Simone Weil was a remarkable woman: a teacher, a factory worker, a field hand, a traveler, and a frontline volunteer in the Spanish Civil War; yet she found time to write and to philosophize about life and religion. Her short life (1909-43) spanned two world wars, although she did not live to see the end of the second one. The reactions of this French Jewish woman to some of the facets of these conflicts may seem surprising; her sympathies...