When David Zvi Hoffman (1843-1921) first delved into academic study of the Talmud, the field was largely the province of proponents of Reform Judaism who wished to ground their movement’s changes to Jewish religious practice on a foundation of historical scholarship. For his part, Hoffman wished to use academic scholarship to defend Orthodoxy. His efforts laid the foundation for 20th-century study of the Mishnah—the earlier stratum of the Talmud, compiled around 200 BCE and traditionally believed to be based on a divine Oral Torah given to Moses. Michael Chernick writes:

David Zvi Hoffmann worked out a distinct, Orthodox approach to critical Mishnah study that attempted to understand the historical development of the Mishnah from within itself and from rabbinic and non-rabbinic sources related to it. . . . What sets Hoffmann apart from his contemporaries is his attempt to derive the history of the development of the Mishnah not only from references to its composition scattered across other traditional texts, but by carefully examining the work itself, and by “excavating” its layers. . . .

Through their research [into traditional Jewish texts], Reformers sought to demonstrate that Jewish practices were neither uniform nor static. . . . To counter their claims, Hoffmann set out to prove that the original Oral Torah, which according to him was preserved in the Mishnah, was ancient and originally undisputed.

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.