Anti-Semitism, Amalek, and the American University

Simchat Torah is a feast day in Judaism; a yom tov (“good day”) or chag (holiday) coming at the end of Sukkot (the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles) in the Jewish liturgical calendar. It celebrates the conclusion of the annual cycle of parashiyyot (weekly Torah readings) for observant Jews. Unlike the pilgrim festivals of Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Weeks), and Sukkot, it is not a Torahitic (biblical) feast, but rather one that emerged in the Middle Ages among diaspora Jews. In this respect it parallels the emergence of the medieval feast of Corpus Christi among Christians, also a renewal point in the liturgical calendar in which the festivities generally offered a recapitulation of the Christian Year (e.g., the Corpus Christi plays). In modern times, the recapitulation point comes later among liturgical Christians, just before Advent, in the feast of Christ the King. Here, too, the feasts are not biblical in origin, but are nevertheless rooted in traditions that are centrally biblical. The purpose in each is to celebrate the work of God revealed in biblical history and to renew the annual cycle of readings which trace out the markers of divine covenant faithfulness l’dor v’dor, from generation to generation, what Christians for their part would come to call historia humanae salvationis, the history of human salvation.

On October 7, 2023, as observant Jews throughout Israel were celebrating Simchat Torah (literally, “joy of Torah”), with men in congregations across Eretz Yisrael taking turns dancing with Torah scrolls, atrocities of mind-shattering brutality were being committed against over a thousand unarmed civilians in the south of the country—women, children, and the elderly especially—in the worst day of horror and violence experienced by Jews since the Shoah (Holocaust). It was a Simchat Torah like no other.

The savagery and bestial brutalities wreaked on helpless, unsuspecting secular holidayers have been the subject of horrified commentary and analysis in the news media.¹ It is not our purpose to rehearse all of the gruesome details here. Rather, we wish to interrogate responses to these events in America, especially in American universities, and from a biblical and historical perspective to enquire as to what responses by Christian scholars and Christian colleges and universities may be appropriate, even incumbent. In conclusion, your authors—one of us a reformed evangelical Christian, the other a Conservative Jew—will offer some suggestions for reflection, discussion, and, we hope, fruitful consideration.

American Universities Respond (or Not) to October 7th

The video evidence of the torture, rape, mutilation, and murder of women, many of whom were forced to watch similar brutalities done to their children and grandchildren before suffering their own violent fate, was provided by the terrorists themselves, recording their brutality on GoPro body cameras. The evident glee of the terrorists whilst committing their atrocities readily conjured up the terms “diabolical,” “demonic,” and “obscene” even among those otherwise sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians.² At the very least it provides evidence, if in this fallen world more were needed, of what Calvinists call “total depravity.”³ That verdict, of course, is first biblical: as Jeremiah records the divine judgment, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”⁴ In scripture, that judgment is typically universal, referring to the condition of fallen men and women who have rejected God, but there are, as we see, particular instances in which the depravity to which all are inclined proceeds to unspeakable acts of evil. Invariably, it seems, these acts begin in hatred—virulent hatred—which eventually proceeds to desecration and every kind of murder, even the burning alive of children.⁵ Moloch is a hungry god.

As we have seen, hatred can of itself become universal or totalizing, and the degree of hatred for the Jewish people and their tiny homeland has, since the terrors of Hamas, unsettled many in America and other Western countries which had forgotten that such evil is possible. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the sudden discovery that huge numbers of students and faculty in our elite universities were eager, in public demonstrations and writings, to extol and celebrate Hamas for its atrocities. That this anti-humanistic bigotry has been whipped into mob frenzy especially in our most prestigious, elite universities—Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Penn, Stanford, and many more—has added to the culture shock. Students in the hundreds came out in public protests against Israel defending itself, even explicitly backing Hamas, some even in praise of the genocide of Jews.⁶ Professors, also in the hundreds, signed protest letters defending the students—but not the victims in Israel;⁷ others called for physical attacks on Jews and eradication of the Jewish homeland.⁸ The sheer magnitude of these demonstrations against Israel and for Hamas has deeply troubled other university communities from coast to coast and abroad, some of which, admirably—mostly Christian colleges and universities—responded promptly and decisively in support of Israel and the Jewish people.⁹ While “Judeophobia” has a long and inglorious history,¹⁰hardly news to anyone who is sentient, it is now becoming a defining feature of the zeitgeist in American academe. Many are asking, where did this toxin come from?

Rich Lowry is among those who have pointed to the role of propagandistic social media, especially TikTok.¹¹ Others, such as Eric Schmitt, the Republican senator for Missouri, have observed that the professoriate has itself for some time been inculcating views of a deeply anti-Jewish nature.¹² George Weigel, a well-known Catholic commentator writing in First Things, points in the same direction:

There is no excuse—none—for the wave of Jew-hatred that has washed across the Western world like an acid bath. Anti-Semitism is usually a sign of social and cultural rot, and this latest outbreak of an ancient social disease is no exception. Western culture and society are being rotted out from within; is it any wonder that some of the worst of the recent Jew-baiting has taken place on elite campuses, where nihilism, cynicism, and soul-withering secularism reign supreme? (Any parent planning to spend a half-million dollars to send a son or daughter to an Ivy League university or some other intellectual cesspool really should think again.)¹³

Bari Weiss targets the racist identity programs which have emerged so strongly in recent years—not only Critical Race Theory and Black Lives Matter, but the now nearly ubiquitous establishment in American colleges and universities of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, structures, and strictures which explicitly stratify students by race and make a new racial hierarchy to triumph over individual character, virtue, and personal achievement. She writes:

We have been seeing for several years now the damage this ideology has done: DEI, and its cadres of enforcers, undermine the central missions of the institutions that adopt it. But nothing has made the dangers of DEI clearer than what’s happening these days on our college campuses—the places where our future leaders are nurtured.

It is there that professors are compelled to pledge fidelity to DEI in order to get hired, promoted, or tenured. (For more on this, please read John Sailer’s Free Press piece: “How DEI Is Supplanting Truth as the Mission of American Universities.”) And it is there that the hideousness of this worldview has been
on full display over the past few weeks: we see students and professors immersed not in facts, knowledge, and history, but in a dehumanizing ideology that has led them to celebrate or justify terrorism.¹⁴

Most faculty members at this point, whether positive or negative on the DEI initiatives, can see that she has a valid concern. Faculty with a residual biblical orientation, Jewish and Christian alike, ought more than most to be able to see where these developments can lead. It has been evident for some time that DEI programs are most concerned with perceived slights and inequities of outcome for some minorities, especially Muslims and Persons of Color, but have little to no concern for other minorities, principally Asians and Jews, both of whom in the ideological glass of DEI programs are denigrated, along with whites, as “privileged” and “oppressive” groups by definition, on account of being “white-adjacent.” But it also bears noting that this is old wine in new wineskins: we should recall that institutional anti-Jewish quotas at Harvard, for example, go back a century.¹⁵

Anti-Semitism or Jew-Hatred?

Racism is obviously not by any means limited to spite against Jews. As Jacques Barzun put it on the eve of the Holocaust, racism is a near universal “superstition.”¹⁶  Where the Jews are concerned, nevertheless, there are some distinct elements.

Strictly speaking, “anti-Semitism” is a misleading term. There are a number of Semitic peoples who are not Jewish, and their numbers are vastly greater. Palestinian Arabs are a Semitic people. From Syria and Lebanon to Iraq and south to Ethiopic tribes and much of North Africa, the languages spoken are part of
the Semitic linguistic family. The conventional term in our present discourse thus blurs the lines in such a way as to obscure the most glaring specific bigotry, that against Jews. As Leo Strauss, Stephen H. Norwood, and most recently Alan Dershowitz have noted, the actual issue is not solely anti-Semitism; it is hatred of Jews.¹⁷

Hamas, which takes as its name the Hebrew word for “violence” (chamas), has itself made clear in a number of pronouncements including its charter that its goal is extermination of all Jews, not only in Israel but elsewhere in the world.¹⁸ This is as clear a confession of genocidal intentions as any court could wish. Norwood’s book offers an important historical perspective, showing the alarming degree to which American universities in the 1930s were hospitable, even enthusiastic about Nazi ideas, including radical hatred of the Jews. If there is a difference this time it is that the Nazis are primarily on the left of the United States political spectrum,¹⁹ especially in our universities, deeply formed by a neo-Marxist social construct in which Jews, as overachievers, count automatically as white oppressors, much like the “colonial” avatars of the West itself. That Jews in Israel and elsewhere run the color spectrum from white to olive, brown, and even black (e.g., Falasha Jews from Ethiopia), indeed as much or more so than their hostile Arab neighbors (Palestinians notably included), is a fact that Israel’s critics in academe refuse to acknowledge.

These same Jew-haters have refused to acknowledge other facts. Even when, as in the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin offered conclusive evidence that Hamas did in fact use the al-Shifa Hospital as a base of operations, as storage for weapons, and as headquarters, many anti-Jewish critics, including those at the New York Times, refused to acknowledge the evidence so damaging to their biased reporting.²⁰ That socialist and Marxist academics should behave in the same way as socialist and Marxist media moguls is no surprise; rejection of empirical evidence in favor of their “preferred narrative” has been, though less visible to the general public, for three decades now their normative operating procedure.²¹ Why should we be surprised when followers of Marx share his “sanguinary dream” of “a world without Jews,” and then act to make this narrative come true?²² As the saying goes, people tell us who they are, and their followers do, too. Tacit and often explicit hatred of Jews by these same academics and reporters was mumbled about in their faculty lounges and news rooms interalia all along. The general public, however, was less prepared for the explosion of their seething hatred in the wake of October 7th.

How Should Jew-Hatred Be Understood?

Many a Jewish child, after a pogrom in central Europe or an event like this, or on learning about the Holocaust, has asked the question, “Why do they hate us so much?” Jewish parents, teachers, and rabbis have tried their best to answer, often not being certain what answer to give. Gentiles have sometimes suggested that envy of financial success, wealth, and commercial prominence is a primary factor. Among intellectuals a certain resentiment, to use a term from Kierkegaard, has malingered under the shadow of Jewish high achievers in science, medicine, and the arts; at present more than 200 Jews have won the Nobel Prize in their discipline, over a fifth of all the awards given.²³ Philosophers, both Jewish and Gentile, have given their own answers, and while incomplete or even evasive, some of these answers are worthy of critical reflection. Nietzsche, for example, though not himself an anti-Semite (indeed he was an opponent of it), thought that the Jewish witness to morality, what is often termed “ethical monotheism,” was the goad for German hatred of Jews.²⁴

Indeed, this is the long-held opinion of the present Jewish co-author: through espousing ethical monotheism, the Jewish religion proclaimed to the world that there is one and only one God and that He is the gold-standard source of what is right and what is wrong in human behavior and ethics, all clearly laid out in canonical scripture. The world has resented and despised Judaism and the Jewish people for this ever since. That this same moral stance was hard-wired, one could say, into the religious value system embraced by both the Christian savior and the Muslim prophet, progenitors of successor faiths, is apparently lost on those contemporary adherents of these religions whose hatred of Judaism and all things Jewish has led them to commit or endorse atrocities and seek the annihilation of Jews. This renders them, strictly speaking, apostates in their own religions, something they may be unaware of (for now).

In George Steiner’s recapitulation, the amiable “freedom” of polytheism that Nietzsche saw as contradicted by the Jewish “doctrine of a single Deity, whom men can not play off against other gods and thus win open spaces for their own aims, is the most monstrous of all human errors.”²⁵ Steiner continues, “In his exasperating strangeness, in his acceptance of suffering as part of a covenant with the absolute, the Jew became, as it were, the bad conscience of Western history.”²⁶

A recent article by Raymond de Souza follows a similar track in arguing that “it is impossible to understand the origins of the Jewish people without reference to their religious identity.”²⁷ A key to contemporary antagonism toward Jews is thus tied ontologically to the existence of Israel as a nation:

The agglomeration of antisemitism around the modern state of Israel and its enemies cannot be separated from the status of the land itself. Either the land of Israel—itself a biblical term—is the Promised Land, the Holy Land, or it is not. To a certain prevailing secular mindset, the very notion of a Promised Land (promised by whom?) or a Holy Land is a stumbling block. Indeed, the very idea of the land—Indigenous peoples aside, one must curiously note—having a God-given sacred character is anathema. Therefore the very idea of Israel—a land for Jews, where Jews are welcome, where Jewishness is determined in part by rabbinic principles—is an offense to certain secular, progressive mindset. Combined with Arabist sympathies, anti-American agitations and a weird conception of Israel as a “colonial” power, progressive secularism then becomes an incubator for antisemitism. . . .

Thinking about Israel and thinking about Jews means thinking about religion and thinking about God. Some people don’t like to think about that, and so have come to not like thinking about Jews.²⁸

Father de Souza, a Roman Catholic priest, seems to be pointing in the right direction. If, as we think, he is right, then others who claim a biblical foundation for morality and good conscience are also implicated. In short, Christians have more than one reason to be concerned about widespread eruptions of Jew-hatred,
and Christian scholars have ample reason to be concerned about the apparently pervasive presence of such anti-religious sentiment in our universities. Among Jews, it is often said when speaking to Christians that they (Jews) are the canaries in the coal mine. Case in point: while not as widely publicized, anti-Christian bigotry is also present at Harvard, including the ongoing targeting of a Catholic colleague of ours since months before the post-October-7th Jew-hating fest even began. ²⁹

To help with our thinking about malevolence in our universities and in society at large it is useful, we believe, to examine the context already present in biblical history. This means taking a very close look at the one of the most mysterious, yet heavily commented upon, peoples mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as populating the environs of the ancient Near East and coming into conflict with the Israelites. The name of these people, the Amalekim (Amalekites), has become a sort of shorthand moniker for the generic enemies of Judaism, Jews, and the values and ethos espoused by the Torah. It will not be surprising to learn that many divrei Torah (rabbinic sermons) since October 7th have wondered, pointedly, whether Amalek has returned to do battle with the Jewish people, metaphorically or literally. Consider this next section our own homiletical contribution.

Amalek and the Persistence of Jew-Hatred

In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses implores the Israelites to abide by God’s command to “blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven”³⁰ on account of “what the Amalekites did to you along the way.”³¹ This nation, Amalek, is referenced about 50 times in the Hebrew Bible, mostly in the Torah. We are told that, among other characteristics, “they had no fear of God,”³²  a defining trait that surely explains most everything else that we know about them. Little wonder, then, that what we know about them pertains mostly to their intense hatred of God’s people, the Jews.

According to various p’sukim (Torah verses), we are told that Amalek attacked the Israelites at Refidim, unprovoked;³³ they constantly invaded Israel,³⁴ oppressing them³⁵ and plundering them;³⁶ they are a wicked people³⁷ with whom the Lord will ever be at war;³⁸ and in the end they will be utterly destroyed.³⁹ On occasion, Amalek was defeated, for a time, until they regrouped to fight again. But significantly, because the Israelites failed to obey God’s command to utterly destroy Amalek, permanently—“Do not forget!,”⁴⁰ they are told, to “carry out [God’s] fierce wrath against the Amalekites”⁴¹—the people suffered needlessly and the promised deliverance was delayed.

Since biblical times, one question about these verses has animated speculation and commentary among Christians and Jews: Who or what is Amalek? A couple of corollaries: What does Amalek represent, metaphorically, and does it still exist? Through the actions of the Amalekites, described in scripture, we can easily answer the first corollary. Amalek is the very embodiment of Jew-hatred, an insatiable lust to exterminate Jews—the people, the religion, and the homeland gifted to them by God. As noted, the name of Amalek has been invoked throughout history in reference to the enemies of the Jewish people. In light of Hamas’s recent atrocities in Israel, and the cowardly and disgraceful complicity of anti-Semitic opinion leaders in the academic sector in the West, it seems imperative to revisit these questions.

Rabbinic tradition tells us that the Amalekites were nomads living in the Negev, in the south of present-day Israel. They were probably not Arabs, but rather nomadic or semi-nomadic Edomites, and their progenitor was the grandson of Esau. From their first contact, they were hostile to Israel and ever after were at war with them.⁴² Other traditions considered them Arabs, through intermarriage or by origin, and still others claim that they never existed, or, if they did, that they no longer exist or at least there is no physical or archeological evidence.⁴³ Still others assert that they are still present in the world, not just metaphorically but genealogically.⁴⁴

Alongside the descriptions of Amalek found in the Hebrew Bible, the rabbinic canon goes into considerable depth on the identity and genocidal crimes of the Amalekites. In the Talmud, for example, there are a couple dozen references to Amalek. These include mentions of the wars between the Israelites and Amalekites,⁴⁵ as well as God’s commands to “smite Amalek,”⁴⁶ to “blot out the males of Amalek,”⁴⁷ and to “cut off the seed of Amalek.” ⁴⁸ By these are meant a divine imperative to ensure “the extermination of Amalek,”⁴⁹ a labor that was to take precedence even over reconstruction of the Temple.

Hundreds of references to Amalek dot the various collections of Midrashim, as well. Throughout this literature, Amalek is identified, variously, with the Canaanites, Agag, Haman, and others. One text asks, “What is the meaning of Amalek? The answer: ‘People of the locust. They spread out like the zahla locust. Amalek is a people who came to lap up the blood of Israel like a dog.’ ”⁵⁰ They are “evil-doers,”⁵¹ arsonists and kidnappers of wives and children⁵² who raid Israel and “eat up [their] flesh.”⁵³ Amalek’s crimes are vile, including mutilation of the genitals and other body parts of Israelites, rape of women, and pederasty.⁵⁴ It is hard not to see Hamas in these descriptions, literally. The Israeli prime minister made this same observation and, predictably, was condemned by the left-leaning Western media.⁵⁵

Echoing the theme that failure to obey God may be partly to blame for Amalek’s continuing to vex the Israelites, another Midrashic text declares that “because Israel grew lax in Torah, Amalek attacked them, for the foe comes only as the result of sin and transgression.”⁵⁶ In the end, however, this sobering chastisement will cease, as Amalek will go one step too far and justice will prevail: “Once Amalek has reached out his hand against God’s throne [i.e., attacks Jerusalem], ‘I will surely blot out the remembrance of Amalek.’ ”⁵⁷

The Zohar, the core text of Jewish esotericism, makes the sobering observation that “redemption will not be complete until Amalek will be exterminated.”⁵⁸ This must be done, we are told, because “apart from Amalek there was no nation that was not awestruck before the mighty works of the Holy One, blessed be He.”⁵⁹ Again, reference here is to the Amalekites’ utter lack of yiras Hashem, or fear of the Lord, a trait that defines them above all else and that leaves them open to the basest and most demonically evil tendencies without restraint. Accordingly, Amalek was “the first nation who feared not to proclaim war against Israel,”⁶⁰ and, elsewhere, is described as “the evil serpent of Israel,”⁶¹ thus also identifying Amalek with Satan.

