust, shook his belief in Torah im Derekh Erets to the core. How could Hirsch have believed the humanism of Germany would lead to an uplifted and righteous society when the same humanistic society ended up committed genocide without much protest from the “enlightened students of Schiller and Goethe”? Hirsch must not have seen German humanistic Bildung, [character-forming education], as anything more than a time-bound compromise in order to save his community from assimilation.

Later in his life, after reassessing Rabbi Hirsch’s writings, Rabbi Schwab came to believe that his earlier view was incorrect. In this later re-evaluation, Schwab felt that Hirsch did, in fact, wholeheartedly believe in the significance of humanism for society.

Lesher adds some thoughts of his own:

[A]n irreligious or secular humanism is bound not to elevate man, but rather to debase him. Religious humanism, on the other hand, embraces the intrinsic dignity of man because he was created in the image of God. . . . By ceasing to regard man as being of a higher and divine origin, secular humanism paradoxically results in the diminishing of man’s value.

Perhaps the Hirschian response to the Holocaust challenge is that if we do not believe we are the ultimate arbiters of truth and morality, . . . our value system remains sacrosanct even when it is not recognized by society, namely, even in Nazi Germany. The utter failing of a secular humanistic society does not undermine the value of a God-fettered humanism. Even after the horrors of the Holocaust, Hirschian humanism remains intact.

How did Qatar, an American ally, become the nerve center of the leading Palestinian jihadist organization? Natalie Ecanow explains.

When Jordan expelled Hamas in 1999, Qatar offered sanctuary to the group, which had already become notorious for using suicide-bombing attacks over the previous decade. . . . Hamas chose to relocate to Syria. However, that arrangement lasted for only a decade. With the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, the terror group found its way back to Qatar.

In 2003, Hamas leaders reportedly convened in Qatar after the IDF attempted to eliminate Hamas’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, following a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed seven people, including two American citizens. This episode led to one of the first efforts by Qatar to advocate for its terror proxy.

Thirteen years and five wars between Hamas and Israel later, Qatar’s support for Hamas has not waned. . . . To this day, Qatari officials maintain that the office came at the “request from Washington to establish indirect lines of communication with Hamas.” However, an Obama White House official asserted that there was never any request from Washington. . . . Inexplicably, the United States government continues to rely on Qatar to negotiate for the release of the hostages held by Hamas, even as the regime hosts the terror group’s political elite.

A reckoning is needed between our two countries. Congressional hearings, legislation, executive orders, and other measures to regulate relations between our countries are long overdue.