Born in Crete in 1591, Joseph Solomon Delmedigo received a traditional rabbinic education and was one of many Jews of his day who studied medicine and the sciences at the university of Padua. Among his instructors there was Galileo Galilei, whom he would later refer to as “rabbi [literally, my teacher] Galileus” in his Hebrew writings. Delmedigo was among the very first to publish the Copernican theory of the universe.

In this conversion with J.J. Kimchi, Jeremy Brown describes how traditionally-minded Jewish thinkers responded to the heliocentric theory, ranging from early adopters like Delmedigo to those like Moses Schreiber (a/k/a Hatam Sofer, 1762–1839) who dismissed it as incompatible with the Torah. The two conclude by discussing why, despite skeptics like Schreiber, Judaism did not find itself in the same sort of intense struggle with modern science as did the Catholic Church, and the ways both faiths have gone beyond these conflicts to show that science and religion can “walk side by side.”

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.