In the wake of Donald Trump’s election, Reform and Conservative synagogues across the U.S. have experienced a spike in attendance as rabbis long committed to identifying Judaism with “social justice” have explicitly or implicitly aligned themselves with the so-called anti-Trump resistance. Jonathan Tobin argues that, as much as this political engagement seems like a successful strategy for congregations faced with declining memberships, it brings no more than a Pyrrhic victory:

One can make reasonable arguments that some elements of Jewish law buttress modern political liberalism. . . . But once synagogues are dedicated to making religion serve partisan ends, it is always faith that gets the short end of the stick.

While the Torah and Jewish peoplehood are eternal concepts, the anti-Trump resistance will come and go no matter who ultimately wins the struggle between the president and his critics. Millennials searching for meaning may find a momentary haven in “sanctuary synagogues,” but, like previous attempts to sell Jewish institutions to secular audiences, the idea that one can be a “green” Jew or one rooted in any other trendy topic is not one that is likely to survive in the long run.

Yet an even more serious drawback to infusing partisanship into Jewish life is that rather than drawing Jews together, this is something that will only push them further apart. It is bad enough that in our bifurcated society driven by social media, we can delete and defriend anyone whose views don’t conform to our pre-existing beliefs and prejudices. Once synagogues take the leap into open political activity—and the “Trump bump” means the line between apolitical social justice and the partisan “resistance” is being erased by some liberal rabbis—they are, in effect, declaring those who don’t agree with these views personae non gratae in the sanctuary.

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.