Harking back to the origins of our ideas of religious freedom in 16th-century England, and surveying the political conflicts relating to religion in 21st-century America, Yuval Levin urges religious traditionalists to broaden their horizons as they set their agenda for public life. Social conservatives, he argues, have much to learn from Jewish traditionalists, who understand that “civil law doesn’t have to reflect every one of their moral convictions as long as it leaves them the room to have a meaningful community life.” At the same time, Jews must learn from conservative Christians that the outcome of today’s political fights over marriage, family life, and other matters will ultimately affect them as well. (Interview by Eric Cohen. Audio, 42 minutes.)

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.