For book lovers, the news that Cambridge University has acquired a previously sealed personal archive of Amy Levy, a Victorian Jewish novelist and poet who won praise from literary notables of her era, is a cause for celebration.

Levy’s 1888 novel Reuben Sachs is an exasperated, yet affectionate, look at English Jewish middle-class life. Levy, the daughter of a prosperous stockbroker, knew whereof she spoke. At the British Library in London, Levy rubbed elbows with Eleanor Marx, daughter of the author of Das Kapital.

In her own way, Levy, who died by suicide at the age of 27, was an anti-capitalist, although not because she favored Jewish spirituality instead. Her family only occasionally attended the West London Synagogue of British Jews, a Reform congregation located on Upper Berkeley Street. Instead of finding inspiration in Jewish ritual, Levy, in her 1886 essay, “Middle-Class Jewish Women of To-Day,” printed in The Jewish Chronicle, noted her type of mishpocheh expected daughters to marry and raise children.

Anyone interested in something beyond marriage and family, Levy wrote, must go “beyond the tribal limits” or more or less flee the family home. Levy admiringly cited examples of fellow English Jews who had become independent overachievers in their fields: Helen Zimmern, who translated Nietzsche and wrote on Schopenhauer; Hertha Ayrton, an electrical engineer, mathematician and physicist; and Mathilde (born Cohen) Blind, a poet.

The eponymous hero of Levy’s Reuben Sachs debates a fellow Jew who is dismayed by materialistic, success-obsessed capitalists, Jewish or not. Sachs retorts that despite a “cruel” history, Jewish people have finally “shamed the nations into respect” due to “self-restraint, our self-respect, our industry, our power of endurance, our love of race, home, and kindred.”

Sachs confesses that he is “exceedingly fond of [his] people.” Jews may disappear through assimilation, but the “strange, strong instinct which has held us so long together is not a thing easily eradicated.” He even foresees a form of post-Jewish reunion of Yiddishkeit: “Jew will gravitate to Jew, though each may call himself by another name.”

Levy’s reflections were interlarded with other opinions about Jews that reflected some of the prejudices of her time, about the supposed ugliness of Ashkenazi Jews, compared to the reputed noble beauty of Sephardim (reference is made in the novel to the “the ill-made sons and daughters of Shem”).

But in Reuben Sachs, she also expressed delight at the sheer gusto of Jewish life in London, writing of “excellent” bargain-hunting Jewish shoppers at Whiteley’s department store in Bayswater who radiated a “whole-hearted enjoyment that was good to see.”

Despite such enthusiasm, the UK-based newspaper The Jewish World kvetched that Levy “apparently delights in the task of persuading the general public that her own kith and kin are the most hideous types of vulgarity.” The critic added with dismay that Levy proudly supported “anti-Semitic theories of the clannishness of her people and the tribalism of their religion.”

Closer to the truth was Levy’s own explanation, published in the essay “The Jew in Fiction,” two years before the publication of Reuben Sachs, that she felt that Jewish characters should be depicted as well-rounded humans with good and less admirable aspects. For Levy,  Dickens, Thackeray, and even George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda were unacceptably “superficial.” Levy saw the Jews in Deronda as improbably noble, calling them a “little group of enthusiasts” with their “yearnings after the Holy Land.”

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Her sometimes ironic dismissal of Jewish beliefs and concerns were summed up in an obituary that appeared in an 1890 edition of Woman’s World, written by its editor, Oscar Wilde, who had published her articles. Wilde observed that Levy’s “family was Jewish,” but as she matured, she “gradually ceased to hold the orthodox doctrines of her nation, retaining, however, a strong race feeling.”

Levy was also a self-assertive urban dweller; her hometown of London was an essential part of her life. In her tongue-in-cheek “Ballade of an Omnibus,” she celebrated her disobedience of the social convention that women should remain in the sheltered interior of London city buses; Levy preferred to delight in views from the top deck of vehicles (“When summer comes, I mount in state/The topmost summit.”)