Later rabbinic commentaries and texts, too numerous to catalog here, also mention Amalek, describing its crimes, its appropriate counter, and its ultimate fate. These include references to Amalek in Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah and Sefer HaMitzvot; the Sefer HaChinuch, a summary of commandments to the Jewish people; the halachic compendium Shulchan Aruch; and the writings of influential Torah commentators. For example, Ramban (Nachmanides) noted that Amalek exhibited “cruelty” and was likened to a “butcher”;⁶² Rashi declared that the “sons of Amalek were sorcerers (mechashfim)”;⁶³ Sforno encouraged Jews to “be forever mindful of what Amalek our arch enemy did to our forefathers”;⁶⁴ and Rabbeinu Bachya reminded Jews that “Amalek did something evil to us, seeing the Jewish people had done nothing to provoke such an attack.”⁶⁵ Again, the parallels with Hamas are striking. A sobering but ultimately hopeful note was offered by Ibn Ezra, who reminded the Jewish people that “were it not for the prayer of Moshe, they would have overpowered Israel,”⁶⁶ something that may be heartening to some in modern-day Israel and the Jewish diaspora, if taken as a reminder of God’s sovereignty. In the end, we are reminded by the Ba’alei Tosafot, “both in this world and in the world to come there will eventually remain no descendants of Amalek.”⁶⁷

In sum, the Chazal (rabbinic sages) and later rabbis make quite clear that Amalek is an almost eternally evil force, but also one that will eventually be vanquished. In so doing, these texts amplify and expound upon the words of the Bible, reinforcing the understanding of both the threat posed by the Amalekites and the reasons to remain hopeful, but only provided that Jews (and their Christian allies) fulfill the divine charge to blot out Amalek’s name. When the Jewish people have failed to follow through on this God- rdained imperative, the Amalekites reappear.⁶⁸

Although the New Testament contains no literal mention of Amalek, the patristic literature makes pertinent references to the Amalekites. The Fathers offer reflection and speculation regarding Amalek, drawing on sources in the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature.⁶⁹ A significant and close to comprehensive study of the major patristic trends in interpretation of Amalek provides more than enough perspective for us to see that the early Church theologians did not eschew these challenging texts. Two passages from the Torah are especially prominent in the Christian exegetical tradition,⁷⁰ one of which explicitly describes the genital mutilation of fallen Israelites at the hand of the Amalekites.

There is considerable evidence that early Christian exegetes such as Origen and Justin Martyr in particular were familiar with and drew on rabbinic sources. Both writers respond according to their preferred mode of spiritual interpretation, which allows for a universalizing treatment of inveterate, even demonic evil; Origen’s homilies are representative. In his homilies on Numbers, Origen goes on to allegorize Amalek as a warning of the necessity to be zealous and vigilant in the Christian life. A Christian reader should especially be warned, he suggests, of the ruinous folly of sparing “the invisible Amalek, who is called Amalek by virtue of his turning aside people from God and making pagans out of the worshipers of God.”⁷¹ Justin Martyr takes the equation of the Amalekites with defiant sin when he writes that victory over the Amalekites took place “through the hidden power of God . . . in the crucified Christ, before whom even the demons and, in short, all the powers and authorities of the earth tremble.”⁷² Irenaeus of Lyons will go so far as to say that the child Christ provoked the wrath of the Amalekites when in his rage Herod slew the Innocents in Bethlehem following the visit of the Magi.⁷³ Tertullian, Cyprian, and others follow suit. ⁷⁴

Little changed in the later Middle Ages, by which time biblical commentary emphasizes the allegorical and spiritual senses, generally speaking. As is typical of the medieval focus, the Glossa Ordinaria, a widely used marginal commentary on Jerome’s Vulgate Latin translation, concentrates on the scene in 1 Samuel
15:8-33 where Agag, king of the Amalekites mostly killed by King Saul’s soldiers, has been spared by Saul, contrary to the instruction of the Lord given through Samuel. In fury at Saul’s disobedience, Samuel kills Agag himself, leading the Glossa to comment that the sin of direct disobedience to God was the primary
cause of Saul’s losing the crown. ⁷⁵ References to Agag and Amalek also appear in later Christian writings, among which are William Langland’s Piers the Ploughman,⁷⁶ a fourteenth-century allegory about corruption in the Church, and John Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel,⁷⁷ both of which use the story in 1 Samuel to indicate a parallel corruption in the English Church and State. While Reformation commentators, as might be expected, give primary attention to the literal and historical sense, this traditional moral conception of Amalek as a sign of ontological spiritual malignancy carries over. Thus, according to Calvin:

[S]ome imagine that the Amalekites were impelled to take arms with this design; first, to avenge the abdication of their ancestor; and secondly, because they were unwilling that the posterity of Jacob should enjoy the inheritance of which Esau, the grandfather of Amalek, the founder of their nation, had been deprived. And, certainly, it is probable that the recollection of the injury which had been inflicted on their ancestor still remained, and that they were instigated by the devil, in order that the promise of God, whereby the right of primogeniture had been transferred from Esau to Jacob, should be frustrated and fail of its effect. This might, indeed, have been their reason for the war. . . .⁷⁸

However, God’s reasons, supervening, are both a spiritual correction of disobedience among the Jews and the eventual destruction of Amalek and all he stands for:

God, who rules in power, and who by His hand and authority controls and moderates, sustains and overthrows all things, as long as He shall reign upon His throne, endued with supreme and formidable might, will never cease to pursue the Amalekites with His just vengeance.⁷⁹

That the historical sense with Calvin is never out of sight (as later with his Puritan successors) is clear from his philological note on Deuteronomy 25:17: “The word זנב , zineb, which means to crop the tail, is equivalent to making an attack on the rear, where the baggage and invalids are wont to be placed.”⁸⁰

This puts Calvin even closer to Jewish traditions of commentary, and not in such a way as to suggest that the historical reality and spiritual sense cannot be separated. Indeed, in Calvinist traditions of interpretation historical atrocity and spiritual warfare in any time are frequently fused. By the time of Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible,⁸¹ this pattern is established to the degree that Agag, like Amalek before him, demonstrates the intensification of wickedness in those who have set themselves against God and his chosen people. A telltale mark of such wickedness is needless brutality; Agag is one who “trod in the steps of his ancestors’ cruelty.”⁸² Much more recently in Catholic author J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the reader is meant to understand that the evil shadow is always seeping out of Mordor, and that only the Last Battle on the Day of the Lord will ever completely expunge the terrible reality of it.⁸³

Among current-day Christians, Amalek has not been a popular topic for preaching from church pulpits. Perhaps the narrative seems too dark. Lay Christians may not even be familiar with Amalek, except in broad strokes, and perhaps only if biblically literate. (Perhaps this will change now since October 7th.) In any case, the grotesque reality of diabolical levels of cruelty and, more generally, of hatred toward Jews both in Israel and elsewhere in the world compel sober reflection and resolve toward an appropriate ethical response from Christians. Particularly, this is a pressing issue for Christian scholars, given the deplorable waves of Jew-hatred which have spread so widely in our universities.

