“Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4), combined with three biblical passages, constitutes one of Judaism’s best-known prayers. An exhibit at the Israel Museum focuses on the way Jews used the words of the sh’ma as a sort of magical inscription. In her review, Jessica Steinberg, like the exhibit itself, begins with at 1,500-year-old silver armband that experts believe served as an amulet:

The silver cuff—wide, durable, and covered with Greek script—was part of a bequest of artifacts that arrived at the Israel Museum several years ago. The museum staffer Nancy Benovitz . . . deciphered the Greek text over the course of two years, and discovered that it consisted of the sh’ma. . . . She eventually concluded that the inscribed cuff was a Jewish take on a Christian amulet, probably owned by a wealthy Jew living in a Greek-speaking community, possibly in Egypt, with access to a now-lost translation of the Bible that his community was using—and he put the words of the sh’ma on his amulet.

From there, the exhibition shows other amulets used and created by early Jews. One is a tiny gold plaque with the sh’ma written on it in small Greek letters. It had been rolled up and folded in a minuscule silver capsule, and was found in the grave of a baby that was discovered in an excavation.

Amulets were used as jewelry in the ancient world, and are in the modern world as well, from Yemen, Iran, and Israel. . . . The exhibit includes birth amulets illustrated with the figure of the mythological Lilith and other demons, along with illustrated manuscripts for the birth bed, including the text of the sh’ma for the birthing mother to recite.

Yesterday I saw an unconfirmed report that the Biden administration has offered Israel a massive arms deal in exchange for a promise not to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even if the report is incorrect, there is plenty of other evidence that the White House has been trying to dissuade Jerusalem from mounting such an attack. The thinking behind this pressure is hard to fathom, as there is little Israel could do that would better serve American interests in the Middle East than putting some distance between the ayatollahs and nuclear weapons. Aaron MacLean explains why this is so, in the context of a broader discussion of strategic priorities in the Middle East and elsewhere:

If the Iran issue were satisfactorily adjusted in the direction of the American interest, the question of Israel’s security would become more manageable overnight. If a network of American partners enjoyed security against state predation, the proactive suppression of militarily less serious threats like Islamic State would be more easily organized—and indeed, such partners would be less vulnerable to the manipulation of powers external to the region.

[The Biden administration’s] commitment to escalation avoidance has had the odd effect of making the security situation in the region look a great deal as it would if America had actually withdrawn [from the Middle East].

Alternatively, we could project competence by effectively backing our Middle East partners in their competitions against their enemies, who are also our enemies, by ensuring a favorable overall balance of power in the region by means of our partnership network, and by preventing Iran from achieving nuclear status—even if it courts escalation with Iran in the shorter run.