Reflecting on the growing shortage of Conservative and Reform clergy, Rabbi Joshua Rabin argues that the problem is unlikely to get any better. At its root, he explains, is the diminishing number of “potential non-Orthodox Jews”—that is, children attending synagogues and educational programs—of whom only a small percentage will go on to become rabbis. The solution, therefore, can’t be to change rabbinical seminaries, but to focus on synagogues, schools, and youth programs:

We cannot innovate our way out of this problem by creating another cohort, fellowship, or conference, nor can we hope that some new paradigm will emerge to replace all existing institutions. . . . The only way to address this problem, which has enormous implications for the Jewish world, is to stop ignoring the infrastructure and legacy institutions and give them the resources they’ve always deserved but rarely received.

In Bava Batra 21a, our sages credit Joshua ben Gamla with ensuring the vibrancy of Torah learning when he decreed that Jewish children should begin their studies at age six. . . . Non-Orthodox Judaism operates in an environment similar to the one Joshua ben Gamla encountered: there is institutional decay coupled with a Jewish populace largely deficient in Jewish literacy.

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.