On December 7, Rabbi David Ellenson, a theologian, scholar, and former president of the Hebrew Union College, died at the age of seventy-six. Ellenson wrote important studies of the history of Orthodoxy while serving as one of the great theorists and leaders of Reform. He was also, as Gil Troy notes, a devoted Zionist:

In his 2014 book, Jewish Meaning in a World of Choice: Studies in Tradition and Modernity, Ellenson recalls living decades earlier on Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek, a secular kibbutz . . . in the Jezreel Valley. In a passage that is agonizing to read after October 7, he says that whenever he viewed the lovely, busy, productive kibbutz from above while wandering the hills, he would recall the prophet Amos’s vision of the people of Israel being restored. However, while “deeply moved” by the scene, he continues, “no blessing would emerge” [from his lips].

But, he adds, whenever he climbed down the mountain, a different feeling overwhelmed him as he reentered the kibbutz. Watching parents kibbitz with one another on the lawn while their children scampered about happily, peacefully, and safely, this child of the American experience, born in 1947, a year before Israel’s re-establishment, would inevitably start pronouncing the She-heḥeyanu thanksgiving prayer for having lived to this moment. “In those moments,” Ellenson writes, “my spirit moved me instinctively to thank God for the kiddush ha-ḥayyim, the sanctification of life, that the Jewish state and Jewish existence embody.”

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.