As described in Exodus 25 (read in synagogues last Saturday) and Leviticus 24, twelve loaves of bread were supposed to be placed on a special table in the inner sanctum of the Temple every Friday, which would then be eaten by the priests on the Sabbath of the following week. Les Saidel, a South African-born Israeli baker, has been working to recreate these loaves—known as the leḥem ha-panim or “showbread”—according to talmudic specifications. Alan Rosenbaum describes Saidel’s efforts:

The loaves had an unusual shape, and even though they remained on the golden table for a full week, they stayed fresh. They had to be prepared and baked quickly because they were unleavened, like matzah. Each loaf was quite substantial, weighing about seven or eight pounds according to some opinions, and as much as fifteen pounds according to others.

According to tradition, the Garmu family managed the baking process, ensuring that the bread was prepared properly. The work of baking, preparing, and removing the showbread from the ovens required great skill, and the Garmu clan kept their trade secrets within the family. . . .

[There is a] debate between talmudic authorities as to the exact shape of this mysterious bread. One authority said it was shaped like an open box; another rabbi maintained that it had the shape of a “dancing ship.” Based on the design found on coins minted by Mattathias Antigonus II, the last of the Hasmonean kings, in 42 BCE, which depict the golden table with the showbreads stacked on it, Saidel feels that the shape was similar to that of a U-shaped “dancing ship” with a curved bottom, rather than that of a V-shaped frame with a pointed bottom.

“The freshness question depends on two things,” Saidel explains. “If you use the same flour that we use today—soft wheat—it becomes stale much quicker. If you use the ancient, hard wheat—durum wheat—it has a much longer shelf life.”

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.