Ancient Jewish art contains numerous depictions of the menorah, and it remains an important Jewish symbol today, prominently displayed on the seal of the state of Israel. But the most famous artistic rendition may still be the one on the triumphal arch erected in Rome by Emperor Titus to commemorate his destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. But, writes Meir Soloveichik, the arch might be telling us the wrong story (2008):

It is often assumed that the centerpiece of the Roman victory parade was the menorah. This is understandable enough: during the Second Temple period, the menorah served as the symbol of Jewish sovereignty on coins minted by Jewish kings. It is also logical, given the way the relief on the arch prominently positions the captured menorah to highlight the political subjugation of the Jews. But Josephus, who was an eyewitness of the triumphal procession, insists in his Wars of the Jews that the menorah . . . was not the most salient object on display. . . .

It seems, [rather], that for Titus the most significant of all the spoils taken from Jerusalem was a scroll of the Torah, the book of Jewish law. . . . It was unlikely [this was] merely a scroll stolen randomly from some synagogue in Jerusalem. Rather, like all the other objects in the procession, it must have been a copy of the Law taken from the Temple itself . . . : the source to be consulted in addressing any textual questions that might arise about the law. . . .

No wonder, then, that Titus placed such a high value on the most important Torah in the possession of the Jewish people, the oldest and most authoritative version of the Mosaic law, the one kept in the Temple as a symbol of Jewish chosenness. As if to emphasize the point, Josephus tells us that although the menorah and the other golden vessels were displayed in the [Roman] Temple of Peace, the most valued objects seized by Titus, including the Law and the “purple veils of the holy place,” were kept not there but in the royal palace. Titus knew that his greatest victory was the capture not of Judea but of the Temple, and that his legacy lay first and foremost in the blow he had dealt to the Jewish faith by bringing about the exile of the Torah itself.

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.