To show their congregations’ dissatisfaction with recent changes in U.S. immigration policy, some synagogues have declared themselves “sanctuaries” where those who have entered the country illegally can hide from law enforcement. Jonathan Tobin objects:

These institutions and their supporters say their decision is grounded in justice, history, and even Jewish liturgy [and canonical texts]. . . . The notion of “sanctuary” can [indeed] be traced to the Bible, [which prescribes the establishment of] “cities of refuge.” But there is no analogy between illegal immigration and a law to shield those who had committed manslaughter so as to prevent them from being killed outright as a matter of . . . blood vengeance. Jews are [likewise] commanded to “welcome the strangers” in their midst. . . . But here again, the link to contemporary controversies breaks down because nothing in Jewish law grants foreigners the right to enter the country and stay indefinitely without permission.

Far more compelling [at first blush] are arguments based in recent history. Liberals say that as the descendants of immigrants, Jews should support new arrivals. Most emotively, they point to the enactment of restrictive U.S. immigration laws in the 1920s that were aimed in part at European Jews and then America’s refusal to provide a safe haven for those fleeing the Nazi death machine. . . . But the notion that the Syrians, let alone those streaming over the border from Mexico, are analogous to Jews who were all marked for death by the Nazis is absurd. . . .

Few of those who might take advantage of sanctuary synagogues are actually fleeing persecution, and they can petition the government and courts for asylum. The overwhelming majority . . . are economic migrants. We can sympathize with their plight, but the hyperbolic claims about their being victims of injustice has little basis in fact. They broke a reasonable law enacted by a legitimate government, not a tyrannical regime, and like all those who violate the law, they don’t wish to be held accountable.

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.