Neither the biblical text nor archeological evidence supports the enduring misconception that Jewish slaves in Egypt built the pyramids. But references in the book of Exodus to the Israelites gathering straw to make mudbricks, and having specific quotas to fill, resemble quite closely slave labor as described in ancient Egyptian texts. David Falk, drawing on the latest scholarship, makes some specific conjectures about the construction projects these slaves may have been involved in:

Brickmaking was a [typical] labor specialization . . . for slaves in ancient Egypt. . . . Exodus 1:11 alludes to the Israelites building Egyptian storage cities: “So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor. And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Ramses.”

These storage cities are not simply coterminous with Pithom and Rameses, since these two cities had a variety of buildings that included stone temples. In other words, Pithom and Rameses cannot properly be described as “storage” cities, and thus the verse likely refers to structures within these cities—probably a series of mudbrick depots attached to the temples used to store vast quantities of food. . . . Examples of storage depots can be found surrounding several mortuary temples.

The reason the temples needed such storage depots was because Egypt had a barter economy that did not use money. Any temple cult lasted only so long as there was food to make offerings and feed priests. Storing food for offerings was essential for a temple to continue operating. Many of the temples in Egypt could not rely upon state support once the king died, and this was especially true of royal mortuary temples.

The storage cities ensured a constant supply of offerings for a king’s mortuary . . . following his death. Given these circumstances, Pharaoh’s command forcing the Israelites to build these storage depots was more than just slavery. It was a command to make God’s chosen people labor in service to gods other than Him.

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.