The biblical commandments concerning ritual sacrifice mandate close contact between the one bringing the sacrifice and the animal being sacrificed; the ritual is usually followed by the ceremonial eating of the animal. In our society, however, such close contact between eater and eaten is very rare. Yet, to appreciate the Torah’s teachings, Barry Kornblau argues, we must understand this presupposition of intimacy:

A korban shlamim (a “perfected peace offering”) . . . represents the Torah’s ideal of meat consumption: public for all to see; during the day when all can see; holy place, holy priests; fostering an immediate eater/animal connection at the time of slaughter; great attention to the animal’s blood life-force; sharing the meal with God. . . . Reflecting the natural human familiarity with animals of a bygone era, . . . the Torah assumes our ability to look our meal in the eye, slaughter it fully aware of the gravity of taking an animal life, and then eat it. It prefers, indeed, that such slaughter take place in broad daylight, in public, with the owner’s hands on his meal as he utters praises of God, and in as sanctified a manner possible.

Although such a method is not, alas, presently required of us in the absence of the Temple, I nonetheless believe that . . . Jews who eat meat “amidst wealth and plenty” and enjoy high educational levels have a special obligation to look past the Styrofoam and plastic in which we buy meat and eggs.

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.