Although the Bible contains extensive descriptions of the ritual garments worn by Temple priests, artistic renderings are virtually nonexistent. But the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, uses words that suggest how the clothing might have looked. The Greek text also informed Roman artists, helping them create a stereotypical “look” that signified Jewishness. Joan E. Taylor writes (free registration required):

The Septuagint’s Greek words link priestly dress with Persian attire. Persians . . . were known to wear pants and waist-tied tunics, with capes clasped with a brooch, along with floppy “Phrygian” caps, as can be seen in the Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome. So what the Septuagint indicates is that priestly dress was quite Persian/Parthian-looking. Importantly, [1st-century Jewish historian] Josephus—himself a priest—described in detail what he knew priests to wear in his own day. . . .

If in Greek texts Jewish priestly attire is presented as being rather Persian or Parthian in appearance, this might also explain a puzzling image on Roman coins commemorating victory over the Judean revolt. The coin type has Titus on the obverse and a Judean kneeling under a Roman trophy on the reverse.

It is usually assumed that the Romans simply depicted the Judean here as a Parthian, as a kind of one-size-fits-all “conquered rebel” type. Clearly, the figure looks like a subjugated (enslaved) Parthian as found in the statues of the public Gardens of Sallust. However, . . . viewers are supposed to “get” that this man on the coin is a Judean, [even though] there is no date palm (symbol of Judea) to identify him, or the words IUDAEA CAPTA (for the literate), as we find on other coinage.

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.