Literary historian Carolyn Lake has suggested that Levy may have been concealing a lesbian identity, hypothesizing that Levy’s tragic destiny may have been partly due to the pressure of being marginalized in three groups, as a Jewish woman who did not conform to a heterosexual orientation.

In 1926, the historian Beth Zion (Roochel) Lask, author of The Jews in England: A History For Young People read an essay before the Jewish Historical Society of England arguing that Levy was the “greatest Jewess England has thus far produced.”

Levy’s stout-hearted resolve to innovate pursued her even posthumously; she specified in her will that she should be the first Jewish woman to be cremated in England. Her family respected her wishes in this respect, just as the fact that personal papers have survived to be purchased by Cambridge University is partly due to the faith of the Levy family in the enduring value of her work.  The Cambridge archive, when fully examined by researchers, may help to change Levy’s reputation from writer appreciated by comparatively few mavens to a literary Lazarus with a wide-ranging readership that she has long deserved.

The post Esteemed by Oscar Wilde, England’s ‘greatest Jewess’ may finally be getting her due appeared first on The Forward.

A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.

Few revolutions have shouted louder about equality — or practiced it more selectively — than the French Revolution. As Alexis de Tocqueville later observed in his study of that turbulent era, “The French nation is prepared to tolerate … those practices and principles that flatter its desire for equality, while they are in fact the tools of despotism.”

In 1789, the streets of Paris rang with the cries of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité! It sounded like the dawn of a new moral age, born out of years of indulgent corruption and indifference by the French king and his aristocratic associates. 

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was hailed by its revolutionary authors as humanity’s most perfect charter of freedom. Except — as soon became painfully clear — the word “man” in the title meant quite literally only men; women were barred from becoming citizens.

To be clear, this didn’t land well. Thousands of women, including the fearsome fishmarket Poissards, all fiercely loyal to the Revolution, had marched to Versailles from Paris in October 1789, demanding bread and justice. As they gathered outside, they presented a petition calling for full equality. The newly formed National Assembly simply ignored it.

A few brave voices did try to challenge the exclusion of women. The philosopher Nicolas de Condorcet and the feminist pioneer Etta Palm d’Aelders appealed to the National Assembly to grant women the same civil and political rights as men. 

Condorcet put it bluntly: “He who votes against the rights of another — whatever that person’s religion, color, or sex — has henceforth repudiated his own.” But for all its lofty rhetoric, the Revolution had its limits. Their pleas were dismissed, and the march for “equality” rolled on without half the population.

Then, in 1791, Olympe de Gouges, the scandalous playwright and flamboyant pamphleteer, decided to expose the absurdity of the Revolution’s double standard. She published the satirically pointed Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, a transparent rewrite of the men-only manifesto. 

“Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights,” she declared. With biting sarcasm, she observed that women could be guillotined for opinions they weren’t even allowed to express: “If woman has the right to mount the scaffold, she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum.” 

Her audacity sealed her fate. Two years later, the Revolution that had promised equality sent her to the guillotine.

The man behind this extraordinary hypocrisy was Maximilien Robespierre, known to all — without a trace of irony — as “The Incorruptible.” He had begun as a fierce opponent of capital punishment, denouncing it as inhumane and unworthy of a civilized nation. 

But as the Revolution gathered pace, Robespierre enthusiastically embraced the guillotine. First, the king and queen were executed, then anyone deemed a “traitor to the Revolution” — many of them his former allies. The erstwhile champion of virtue became its most zealous executioner, reduced to a despotic murderer. 

His “Reign of Terror” descended into the “Great Terror” until, inevitably, Robespierre himself was dragged to the very guillotine he had glorified. The Revolution he had championed finally devoured its own moral prophet.