How Should Believers Respond?

Every generation of Jews seems to have its metaphoric Amalek. Examples include Rome, the medieval church, Luther, the Nazis, Stalin, and, more recently, anti-Zionist Arab Muslims such as Islamic Jihad, Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS, and, of course, Hamas, as well as political extremists of the left and right who target Jews for persecution. Throughout history, as Joel Carmichael reminds us in The Sanitizing of the Jews, “The magnitude of the forces arrayed against Israel is undeniable: the spectrum is vast. . . .”⁸⁴ At present, shockingly, the newest and most vociferous group of would-be Amalekites can be found among the ranks of faculty and students at some of our so-called elite universities. Every day for the past several months, it seems, some new story emerges, more disturbing than the day before. The sheer scale of university student/professor protests against Israel’s right to defend itself began immediately on October 8th before Israel itself had decided on a course of action, convincing evidence that the antagonism had been primed long before the Hamas attack. Not all of these protests were peaceful, and in some instances Jewish students were harassed or attacked to the point that many had to flee for safety.⁸⁵

Similar events happened at other elite universities, and then spilled into the streets of cities from Los Angeles to New York. When the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn were summoned to a congressional committee to give an account of how anti-Semitism had become so virulent at their universities and to describe how they would respond to calls from students and faculty for genocide against Jews, the morally evasive and white-washing response of these three senior administrators was so appalling to the general public that a national conversation began to emerge as to how our supposed best universities had seemed to lose basic moral compasses. The presidents of Penn and Harvard lost their jobs, although
hundreds of faculty at Harvard signed a letter endorsing their president.⁸⁶ The fallout has been extensive, and the full ramifications of the revelation that DEI programs had been a major facilitator, along with other aspects of Marxist ideology, are still being revealed, often painfully for participants and alumni alike. In short, confidence in our universities—not just elite universities but many others as well—has been badly undermined.⁸⁷

That these ongoing conditions create challenges for those of us in private or less “woke” secular colleges and universities is at the heart of our concern. Many of the contemporary witting or unwitting descendants of Amalek give the appearance of being “reasonable” and they find willing accomplices in the mass media, popular culture, politics, and the academy who defer to them in defining what is and is not acceptable as far as the boundaries of public discourse on this topic. Why have so many faculty members in our universities been so determined, even in the face of the hair-raising evidence of the October 7th atrocities committed against women, children, and the elderly, to give an appearance of being “neutral” or “balanced” or “inclusive,” anxious to give air to “both sides”? And what of the legions of faculty and their highly politicized students who are actually marching in support of Hamas and the extermination of Jews or even physically threatening or assaulting Jews on campus?

One is reminded that when Hitler came to power in the 1930s among his earliest and most fervent supporters were faculty and students in German universities.⁸⁸  Carl R. Trueman has suggested that there seems to be a plausible case that Hitler has won—on the left.⁸⁹ This ominous parallel does not bode well for the future of American higher education. Moreover, because of the internet and social media, the influence of Hamas and the global transmission of its virulent ideations threaten to surpass even the Nazis in its spread to the wider culture.⁹⁰ To paraphrase Paul in Romans, the wages of a couple of generations of moral relativism in our institutions of higher learning is, quite evidently, death. Quiescence is not an option.

Are those of us who teach and conduct research in religious colleges and universities willing and able to take up the task of creating an alternative academic culture, one in which the mutual interests and mutual obligations of Jews and Christians are taken into account and developed toward an ethical praxis consistent with our convictions about the authority of Holy Scripture? We believe that much can be done, both by individual scholars of biblical faith and collectively by institutions of learning sympathetic to them to counter what is now being widely recognized as the toxins infecting much of woke university culture.

Points to Ponder, Actions to Consider

We should be careful to exercise good judgment concerning those who think differently than we do, especially when their presuppositions have become effectively secularized. Not everyone who shares in the anti-Jewish bigotry so pronounced in our elite universities is a raving fanatic; some who are hostile to
Jews appear to exhibit reasonableness and compassion where other groups are concerned. This may seem to us a contradiction, yet we should acknowledge that it is our theological starting points that make our own views different. There is nothing new under the sun in these matters; some instances remain opaque to reason. This applies to some persons who have ostensibly Jewish genealogical roots (e.g., George Soros, Bernie Sanders), as well as to those professing a Christian worldview. For example, one of the most compassionate sympathizers with the poor and downtrodden in his own culture, the nineteenth-century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, was inconsistently a despiser of Jews, accusing them of “a blind, carnivorous lust . . . for personal accumulation of money by any means”⁹¹ even though he knew that almost all Jews in his Czarist Russia lived in miserable poverty. Gary Saul Morson, one of the most eminent of scholars in our time where Russian literature is concerned, has confessed that Dostoevsky’s anti-Jewish prejudice was a contradiction to all that was most gracious and noble in his writing otherwise.⁹² Morson is not alone in finding the contradiction both painful and rationally inexplicable.⁹³

If nothing else, what the Amalek verses and their interpretation teach us is that there is a moral and spiritual malaise associated with Jew hatred, and that it is composed partly of historical human vengefulness and partly of what the Apostle Paul called “the mystery of iniquity,”⁹⁴ a kind of malevolent spiritual poison which will not be taken away until “the Lord shall consume . . . and destroy with the brightness of his coming.”⁹⁵ What Paul intends for his readers in that epistle, namely that they should “stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught,”⁹⁶ seems in our present circumstance to apply to all of us who likewise await the Yom Hashem Hagadol, the Great Day of the Lord.⁹⁷ We are just going to have to deal with the terrible mystery of iniquity in the light of what the scriptures have taught us.

One of the potential obstacles is supercessionism—the belief of some on the political right that Christians are a replacement for God’s original chosen Israel. This is not biblically warranted.⁹⁸ Supercessionism typically implies that God went back on his promise to Abram, “I will bless those who bless you and curse him that curses you; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you.”⁹⁹ This verse does not oblige believers to endorse every political policy of the modern nation of Israel nor does it forbid sympathy for and assistance to others such as Palestinian Arabs in their own distress, but to the degree that Christians and Jews live under the authority of Holy Scripture they will, we suggest, recognize that our prospects for divine favor are co-inherent, from the beginning intertwined. When Jesus was speaking with the gentile woman at the well in Samaria he pointedly reiterated the lineage of salvation as “from the Jews.”¹⁰⁰ And, in an extensive comment to gentile converts, the Apostle Paul explicitly cautions against forgetting that Christians are adopted, “grafted in,”¹⁰¹ to Jewish tradition, not a supercession away from it. Strong convictions regarding the continuing authority of scripture in respect of such points have characterized evangelical and some parts of reformed Christian life to a degree that present-day political Israel recognizes the support of such Christians as distinctive; it is not, unfortunately, a commitment shared by liberal, mainline denominations for which the Bible has less authority.

