By several metrics, hostility toward Jews appears to be on the rise, both in the U.S. and in the world at large. Alvin Rosenfeld considers the origins and nature of anti-Semitism with an eye toward better confronting its present manifestations:

There are two important sources of anti-Semitism. One, popularized in modern times by the malicious 1903 Russian hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is the figure of the conspiratorial Jew. The other is his figurative brother, the diabolical Jew. Bring the two together, and you have the delusional but abiding portrait of Jews as a community inherently hostile to non-Jews, intent on bringing endless suffering to mankind—a community that must be dealt with decisively before it is too late.

Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, . . . wrote. “All Jews by virtue of their birth and their race are part of an international conspiracy against National Socialist Germany. They want its defeat and annihilation and do all in their power to bring it about.” But if all Jews are guilty simply because they are Jewish, it does not take much analysis to see that the Jews are guilty not because they have done something wrong, but that they have done something wrong because they are guilty.

That key sources of anti-Semitism have remained constant over the centuries is not to downplay the seriousness of the situation today.

Rosenfeld makes several suggestions about how American Jews can confront the threats against them, the last of which applies to the “particularly virulent strain of anti-Semitism [that] holds not just the Jews but the Jewish state guilty.”

American Jews must recognize that the wellbeing of the state of Israel is fundamental to their own thriving. Many Jews now appear to feel embarrassed by Israel, particularly as the country seems to be going through a populist moment similar to those we have seen all across the world’s advanced economies. . . . We would do well to invest considerable resources in making an unapologetic case in our own communities and in non-Jewish communities for the proposition that Israel, for all its faults and all the difficulties in reaching a modus vivendi with the Palestinians, has fulfilled the long-held Jewish dream of national self-determination. No apology is needed for this extraordinary accomplishment. It’s one to be proud of.

Ahead of the current operation in Rafah, the IDF seized the city’s border crossing, coming within three miles of Egyptian territory. In response, Egypt blocked all humanitarian aid trucks from entering Gaza. (Israel has since opened a new route for aid to enter the northern part of the Strip.) Cairo appears to be punishing Gazans to express its displeasure with Jerusalem, which it has warned against coming so close to its territory. It has also declared its support for South Africa’s spurious lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Quite possibly, the IDF waited so long to seize this key border crossing because it didn’t want to upset its oldest Arab ally. Benny Avni examines the diplomatic fallout:

Israeli-Egyptian relations are more complex than they seem. Hamas’s ideological ancestor, the Muslim Brotherhood, is the main threat to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s regime. Egypt has maintained close intelligence ties with Israel ever since Hamas seized Gaza in a 2007 coup. . . . Cairo’s weeklong blockage of aid trucks at the Rafah crossing accounts for much suffering inside the Strip, but it is rarely reported.

[One] likely dimension of Egypt’s growing tiff with Israel has to do with the IDF’s intention, announced shortly after the war was launched on October 7, to seize the entire nine-mile border between Gaza and Egypt, known as the Philadelphi corridor. Following its full evacuation of Gaza in 2005, Egypt deployed guards to its side of the nine-mile border with Gaza. The deployment, as part of an agreement with Israel, was designed to prevent smuggling of weapons and other illicit materials into Gaza. Yet, Hamas’s arms kept flowing in.

Israelis say that senior Egyptian officers are bribed to facilitate smuggling through tunnels at the Philadelphi corridor. The Egyptians “enabled endless amounts of weapons to go into Gaza underneath the border between Gaza and the Sinai,” a former IDF brigadier general, Amir Avivi, told the Sun. “We see what is going on in Gaza. We know where this all came from.”

Over the weekend the Associated Press reported that for the first time since signing the peace treaty in 1979, Egypt is considering a break in relations with Israel. Yet, perhaps as a sign that both the Israeli and Egyptian governments prize their ties, Cairo quickly shot down the story.