Leviticus 18 and 20—read in synagogues last Sabbath and the upcoming one, respectively—contain near-identical lists of forbidden relationships. Most verses in these chapters refer to these forbidden acts as “uncovering nakedness,” e.g., “Do not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is the nakedness of your father” (18:8). According to the late French Bible scholar Guillaume Cardascia, and other contemporary academic biblicists, these prohibitions stem from a notion of a man’s control over his female relatives; transgression of these laws thus constitutes a violation of his property rights. Eve Levavi Feinstein explains, and dismantles, this argument:

[These] scholars have argued that ownership of a woman’s sexuality is at the core of Leviticus 18’s explanation for the various prohibitions against [sex with relatives by marriage]. A man’s father’s wife is prohibited because her “nakedness” is “the nakedness of [his] father,” which they interpret to mean that she is prohibited because she is the man’s father’s sexual property. The prohibitions on sex with other relatives by marriage—a man’s brother’s wife, father’s brother’s wife, and so on—are expressed in relation to the man. . . .

This argument, however, is fallacious. Concern about violating other men’s sexual property is the basis for the law against adultery, which appears in both lists. The prohibitions on the wives of relatives cannot simply be cases of adultery, as this would be redundant. . . .

In fact, the phrase “it is the nakedness of your father” does not mean that your father’s wife is his sexual property. This is clear from the use of the same terminology to explain the prohibition on sex with granddaughters: “because their nakedness is yours.” A man’s granddaughter is not prohibited in spite of the fact that her nakedness is his own nakedness. [as Cardascia et al. argue] but because of it. This would be inconceivable if “your nakedness” referred to sexual property.

A more fitting interpretation of “nakedness” is as a metaphor for a particular type of familial relationship. A blood relation is described as one’s “flesh”; for example, a man’s father’s sister is forbidden because “she is your father’s flesh” (Leviticus 18:12). A spouse, on the other hand, is described as one’s “nakedness.” . . . A man’s mother’s nakedness is both his father’s and her own, and she is prohibited for both reasons.

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.