In the middle of the 16th century, Jewish converts to Christianity and their descendants—known as New Christians—began slipping from Spain and Portugal into southern France. Although this area was also officially Judenrein, here Jews had to make less effort to conceal their identities, and as time went on the communities they founded slowly became openly Jewish. One such group settled in Saint-Esprit, adjacent to the city of Bayonne and near the border with Spain. Mariana Montiel writes:

Bayonne . . . became a prosperous city with the help of its new inhabitants. Feeling safer, these crypto-Jews began to practice their Judaism. Even though they were discreet in their practice, the Christian population knew they were Jewish. They therefore could not live in Bayonne [proper] and were able only to participate in wholesale trade.

Because these Jews had ties with the thriving Sephardi community in Amsterdam, they participated in trade in spices and cocoa. They brought the secret of chocolate manufacturing to the city, making a substantial contribution to its growth and wealth.

Documents show that in 1761, the Jewish population of Saint-Esprit was reprimanded because of the symbolic transgression that its inhabitants committed by living in beautiful homes where they would leave their curtains open on Friday night, allowing the Christians to see their Shabbat candles. . . .

The 600 Sephardic Jews of Saint-Esprit at the beginning of the 18th century maintained close relations with family members who had stayed in Spain and Portugal as well as with those [who had settled] across Europe, in the Caribbean islands, and on the North and South American coasts.

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.