Happily, we have honorable examples to look to in our recent past. During World War II, biblical formation prompted the brave interventions of French Calvinist and Dutch Reformed witnesses to the terrible genocides of Hitler, involving acts of bravery and compassion notably epitomized for many in the life story of Corrie ten Boom.¹⁰² In a time of crisis, biblical faith translated into moral action can still make a difference. Karl Barth succinctly summarizes the bedrock of Christian moral obligation in this regard when he says:

Whoever has Jesus Christ in faith cannot wish not to have the Jews. He must have them along with Jesus Christ as His ancestors and kinsmen. Otherwise he cannot have even the Jew Jesus. Otherwise with the Jews he rejects Jesus Himself.¹⁰³

Catholic responses have varied across a similar spectrum to that represented in Protestant denominations, and, as commentary cited here by George Weigel and Raymond de Souza illustrate, contemporary conservative Catholic voices tend to align with evangelical support. Walker Percy, the American Catholic novelist, has taken a similar but not identical tack, suggesting one reason for Jew hatred is simply that in a triumphalist secular culture they are unassimilatable people, unlike virtually every other conquered and trampled nation. He wonders:

Why does no one find it remarkable that in most world cities today there are Jews but not one single Hittite, even though the Hittites had a great flourishing civilization while the Jews nearby were a weak and obscure people?

When one meets a Jew in New York or New Orleans or Paris or Melbourne, it is remarkable that no one considers the event remarkable. What are they doing here? But it is even more remarkable to wonder, if there are Jews here, why are there not Hittites here?

Where are the Hittites? Show me one Hittite in New York City.¹⁰⁴

The Jewish people’s one natural ally, Percy says, is (or ought to be) Christians, but he firmly rejects the “replacement theology” of some on the American political right. Percy, like de Souza, understands how for the secular mind “Judaism is offensive because it claims that God entered into a covenant with a single tribe, with it and no other,”¹⁰⁵ but he adds that to the same adversaries “Christianity is doubly offensive because it claims not only this but also that God became one man, he and no other.”¹⁰⁶ As if to confirm Percy’s prophetic insight, Christians as well have been increasingly targeted of late, essentially because their guiding story does not conform to the “preferred narrative.” In some respects this too would certainly seem to be an analogous development,¹⁰⁷ and a point worth pondering among Christians generally.

As educators, we would suggest biblically formed believers should go beyond obvious critique and rejection of mob violence, public protest, and Marxist anti-religious indoctrination in our elite and other universities, and should strive to foster mutual appreciation, understanding, and respect for the Jewish olive tree into which, by God’s grace, Christians have been grafted. For Christian colleges especially, in which there is already a healthy disposition to an integration of faith and learning, there are many possible vehicles and venues for such engagement—seminars, lecture invitations, conferences, and inter-university exchanges are among the possible options. For individual scholars with a will to help bear the burdens of others who are persecuted for the sake of the Name, there are other possibilities.

As one example, one of the present authors (a Christian) participated several years ago in a Torah reading group in which we worked carefully from the text aided by Rashi’s commentary. This was followed a couple of years afterward by an invitation to both of us from the presiding rabbi and shul leaders to reconvene at our local Conservative synagogue for a weekly, yeshiva-type study of the recently published Jewish annotated commentary on the New Testament.¹⁰⁸ Over the next three years we went from Matthew to Revelation in lively, probing discussions in which we all learned a great deal; no one was more richly blessed by this experience than the evangelical Christian involved. A particular advantage in our situation was the seriousness of faith among the participants, and our willingness to forgo some of the formal constraints typical of a “Scriptural Reasoning” interfaith or ecumenical academic exercise. Though we were rigorous, our mutual affection and reverence for the texts lifted us well beyond a merely intellectual affirmation of our commonalities. Such an opportunity may not always be easy to arrange, but we suggest it is well worth the effort.

Finally, we doubt that in the present climate there is much use in many of us addressing our concerns to the secular universities; worse than useless would it be for us to congratulate ourselves in not having (yet) fallen prey to their folly. Far better for serious Christian scholars to do everything possible to create a vibrant alternative and hospitable culture in which Jews are as welcome as one of us was at the other’s synagogue reading group. We applaud such acts of hospitality as the recent decision of Franciscan University of Steubenville to provide easy transfer to a safer environment for threatened Jewish students from hostile secular university campuses.¹⁰⁹ There are, of course, many other forms of academic and spiritual hospitality possible to us, and we should consider most seriously how best to create and pursue them in such a way as bear witness to truth, as Augustine famously said, wherever it is to be found, and to do so in a spirit of love.

1. A search on Google News for the terms “Hamas” and “Israel” and “October 7” turned up 229,000 hits by the beginning of 2024.
2. E.g., see Harlan Ullman, “Israel Has No Real Option for Fighting Hamas’ Diabolical Strategy,” UPI, November 29, 2023, https://www.upi.com/Voices/2023/11/29/Harlan-Ullman-Hamas-strategy-Israel/9641701199604/.
3. This is defined in reformed theology as the view “that sinfulness pervades all areas of life or the totality of human existence.” See Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 284.
4. Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV).
5. Etgar Lefkovits, “Remains Found of 12-Year-Old Girl Burned Alive by Hamas,” The Jewish Press, November 20, 2023, https://www.jewishpress.com/news/terrorism-news/remains-found-of-12-year-old-girl-burned-alive-by-hamas/2023/11/20/.
6. Among numerous such examples, see Joyce E. Kim and Nia L. Orakwue, “Hundreds of Harvard Protesters Stage ‘Die-In’ to Demand End to Violence Following Gaza Hospital Blast,” The Harvard Crimson, October 19, 2023, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/10/19/harvard-die-in-palestine/.
7. E.g., see Brian Bushard, “100 Harvard Faculty Criticize University For Condemning Controversial Pro-Palestinian Slogan,” Forbes, November 15, 2023,  https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/11/15/100-harvard-faculty-criticize-university-for-condemning-controversial -pro-palestinian-slogan/?sh=26d5bb5735d0.
8. See “Some US Professors Praise Hamas’s October 7 Terror Attacks,” ADL.org, November 21, 2023, https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/some-us-professors-praise-hamass-october-7-terror-attacks.
9. A letter in support of Israel and condemning Hamas, drafted by Rabbi Ari Berman, the president of Yeshiva University, was signed by over 100 college and university presidents and chancellors, mostly (but not entirely) from Christian institutions: “100+ Colleges and Universities Across the Nation Form Coalition Standing with Israel Against Hamas,” YUNews, October 26, 2023, https://www.yu.edu/news/over-100-u-s-collegesand-universities-join-rabbi-ari-bermans-initiative-to-issue-statement-in-solidarity-withisrael.

