In 1905, Richard Gottheil—a leading scholar of Semitics and one of the early leaders of American Zionism—discovered a millennium-old manuscript of the Bible in a Karaite synagogue in Cairo. At 616-pages, this extremely rare codex includes only the Writings: the third section of the Hebrew Bible comprising Psalms, Job, Esther, and other books. The volume had not been seen since 1981, raising concerns that it had been lost. But the Israeli historian Yoram Meital recently rediscovered it, finding it on a shelf in the same synagogue. Amanda Borschel-Dan writes:

In a stroke of scholarly luck, the colophon, or book’s imprint, includes the name of the scribe, Zechariah ben Anan, and the person who commissioned it, as well as its date of completion. These are rare and important details . . . and show the provenance of the work as well as the wealth and philanthropy of the family who presumably donated the text to the local synagogue.

Based on notes left by ben Anan, we know it was completed in the Jewish year 4788, which corresponds to the Gregorian year 1028. Ben Anan’s notes [also include] his computations of how many verses he wrote, and that [the volume] was once part of a complete Hebrew Bible—the other two sections, [the Pentateuch and Prophets], are gone without a trace.

The manuscript Meital found not only holds the complete Writings but also twelve pages of Masoretic [scribal] notes on the trope, or the cantillation system according to which it is to be read, and the nikud, or vowel and pronunciation marks. This [latter] system of little dots and lines overlaid on the biblical text indicates how the ancient Hebrew words should sound, since Hebrew is written without vowels. The system was established by a group of Jewish scholars [known as the Masoretes] living in Tiberias near the Sea of Galilee circa 750–950 CE.

“It would be difficult to remain indifferent to the beauty of this manuscript,” wrote Meital.

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.