In 2007, the Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman penned an attack on the Modern Orthodox community in which he was raised. Allan Nadler, himself an ordained Orthodox rabbi who left the fold, produced a ferocious and memorable rejoinder in which he lambasted Feldman for his “desire to be honored by the very religious institutions and authorities” that he “had willfully defied.” Now Nadler has reviewed Feldman’s newest book, To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People. Despite finding Feldman’s readings of both Moses Maimonides and the great sage and pedagogue Hayyim of Volozhin (1749–1821) shallow, Nadler finds something to praise:

Each of the book’s three parts closes with a powerful and moving homily. In these eloquent perorations, Feldman argues for an ecumenical Judaism, a tolerant Zionism, a pluralistic Israel, and—above all else—a collective Jewish humility. These are wholly admirable and eminently arguable aspirations. . . . But I also wish that Feldman had argued forthrightly, like his exemplar Maimonides, for his particular vision of Judaism. Instead, his book is premised on a pledge of non-allegiance to any particular ideology.

The result, writes Nadler, is less a guide than a menu, “as if a hungry person could be satisfied by eating a menu.” But the book then unravels in its treatment of Zionism, which rests on “Feldman’s mischaracterization of Zionism as being inherently atheistic,” on the one hand, and on the other displays a “determination to all but demonize religious Zionism,” while misunderstanding or ignoring its history. And that’s not the worst part:

The book’s last section, “Of the Jewish People,” is an extended argument against a Zionist or nationalist conception of Jewish identity. Feldman prefers a rather inchoate notion of the Jews as a vast, extended, and neurotically eccentric family.

Feldman’s book appeared in the midst of a worldwide eruption of what may fairly be considered the greatest threat to the Jewish state since 1948. In this context, his denial of the Jews’ status as a nation because most diaspora Jews are not Israeli citizens, and some Israeli citizens’ primary identification is national, not religious, is not only misguided but dangerous.

If Jews are, in Feldman’s convoluted, ahistorical theory, not (or no longer) a nation, then who will offer them asylum if the worst comes to pass? This is certainly contrary to Feldman’s intent—his passionate concern for the welfare of his fellow Jews is evident throughout this book. But I have no doubt that this rather new and more than middle-sized argument will be added to the arsenal of anti-Zionist ideologues.

As this newsletter noted last week, Gaza is not suffering from famine, and the efforts to suggest that it is—which have been going on since at least the beginning of last year—are based on deliberate manipulation of the data. Nor, as Shany Mor explains, does international law require Israel to feed its enemies:

Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention does oblige High Contracting Parties to allow for the free passage of medical and religious supplies along with “essential foodstuff, clothing, and tonics intended for children under fifteen” for the civilians of another High Contracting Party, as long as there is no serious reason for fearing that “the consignments may be diverted from their destination,” or “that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy” by the provision.

The Hamas regime in Gaza is, of course, not a High Contracting Party, and, more importantly, Israel has reason to fear both that aid provisions are diverted by Hamas and that a direct advantage is accrued to it by such diversions. Not only does Hamas take provisions for its own forces, but its authorities sell provisions donated by foreign bodies and use the money to finance its war. It’s notable that the first reports of Hamas’s financial difficulties emerged only in the past few weeks, once provisions were blocked.

Yet, since the war began, even European states considered friendly to Israel have repeatedly demanded that Israel “allow unhindered passage of humanitarian aid” and refrain from seizing territory or imposing “demographic change”—which means, in practice, that Gazan civilians can’t seek refuge abroad. These principles don’t merely constitute a separate system of international law that applies only to Israel, but prolong the suffering of the people they are ostensibly meant to protect:

By insisting that Hamas can’t lose any territory in the war it launched, the international community has invented a norm that never before existed and removed one of the few levers Israel has to pressure it to end the war and release the hostages.

These commitments have . . . made the plight of the hostages much worse and much longer. They made the war much longer than necessary and much deadlier for both sides. And they locked a large civilian population in a war zone where the de-facto governing authority was not only indifferent to civilian losses on its own side, but actually had much to gain by it.