Every age has its Robespierres — people who loudly preach justice and identify threats, while in reality serving only themselves. The faces have changed, but the pattern remains. Today, they come dressed for television and curated for social media, but they are the same moral frauds who, in every generation, manufacture enemies and thrive on paranoia. 

Tucker Carlson thunders about freedom but gushes over autocrats and neo-Nazis. Candace Owens rails against victimhood even as she builds a brand based on grievance. Nick Davis claims to defend the oppressed although he finds every excuse for his favored oppressors. 

At the other end of the spectrum, Zohran Mamdani and AOC deliver moral lectures while refusing to condemn the chant “Globalize the Intifada,” while Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker livestream moral outrage for millions, though their moral clarity seems to blur significantly whenever the topic is Hamas.

This week, it hit me just how differently morality is projected in the narratives of the Torah compared to the modern moral code shaped by the ideals of the French Revolution. At the beginning of Parshat Chayei Sarah, Abraham mourns Sarah, his equal partner in every way. 

The passage opens with an unusually phrased verse (Gen. 23:1): “And the life of Sarah was one hundred years, and twenty years, and seven years — these were the years of Sarah’s life.” Rashi observes that the repetitive phrasing means all of Sarah’s years were equally good — not because her life was easy, but because her faith, integrity, and moral strength remained constant.

More importantly, Abraham’s reaction to her death — and the Torah’s deliberate framing of her life — make it clear that Sarah was not some kind of footnote to Abraham’s mission. She was his full partner, his equal in every respect. 

The Midrash teaches that the beautiful hymn Eishet Chayil — the “Woman of Valor” (Prov. 31:10–31) — was originally composed by Abraham as a eulogy for Sarah. One line captures her essence perfectly: “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” Sarah was no passive companion; she was a voice of insight, a moral compass, and a spiritual equal. 

Together, Abraham and Sarah launched a true revolution — the most revolutionary idea in human history: that God exists, and that all human beings are created equal b’tzelem Elokim, in the image of God. Long before France even dreamed of equality, Abraham and Sarah lived it.

The contrast with Ephron the Hittite — the antihero of Chayei Sarah — could not be more striking. When Abraham asks to buy a burial plot for Sarah, Ephron’s reply sounds magnanimous: he insists Abraham take the land for free. But once the crowd disperses, his true colors emerge. “What is four hundred shekels between friends?” he says with faux humility — while shamelessly gouging Abraham. 

Ephron’s civility and generosity are pure theater. Beneath the polished manners lies greed and hypocrisy. Like Robespierre’s “virtue,” Ephron’s altruism was all performance. When the mask came off, what lay beneath was ugly.

Abraham and Sarah’s model could not be more different. Their virtue was real. They lived their principles. Their tent was open to all, and their respect for each other sincere. It was Sarah’s wisdom, in fact, that shaped the destiny of their family. 

God tells Abraham, “Whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice” (Gen. 21:12). In that single line, God affirmed what the French Revolution never could — that true justice rests not on dominance, but on moral partnership.

And when Abraham eulogized Sarah, he didn’t speak of liberty, equality, or fraternity. He spoke of kindness, faith, and valor — qualities that endure long after slogans fade. Robespierre’s Revolution ended in blood and betrayal. Abraham and Sarah’s Revolution endures in blessing. So much for the “Rights of Man.” 

The real Revolution didn’t begin in Paris in 1789, but in Hebron three millennia earlier — when a man and a woman stood together as equals before God.

The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California. 

French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Nov. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

Just one day before Mahmoud Abbas was scheduled to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron, Palestinian Authority (PA) television chose to broadcast an interview with a Tunisian saying that the war against Israel must continue “until it will be expelled from Palestine and not a single Israeli will remain in Palestine.” [emphasis added]

Tunisian activist Karim Tabbal: “We support Palestine being united in all its parts. We oppose Israeli colonialism until it will be expelled from Palestine and not a single Israeli will remain in Palestine.”

[Official PA TV News, Nov. 10, 2025]

The French president should be aware of Mahmoud Abbas’ true ideology and goals, as Abbas tells his own people.

