The Hebrew term lilith seems to have originally referred to a winged demon that preyed upon pregnant women and infants. During the Middle Ages, a legend—which had probably existed in some form for centuries—appears in Jewish sources to the effect that Lilith was Adam’s original wife, exiled from the Garden and replaced by Eve; eventually this story entered Christian mythology as well. Megan Sauter summarizes the recent scholarship about the story’s origins:

The creation of humans is described in the first two chapters of Genesis. The first account is fairly straightforward: “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). The second account describes how God formed man out of the dust of the ground and then creates woman [later given the name Eve] from the man. . . .

In the post-biblical period, some ancient Jewish scholars took the stance that Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:21–22 must describe two separate events, since it appears that woman is created differently in these accounts. . . . Accordingly, Genesis 1:27 describes the creation of Adam and an unnamed woman (Lilith); Genesis 2:7 gives more details of Adam’s creation; and Genesis 2:21–22 describes the creation of Eve from Adam.

Lilith’s creation is recounted in the Tales of Ben Sira, an apocryphal work from the 10th century CE. [The scholar] Dan Ben-Amos explains that although this is the first extant text that records the legend of Lilith, her story probably existed earlier.

Commenting on the wave of anti-Hamas demonstrations in the Gaza Strip, Seth Mandel writes:

Gazans have not have been fully honest in public. There’s a reason for that. To take just one example, Amin Abed was nearly beaten to death with hammers for criticizing Hamas. Abed was saved by bystanders, so presumably the intention was to finish him off. During the cease-fire, Hamas members bragged about executing “collaborators” and filmed themselves shooting civilians.

Which is what makes yesterday’s protests all the more significant. To protest Hamas in public is to take one’s life in one’s hands. That is especially true because the protests were bound to be filmed, in order to get the message out to the world. The reason the world needs to hear that message is that Westerners have been Hamas’s willing propaganda tools. The protests on campus are not “pro-Palestinian,” they are pro-Hamas—and the people of Gaza are Hamas’s victims.