At the beginning of the above-cited interview, Amir Tibon describes life in Kibbutz Nahal Oz before it was destroyed by Hamas, and it seems something like an ideal community, with its own civic rituals, where neighbors know each other well, and where public gatherings foster a genuine sense of togetherness. But in America, such communities, once present in small towns and urban neighborhoods, are rapidly disappearing—with grave social and psychological effects, exacerbated by the effects of smart phones and social media.

The exceptions to this trend are often found in religious communities, and especially in Orthodox Jewish ones, which are held together geographically by Sabbath observance and in other ways by a network of voluntary institutions. Seth Kaplan and Caroline Bryk examine the strengths of these communities, which they illustrate with a particularly striking personal example:

Shabbat forces our community members to live within walking distance of each other and of the synagogue, nurturing social ties that are stronger, more trusting, and more interdependent. This gives parents the confidence to allow their children more autonomy and unmonitored time away from home, all week long.

Earlier this summer, Caroline and her husband both assumed the other was bringing their seven-year-old son home from synagogue and accidentally left him there, almost a mile away from home, with no way to contact him (as we do not use phones on Shabbat). This said, they did not panic. On the contrary, she and her husband remained quite calm—surely, in a neighborhood filled with hundreds of families walking home from the same synagogue, a fellow community member would notice their son alone and bring him home. Sure enough, that is precisely what happened—a fellow community member took responsibility for their son without prompting.

Calling the proposal to depopulate Gaza completely (if temporarily) “unworkable,” Peter Berkowitz makes the case for a similar, but more feasible, plan:

The United States along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE should persuade Egypt by means of generous financial inducements to open the sparsely populated ten-to-fifteen miles of Sinai adjacent to Gaza to Palestinians seeking a fresh start and better life. Egypt would not absorb Gazans and make them citizens but rather move Gaza’s border . . . westward into Sinai. Fences would be erected along the new border. The Israel Defense Force would maintain border security on the Gaza-extension side, Egyptian forces on the other. Egypt might lease the land to the Palestinians for 75 years.

The Sinai option does not involve forced transfer of civilian populations, which the international laws of war bar. As the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other partners build temporary dwellings and then apartment buildings and towns, they would provide bus service to the Gaza-extension. Palestinian families that choose to make the short trip would receive a key to a new residence and, say, $10,000.

The Sinai option is flawed. . . . Then again, all conventional options for rehabilitating and governing Gaza are terrible.