Abbas routinely tells Macron that he wants “to live side-by-side in peace and security with Israel,” but the PA internal narrative is clear about destroying Israel.

The destruction of Israel is so central to the PA’s ideology that it constitutes the focus of how the PA educates its children, as Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) exposed in its report, Teaching Terror To Tots. PMW’s report shows how crucial this goal is to the PA and how the PA rewrites history to justify the destruction of Israel.

Here are a few examples from the PA/Fatah’s Waed magazine, for children ages 6-15, in which Israelis are repeatedly presented as a foreign invader destined to be destroyed [emphasis added]:

“The Canaanite Arabs settled the land of Palestine … Palestine underwent dozens of invasions … Babylonians, the Persians, the Samaritans, the Assyrians, the Hittites, the Pharaohs, and the Hebrews … One hundred years ago the British invaded it. Their invasion was the most dangerous, because they deliberately arrived to give our land to the Jews. .. In the end, Palestine fell under the Zionist occupation, which continues today … The occupation will cease to exist just as what was before it ceased to exist… All of the invaders were defeated, and Palestine returned to be free and Arab.”

“Palestine is destined for full liberation … from the yoke of Zionist colonialism.”

“Palestine will be liberated and purified from the occupation’s [i.e., Israel’s] defilement.”

“The Zionist invaders will go to the garbage can of history.”

“The liberation of Palestine will only be achieved through armed struggle.”

“At the end of the period of French colonialism … they all fled to France and left Algeria to the Arabs and Algerians. Algeria’s experience assures that the Jewish settlers in Palestine will disappear in the end.”

Last week, PMW released a video compilation of PA/Fatah leaders preaching to groups of children and adults about how Israel is destined to disappear and that Palestine instead will be free from the river to the sea.

Here are several more examples from just the past two weeks of the PA’s indoctrination of children that Israel will be erased, that history will “restored to how it should have been,” and that “Palestine – all of Palestine” will be liberated.

Fatah Shabiba Student Movement Secretary-General Hassan Faraj: “We have come here to reemphasize that the [Fatah] Shabiba [Student Movement] remains loyal to the alliance, and is carrying the flag until the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine, Allah willing.”

[Official PA TV News, Oct. 29, 2025]

PA Ministry of Culture employee Maryam Muammar: “Jafra, O tribe members. Bird of love whose voice is pleasant, sing to the blue skies, Palestine is my land. [The bird] will say: Jerusalem is free, it is forbidden to the enemies, [as are] Haifa, Jaffa, Acre (i.e., all Israeli cities), and the West Bank”

[Official PA TV, Palestine This Morning, Oct. 28, 2025]

The picture shows a girl holding a poster featuring two images of former British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour.

Text on image on left: “The Balfour Promise, the promise that changed the history of the Middle East, and we will restore history to be how it should have been (i.e., without Israel).”

[Tulkarem Directorate of Education, Facebook page, Nov. 5, 2025]

The PA’s efforts to manifest a future without the existence of Israel does not just stop with children. It also preaches this to international groups that it perceives as allies, such as the Spanish General Union of Workers:

The picture shows representatives of the Spanish General Union of Workers receiving an honorary plaque featuring the PA map of “Palestine” that presents all of Israel together with the PA areas as “Palestine.”

[PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs, Facebook page, Nov. 3, 2025]

The French leader should have looked beyond Abbas’ diplomatic smiles and empty talk of peace. Abbas’ Palestinian Authority continues to indoctrinate its children, glorify violence, and deny Israel’s right to exist.

The message broadcast on official PA TV — that every Israeli must be “expelled from Palestine” — is not an isolated one. Rather, it is the consistent and official message of Abbas’ PA.

Until the PA ends its campaign to erase Israel and teach hatred to the next generation, every meeting and promise of “peace” remains nothing more than a calculated deception.

The author is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.