Of late, critiques of capitalism have proliferated on both left and right, so that it is commonplace to write and speak of its failure as a foregone conclusion. Jeremy Rosen, skeptical of such assumptions, turns to traditional Jewish texts, among them a passage from the talmudic tractate Avot that contrasts four attitudes to private property:

On December 20, a Palestinian waited in a wooded area near a Jewish village in northern Israel in the hope of encountering a victim. Soon enough he spotted Esther Horgan walking home from an evening jog and killed her by beating her with a rock. He later told the police that he did the deed to avenge the death of Kamal Abu Wa’er, a terrorist in Israeli custody. Itamar Marcus explains: