Wandering through a trendy cheese shop in a hip neighborhood of Brooklyn, Matthew Schmitz—a Catholic native of Nebraska—found himself suddenly put off by the studied anti-Catholic crassness of an advertisement and longing for the authenticity and traditionalism of a nearby ḥasidic enclave. But a conversation with a perceptive rabbi and further reflection revealed the perils of his sudden romanticization of his neighbors. He concludes:

Because I live so much of my life in the endlessly sampling Brooklyn that is now ubiquitous, I feel all the more strongly the appeal of a Brooklyn that offers thick tradition rather than a catalogue of aesthetic options. . . .

[However], starry-eyed longing for a binding community can become yet another way of surrendering to this world. Rather than living and working where we are, we dream of where else we might be. A vision of pristine community becomes yet another “option” in the endless parade of vintage, artisanal, and local things that excite our desire without demanding our love. Even with my rabbi’s warning, I am not sure that I can resist dreaming of a better community. As I do, I think I’ll look for a place to live on the border of the two neighborhoods I saw that day, somewhere between the hipsters and the Ḥasidim.

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.