In April, ESPN published an article about Oliver Ferber, a track star at a nondenominational Jewish school who decided to sit out an important race scheduled to take place on Shabbat—despite pressure from his Jewish teammates. Meir Soloveichik sees a dark side to this seemingly inspirational story of religious commitment:

ESPN describes for its readers how Jewish students psychologically tortured a fellow Jew because of his adherence to traditional Judaism. Many adjectives exist to describe this bullying behavior, but perhaps one, above all, should be emphasized: un-American. It is worth pondering whether George Washington, echoing Newport’s Jews when he celebrated America as a country that “gives to bigotry no sanction, persecution no assistance,” could ever have imagined a day in which American Jews would be the bigots, giving persecution every assistance in order to pressure a classmate to cease his Judaic observance. Washington famously concluded his letter with the pluralistic prayer that Americans sit each “under his own vine and fig tree,” so that “none shall make them afraid,” and all will be “everlastingly happy.” Oliver did not have vine or fig tree; but we are told that in the midst of this bullying he did sit inside his car, finding himself as anything but everlastingly happy: “‘I just sat there.’ Then he burst into tears.”

In his This Is My God, [Herman] Wouk imagines an assimilated Jew encountering Ḥasidim and resenting how they remind him “with their mere presence in the street that he is burying a part of his background that cannot be buried. They are skeletons out of his closet.” That, in the end, is how Oliver may have been seen in his school. He was (pun intended) “a traitor to his class,” a Jew who had the gall to summon the skeleton of Sabbath observance from the Jewish past, a skeleton that was thought permanently buried, but that had the unmitigated chutzpah to resurrect itself in 21st-century America.

Meanwhile, if Oliver’s classmates were un-American, the Gentiles in his athletic circle were anything but.

On Tuesday, representatives of Hamas met with their counterparts from Fatah—the faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) once led by Yasir Arafat that now governs parts of the West Bank—in Beijing to discuss possible reconciliation. While it is unlikely that these talks will yield any more progress than the many previous rounds, they constitute a significant step in China’s increasing attempts to involve itself in the Middle East on the side of Israel’s enemies.

By contrast, writes Tuvia Gering, Taiwan has been quick and consistent in its condemnations of Hamas and Iran and its expressions of sympathy with Israel:

Support from Taipei goes beyond words. Taiwan’s appointee in Tel Aviv and de-facto ambassador, Abby Lee, has been busy aiding hostage families, adopting the most affected kibbutzim in southern Israel, and volunteering with farmers. Taiwan recently pledged more than half a million dollars to Israel for critical initiatives, including medical and communications supplies for local municipalities. This follows earlier aid from Taiwan to an organization helping Israeli soldiers and families immediately after the October 7 attack.

The reasons why are not hard to fathom:

In many ways, Taiwan sees a reflection of itself in Israel—two vibrant democracies facing threats from hostile neighbors. Both nations wield substantial economic and technological prowess, and both heavily depend on U.S. military exports and diplomacy. Taipei also sees Israel as a “role model” for what Taiwan should aspire to be, citing its unwavering determination and capabilities to defend itself.

On a deeper level, Taiwanese leaders seem to view Israel’s war with Hamas and Iran as an extension of a greater struggle between democracy and autocracy.

Gering urges Israel to reciprocate these expressions of friendship and to take into account that “China has been going above and beyond to demonize the Jewish state in international forums.” Above all, he writes, Jerusalem should “take a firmer stance against China’s support for Hamas and Iran-backed terrorism, exposing the hypocrisy and repression that underpin its vision for a new global order.”