In a recent episode of National Public Radio’s This American Life, the host, Ira Glass, described an attempt to interview some ḥasidic Jews in a Brooklyn neighborhood thus:

Walking up to Hasids [sic] on the street felt like walking up to people from another planet. People had a general air of hostility or at least suspicion to outsiders like me. They waved me off.

Leibel Baumgarten, himself both a ḥasidic Jew and an avid listener to the show, comments:

This American Life has covered hundreds of communities across the country, including many reluctant to talk to reporters. Have any other minorities been described in the same way? Did we hear about the “air of hostility” coming from another religious group? I didn’t think so.

[This is exactly] why Glass was treated with suspicion by ḥasidic passers-by. We Ḥasidim are used to people coming to gawk at us—and we’re weary of how almost every story about ḥasidic Jews gets framed in the media. Had Glass stopped me for an interview, I too would have refused, . . . because I would have known there would be a strong likelihood my words would get twisted or edited selectively to support a narrative that would not be kind to us. From the New York Times to CNN, from blogs to podcasts, ḥasidic Jews are mythical creatures living in a bubble only the bravest and most intrepid reporters can infiltrate.

The Jewish community in Crown Heights, as well as Borough Park, Williamsburg, and other parts of Brooklyn, experiences anti-Semitism daily, often violently. The media’s [treatment] of ḥasidim no doubt contributes to the view of us as being “different” or “special” and somehow worthy of being attacked.

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.