Sometime in the late 15th century, an illuminated manuscript of the Haggadah came into the possession of a monastery in southern Germany, which then passed it on to the Christian Hebraist Erhard von Pappenheim, who appended a detailed prologue. The entire manuscript, prologue included, has now been published with a series of scholarly introductions. Philip Getz writes:

Although its illuminations are exquisite, what makes this Haggadah utterly unique is that some of them are also aggressively Christian. For instance, the quotation from Chronicles 21:16, “with a drawn sword in his hand directed against Jerusalem,” is accompanied by a Jesus-like figure raising a cross-like sword with one hand and folding two fingers and his thumb into the palm of his other hand to symbolize the Trinity. The same Jesus appears again several pages later when the Haggadah beseeches God to “Pour out Your fury on the nations that do not know You.” This time he is capped with a Judenhut and galloping in as the messiah on a white horse. . . .

The Latin prologue that precedes the manuscript contains something darker: a detailed outline of the seder, its laws and traditions, together with several classic (and innovative) versions of Christian anti-Semitism. . . . Nearly every element of Erhard’s prologue contributes to its meticulous depiction of a contemporary Ashkenazi seder. I say nearly because, written in as matter of fact a manner as the recipe for “herosses” [sic], we find the following: “If there is fresh blood, the head of the household sprinkles some drops—more or fewer, depending on how much he has—into the prepared batter, even though, they say, a single drop will suffice.”

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.