Earlier this month, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism—the body that governs the denomination’s congregations—changed its polices to allow individual synagogues to accept non-Jews as members. (In most cases, these will be spouses or children of Jewish congregants.) To Roberta Rosenthal Kwall, the decision reflects a fateful step in the ongoing dissolution of the differences between Conservative and Reform Judaism, which, if continued, will sap the former of its vitality:

[W]hile it is highly questionable whether Conservative synagogues will gain members by greater outreach to intermarried couples, it is almost certain that there will be losses of both a qualitative and quantitative nature from doing so. It is already the case that some Conservative rabbis allow an interfaith couple to have an aufruf—a pre-wedding [celebration that takes places during Sabbath prayers]—in their synagogues and allow public congratulations to interfaith couples on their engagements and weddings. Has this helped the movement gain adherents? There is no sign this is the case.

Parents who feel strongly about their children marrying Jews will lose the support of a synagogue community that reinforces their views on this matter. These parents will have to work twice as hard to buck the growing trends. As intermarriage escalates, it will be difficult enough for the Conservative movement to maintain its 73-percent in-marriage rate without synagogues [making that harder by] acting in ways that seem to suggest there is no greater virtue in two Jews marrying each other than in a Jew marrying a non-Jew.

In areas with large Jewish communities, parents seeking to pass on some form of traditional Judaism to their children and grandchildren may simply go elsewhere if their synagogues go too far down the intermarriage outreach path. We can assume that these parents will be among the most dedicated and serious members in a Conservative synagogue, those who often form the core of Shabbat attendees and exert an influence on the religious norms of the community. Their departure will alter the spirit of Conservative synagogues considerably.

Finally, assuming these outreach efforts become common in Conservative synagogues, rabbis who stand their ground and refuse to go along will have a more difficult time getting hired and retaining their jobs. The same phenomenon occurred in the Reform movement when it decided to give rabbis the choice of performing intermarriages.

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.