During World War I, Jewish soldiers in all combatant armies collectively held dozens if not hundreds of Passover seders, ranging from the ad-hoc to the officially approved and planned. Adolf Fraenkel, an Orthodox German mathematician who later became the rector of Hebrew University, described one such ritual meal in his memoirs, as Ro Oranim writes:

In 1915, Fraenkel found himself serving as a medical orderly for the army, which included such responsibilities as transcribing autopsy reports from dictation and assisting in minor surgeries. During his two years of service in the field hospitals, Fraenkel was also authorized by the Bavarian Ministry of Cultural Affairs to serve as the Jewish chaplain for his fellow soldiers. While this position did not reduce the responsibilities of his day-to-day service, it did offer him a chance to stay connected to his religion and to assist others in maintaining their traditions as well.

In 1915, Fraenkel was stationed at the military hospital in the French city of Cambrai. . . . Fraenkel took his position [as chaplain] seriously, arranging for prayer services in the field and ensuring that soldiers could celebrate their holidays to the extent possible. At the end of March 1915, Fraenkel prepared . . . a list of the local soldiers who were interested in joining the seder, . . . set to take place on the 29th and 30th days of the month. . . .

A total of nine soldiers registered for both of the seders, including men serving as medics, logistics officers, combat engineers, and one serving in the newly formed German air force who did not specify which seder he planned to attend, perhaps because he knew there was a chance he would be called away at the last minute.

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.