   Also see Eric Kelderman, “University of Florida’s Ben Sasse Takes Swipes at Other College Presidents,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 20, 2023, https://www.chronicle.com/article/u-of-floridas-ben-sasse-takes-swipes-at-other-college-presidents.

10. Peter Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes Toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977).
11. Rich Lowry, “The Left’s Tiki Torch Brigade,” National Review, October 21, 2023, https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/10/the-left-is-discovering-antisemites-in-their-midst/.
12. Eric Schmitt, “The Ideas Behind the Surge in Antisemitism on America’s Campuses,” The Daily Signal, November 8, 2023, https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/11/08/the-ideas-behind-surge-of-antisemitism-americas-campuses/.
13. George Weigel, “The Grave Sin of Jew-Hatred,” First Things, November 8, 2023, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/11/the-grave-sin-of-jew-hatred.
14. Bari Weiss, “End DEI,” Tablet, November 7, 2023, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/end-dei-bari-weiss-jews. Weiss references John Sailer, “How DEI Is Supplanting Truth as the Mission of American Universities,” The Free Press, January 9, 2023, https://www.thefp.com/p/how-dei-is-supplanting-truth-as-the.
15. Serena Jampel and Yasmeen A. Khan, “ ‘The White Man’s College’: How Antisemitism Shaped Harvard’s Legacy Admissions,” The Harvard Crimson, November 9, 2023, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/11/9/legacy-admissions-scrut/.
16. Jacques Barzun, Race: A Study in Superstitions (New York, NY: Harper and Row, [1937] 1965). See also the analysis by Joshua Pauling in “Jaques Barzun’s 1937 Critique of Race-Thinking,” Front Porch Republic, November 18, 2020, https://www.frontporchre public.com/2020/11/jacques-barzuns-1937-critique-of-race-thinking/.
17. See Kenneth L. Deutsch and Walter Nicgorski, eds., Leo Strauss: Political Philosopher and Jewish Thinker (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1994); Stephen H. Norwood, The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2011); and Alan Dershowitz, War Against the Jews: How to End Hamas Barbarism (New York, NY: Hot Books, 2023).
18. E.g., Tyler O’Neil, “Hamas Leader Shows Why Israel Can’t Afford to Let the Terrorists Remain in Gaza,” The Daily Signal, November 4, 2023, https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/11/04/hamas-itself-shows-why-israel-cannot-afford-let-terrorists-remaingaza/.

    See also Mosad Hassan Yousef, “Son of Hamas Co-Founder Denounces Group at UN, Exposes ‘Savage’ Indoctrination of Palestinian Kids,” YouTube, November 24, 2023,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjOEJumoABg.

19. Dan Cohn-Sherbok, The Crucified Jew: Twenty Centuries of Christian Anti-Semitism (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1992), 216.
20. Jennifer Rubin, “Evidence Confirms Israel’s al-Shifa Claims, So Critics Move the Goal Posts,” Washington Post, November 20, 2023,  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/20/israel-hospital-goalposts/.
21. “Tenured Barbarians,” The New Criterion 42, no. 4 (2023): 1-3.
22. Quoted from Dagobert D. Runes, in the introduction to Karl Marx, A World Without Jews, ed. and trans. Dagobert D. Runes (New York, NY: Philosophical Library, 1959), xi.
23. Alan Aziz, “Why are There So Many Jewish Nobel Winners?,” The Jewish Chronicle, December 8, 2022, https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/why-are-there-so-many-jewish-nobel-winners-ctycke48.
24. See Robert C. Holub, Nietzsche’s Jewish Problem: Between Anti-Semitism and Anti-Judaism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 2016); cf. Michael Fram Cohen, “Nietzsche and the Jews, Judaism, and Anti-Semitism,” The Atlas Society, March 8, 2011, https://www.atlassociety.org/post/nietzsche-and-the-jews-judaism-and-anti-semitism.
25. George Steiner, In Bluebeard’s Castle: Some Notes Towards the Re-definition of Culture (London, UK: Faber and Faber, 1971), 38. Steiner points out that Hitler’s jibe that “conscience is a Jewish invention” is an indicative remark. See Steiner, In Bluebeard’s Castle, 36.
26. Steiner, In Bluebeard’s Castle, 45.
27. Raymond J. de Souza, “Why Secular Progressives are Prone to Jew Hatred,” National Post, November 9, 2023, https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-j-de-souza-why-secular-progressives-are-prone-to-jew-hatred.
28. de Souza, “Why Secular Progressives are Prone to Jew Hatred.”
29. See Tyler J. VanderWeele, “Moral Controversies and Academic Public Health: Notes on Navigating and Surviving Academic Freedom Challenges,” Global Epidemiology 6 (2023): 100119, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloepi.2023.100119. The full story of Vander-Weele’s ongoing persecution at Harvard almost beggars belief.
30. Deuteronomy 25:19 (NIV).
31. Deuteronomy 25:17 (NIV).
32. Deuteronomy 25:18 (NIV).
33. Exodus 17:8.
34. Judges 6:3.
35. Judges 6:12.
36. Judges 14:48.
37. 1 Samuel 15:18.
38. Exodus 17:16
39. Numbers 24:20.
40. Deuteronomy 25:19 (NIV).
41. 1 Samuel 28:18 (NIV).
42. W. Max Muller, “Amalek, Amalekites,” in The Jewish Encyclopedia, ed. Isidore Singer (New York, NY: Funk & Wagnalls, 1901-1906), 482-484.
43. Gerald L. Mattingly, “Amalek,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Volume 1: A to C, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1992), 169-171.
44. This contention is made primarily by members of certain religious sects, such as fundamentalist Christians or Messianic Jews. Academic biblical scholars, both Christian and Jewish, tend to reject this belief, even those supportive of the idea that there is a metaphoric Amalekian presence in the world today.
45. E.g., b. Berachot 54a, 58a.
46. b. Yoma 22b.
47. b. Bava Batra 21b.
48. b. Sanhedrin 20b.
49. b. Sanhedrin 20b.
50. Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Teitzei 9.
51. Midrash Rabbah, Leviticus XXI:3.
52. Midrash Rabbah, Exodus XIX:1.
53. Midrash Rabbah, Leviticus XXI:3.
54. Pesikta Rabbati 12.13.
55. For example, Noah Lanard, “The Dangerous History Behind Netanyahu’s Amalek Rhetoric,” Mother Jones, November 3, 2023, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/benjamin-netanyahu-amalek-israel-palestine-gaza-saul-samuel-old-testament/.
56. Mekhilta deRabbi Yishmael 17:1.
57. Pesikta deRab Kahana 3.15.
58. Zohar I, 25b.
59. Zohar II, 65a.
60. Zohar II, 65a.
61. Zohar III, 194b.
62. Ramban on Deuteronomy 22:6.
63. Rashi on Exodus 17:9.
64. Sforno on Exodus 20:8.
65. Rabbeinu Bachya on Deuteronomy 25:17.
66. Ibn Ezra on Exodus 14:13.
67. Daat Zekenim on Exodus 17:14.
68. David A. Glatt-Gilead, “Amalekites,” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, eds. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky and Gregory Wigoder (New York, NY: Oxford University, 1972), 42.
69. Mieczysław C. Paczkowski, “Amalek and the Amalekites in the Ancient ChristianLiterature,” Teologia Człowiek 26, no. 2 (2014): 137-160.
70. Exodus 17:8-16 and Deuteronomy 25:17-19.
71. Homily 19 on Numbers 20:20-24, in Origin, Homilies on Numbers, trans. Thomas P. Scheck, ed. Christopher A. Hall (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, [c. 239-242] 2009), 119.
72. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 49.8. This translation is from St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, trans. Thomas B. Falls, rev. Thomas P. Halton, ed. by Michael Slusser  Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, [c. 155-160] 2003), 76.

