Jerusalem Day—which marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordanian occupation—begins Sunday night and lasts through Monday night, thus coinciding with America’s Memorial Day. I wanted to leave you with something to read for the occasion, and I can think of nothing better than this essay by Norman Podhoretz, published in Commentary in 2007, about the theological, moral, and historical meaning of Jerusalem. Podhoretz begins in the 7th century BCE, when King Josiah destroyed all altars and shrines outside of Temple, even if they were dedicated to God Himself:

From now on, there was to be no sacrificing and no celebration of the festivals anywhere except in Jerusalem. Jerusalem thus became not only the capital of Judah but also, so to speak, the capital of Judaism.

In wondering about this singling-out of one city from among all the cities in the Land of Israel, I find myself ineluctably led into its larger and even more mysterious context, which is the singling-out of one people from among all the nations of the world.

This, Podhoretz notes, is what Christian theologians have referred to as “the scandal of Jewish particularity.” But he rejects the “prevailing Christian view” that draws “a sharply invidious line between the particular and the universal.”

For one thing, I strongly agree that the universal can only be reached through the particular—and not just in religion alone, but also in art and science which, in the words of the English poet William Blake, “cannot exist but in minutely organized particulars.” True, I still find it hard to make theological or even just plain logical sense out of the election of Israel—so hard, that I cannot altogether dismiss the old view of it as an oddity to Reason and a scandal to Theology.

At the same time, however, I also find myself, if a little mischievously, beginning to think that if the idea of the Jews as the chosen people is taken not as a matter of faith that can never be proved, but as a hypothesis subject to empirical verification, it actually seems to make scientific sense.

Norman Podhoretz discussed this essay with Eric Cohen on a 2016 episode of the Mosaic podcast, which you can listen to here.

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.