Many assume that traditional Jewish notions of charity lead naturally to support for the modern welfare state. Hillel Gershuni begs to differ:

The rationale behind the modern welfare state is often explained in terms of “redistributing the wealth.” This [justification for charity] is absent from [traditional Jewish texts] and even contrary to their purpose. . . . [The biblical passages concerning charity] speak of basic compassion between people. There is a commandment to help the poor out of human concern for your brother—but certainly not [a commandment] to redistribute wealth. . . .

Our ancient texts understood a basic concept that many modern thinkers seem to slip up on: economics is not a zero-sum game, in which the poor must lose so that the rich may gain. To the contrary—the existence of rich people is what allows poorer people to live more comfortably than they would without them. Halakhah expressly prohibits one from giving away too much of his property, ruling that . . . a man may not give more than a fifth of his wealth to charity, lest he himself sink into poverty. Here, too, the understanding is that even the voluntary distribution of wealth is not always a welcome thing, and it needs to be done in measured doses.

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.