For decades, the core of American Jewish support for Israel lay in what was once the communal mainstream: upper-middle class, non-Orthodox Jews. But evidence suggests that this support is rapidly declining even as the numbers of non-Orthodox Jews are also shrinking. Taking into account demographic and opinion surveys, Owen Alterman argues that Israel should recalibrate its outreach to American Jews to appeal to two groups whose numbers are on the rise, and whose support for Israel is greater than often assumed. (Article begins at p. 43.)

While decades of intermarriage and assimilation have eroded the established core of American Jewry, they have also produced millions of Americans who do not self-identify as Jews but who have a familial or other affinity to Judaism. . . . The 2013 Pew study identifies and defines two distinct groups of Americans who themselves are not Jewish but who have a particular link to Judaism. The first is the “Jewish background” group: Americans with a Jewish parent who do not (or no longer) identify as Jews. The second is the “Jewish affinity” group: non-Jews without a Jewish parent who nonetheless see themselves as linked to Judaism in some way. The links to Judaism are varied, ranging from those citing that “Jesus was Jewish” to those citing a Jewish spouse or Jewish grandparents. . . .

Taken together, these “Jewish background” and “Jewish affinity” sectors are enormous, [and] show a reasonably strong connection to Judaism and Jewish institutions, which sets them apart from non-Jewish Americans. . . . The sectors also show a strong emotional connection to Israel. A large proportion . . . believes that the United States is “not supportive enough” of Israel. Significantly, [this proportion] is actually greater than [that of the non-Orthodox] communal core holding this belief.

Similarly, Alterman continues, the ultra-Orthodox are often assumed both to be unsupportive of Israel and to have limited financial resources, but neither assumption is true across the board.

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.