When the Mayflower arrived in what is now Massachusetts, its passengers knelt on the ground and recited Psalm 107—inspired, it seems, by a British Hebraist’s citation of Moses Maimonides, who instructed that this chapter be recited by those who have safely completed an oversea journey. This episode leads Meir Soloveichik to contemplate Judaism’s role in the American founding:

In an excellent reflection in Jewish Ideas Daily on the first Thanksgiving of the Mayflower’s passengers, Moshe Sokolow correctly notes that “this vestige of Jewish influence on the religious mores of the U.S. is worth our acknowledgment and contemplation—and, of course, our thanksgiving.” But I would add that it also, rightly understood, obligates American Jews to safeguard the story of America’s past and thereby its future. For we find ourselves concluding a summer of discontent, experiencing, as Commentary has rightly put it, a “great unraveling” that [calls into question] the greatness of America and its Founders. This follows the “1619 Project” launched by the New York Times, which insisted that America itself was created in order to preserve slavery. The project’s premise was roundly derided as entirely ahistorical by prominent historians such as Sean Wilentz, James McPherson, and Gordon Wood. . . . It was nevertheless awarded the Pulitzer Prize, a reminder of how swiftly and spinelessly the cultural elite has fallen in line.

In the face of these many assaults on the American idea, a number of American scholars have proposed a “1620 Project,” linking the Pilgrims to the preservation of American history. The anniversary of the Mayflower’s sailing reminds us what Jewish ideas have given to America and the obligation that Jews who care about the Bible owe this remarkable country in defending its story.

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.