Born in Slovakia, educated at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), and ordained by leading Orthodox rabbis, Joseph H. Hertz served posts in Manhattan, upstate New York, and Johannesburg before becoming chief rabbi of the British Empire. A fierce critic both of both Reform Judaism and of an Orthodoxy closed off to the modern world, he was also an ardent and outspoken Zionist. Today, Hertz is known mainly for his edition of the Pentateuch, to which he also contributed a commentary. Benjamin Elton writes:

[Hertz’s] Pentateuch and Haftorahs was part of his wider project of promoting an intelligent, traditional Judaism. As well as being interesting and informative, it was profoundly polemical. Its primary target was biblical criticism. . . . Hertz held that “Judaism stands or falls with its belief in the historical actuality of the Revelation at Sinai,” and set about to demolish the claim that the Pentateuch was a composite, human work. . . . His Pentateuch also took aim at the idea that Greek and Roman civilization are to be admired, and that Christianity had made an important moral contribution to the world. . . . Anything positive in Christianity came, according to Hertz, from its Jewish roots.

[But] the Pentateuch is also important for its moderate stand on many issues. Hertz was unconcerned by the theory of evolution. . . . He happily quoted from non-Jewish as well as Jewish authors, declaring that “‘accept the truth from whatever source it comes’ is a sound rabbinic maxim.” This attitude is the counterpoint to Hertz’s anti-Christianity, because it reveals his respect for the spiritual and religious lives of non-Jews.

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.