Think it’s hot now? At least there’s air conditioning to keep you focused. American Jews of 100 years ago weren’t so lucky; summer without cooling often meant that it was much too hot to sit and pray comfortably in synagogue. Instead, those who could afford it left their homes for lengthy vacations, during which they apparently forgot their sober communal responsibilities and . . . had fun. This was apparently such a problem that it was given a name—“summer Judaism”—and “gave rise to considerable soul-searching about the nature of faith and the limits of community,” in the words of the historian Jenna Weissman Joselit.

Growing affluence, along with the heightened acceptability of leisure as a social value, enabled thousands of American Jews of the late 19th and early 20th centuries to abandon the city in favor of the countryside or the seashore. Up and down the East Coast and in the Midwest, too—from Kennebunkport, Maine, to Waupaca, Wisconsin—they joined existing communities, formed their own, or frequented a hotel. No matter their destination, a light-hearted, carefree “summer atmosphere” prevailed.

Forsaking responsibility for fun, American Jews threw themselves with glee and relish into the pursuit of pleasure. “The feeding and pampering of the body [is] the only and exclusive concern of these summer resorts,” observed Dr. Max Raisin in 1916. “There is altogether too much gaudiness in dress among the women and among men and women alike too great an indulgence in rich food and in the giddy social whirl with its dances and picnics.”

Dances and picnics—and more:

Anyone familiar with Abraham Cahan’s The Rise of David Levinsky, several chapters of which are set in a Catskills hotel in the years prior to World War I, will recall his pointed description of how the space reserved for praying also doubled as a card room, blurring the line between the sacred and profane without so much as a raised eyebrow. No sooner had Sabbath morning services concluded than the ark was whisked away, replaced by tables, chairs, and other trappings of a casino. To add insult to injury, card games drew a capacity crowd; religious services barely mustered a minyan.

This was too much—something had to be done. But what? “Once it became increasingly clear that a concerted, institutional response to the ‘summer problem’ was warranted, the Central Conference of American Rabbis took matters in hand and in 1908 formed the Committee on Divine Services at Summer Resorts.” Other efforts included the Reform movement’s creation of a Bureau of Summer Services whose staff

worked hard throughout the year to ensure, come the summer, that no community would go without a rabbi and Sabbath services. The bureau’s “strenuous efforts” paid off. By 1915, according to carefully assembled statistics, 45 rabbis and laymen held 176 services in 29 places, nearly triple the number of five years earlier.

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.