    For another representative English translation see Henry Brown, Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, trans. Henry Brown (Cambridge, UK: Deightons, [1745] 1846).

73. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, IV.24.
74. Paczkowski, “Amalek and the Amalekites in the Ancient Christian Literature,”137-160.
75. Glossa Ordinaria, Vol. 113 in J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Latina (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1841-1855), 555.
76. William Langland, Piers the Ploughman, trans. J. F. Goodrich (London, UK: Penguin Books, [c. 1377] 1959).
77. John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel: A Poem, 3rd ed. (London, UK: printed for J. T., sold by W. Davis in Amen-Corner, [1681] 1682).
78. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Last Four Books of Moses, Arranged in a Harmony, Volume 1, trans. by Charles William Bingham (Edinburgh, UK: Calvin Translation Society, 1852),  91.
79. Calvin, Commentaries on the Last Four Books of Moses, 295.
80. Calvin, Commentaries on the Last Four Books of Moses, Volume 2 (1853), 401.
81. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Genesis to Revelation, ed. Leslie R. Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, [1706-1710], 1961).
82. Commentary on 1 Samuel 15:33 in Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 2.364, https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/matthew-henry-complete/1-samuel/15.html.
83. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (London, UK: George Allen & Unwin, 1954-1955).
84. Joel Carmichael, The Sanitizing of the Jews: Origin and Development of Mystical Anti-Semitism (New York, NY: Fromm International, 1992), 203.
85. Christopher Maag, “Cornell Jewish Center Under Guard After Online Threats to Jewish Students,” The New York Times, November 1, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/29/world/middleeast/cornell-jewish-threats.html.
86. Max Larkin, “Hundreds of Harvard Faculty Rally Around University President Snarled in Antisemitism Debate,” WBUR, December 11, 2023,  https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/12/11/harvard-president-faculty-letter-petition-support.
87. Fred Lucas, “Feds Add George Mason University to List of Schools Under Scrutiny Over Antisemitic Incidents,” The Daily Signal, January 4, 2024, https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/01/02/gmu-latest-school-under-federal-scrutiny-campus-antisemitism.
88. Robert P. Ericksen, Complicity in the Holocaust: Churches and Universities in Nazi Germany (New York, NY: Cambridge University, 2012); Rolf Uwe Fülbier, “Digging Deeper: German Academics and Universities Under Nazi Tyranny—A Comment, Accounting History 26, no. 3 (2021): 375-385.
89. Carl R. Trueman, “Has Hitler Won on the Left?” First Things, December14, 2023, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/12/has-hitler-won-on-the-left.
90. Richard Kemp, “Hamas’ Antisemitic Influence is Even Bigger than the Nazis’—Opinion,” The Jerusalem Post, December 22, 2023, https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-779122.
91. Cited in Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet, 1871-1881 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 2002), 314.
92. Gary Saul Morson, “Why Dostoevsky Loved Humanity and Hated the Jews,” Mosaic, December 4, 2023, https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/arts-culture/2023/12/why-dostoevsky-loved-humanity-and-hated-the-jews/.
93. David I. Goldstein, Dostoevsky and the Jews (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, [1976] 1981).
94. 2 Thessalonians 2:7 (KJV).
95. 2 Thessalonians 2:8 (KJV).
96. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 (KJV).
97. Zephaniah 1:14 (NJPS).
98. Genesis 12:3, John 4:22, and Romans 11:11ff. are some of the more obvious cautions against such a view.
99. Genesis 12:3 (NPJS).
100. John 4:22 (NIV).
101. From several places in Romans 11:11-36 (KJV), a passage that should be re-read carefully in our time.
102. Corrie ten Boom with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, The Hiding Place (Washington Depot, CT: Chosen Books, 1971).
103. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Volume II: The Doctrine of God, Part 2, trans. G. W. Bromley, J. C. Campbell, Iain Wilson, J. Stathearn McNab, Harold Knight, and R. A. Stewart, ed. G. W. Bromley and T. F. Torrance (London, UK: T&T Clark International, 1957), 289.
104. Walker Percy, The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What the One Has to Do with the Other (New York, NY: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1954), 6.
105. Walker Percy, “Why Are You Catholic? The Late Novelist’s Parting Reflections,” Crisis Magazine, September 1, 1990, https://crisismagazine.com/vault/why-are-you-a-catholic-the-late-novelists-parting-reflections.
106. Percy, “Why Are You Catholic?”; Our colleague Ralph Wood devotes a full essay to this aspect of Percy’s convictions in a forthcoming collection of essays edited by Thomas Martin for DeGruyter.
107. S. A. McCarthy, “Anti-Christian Hate Rising in Europe: from Job Firings to Arson to Murders,” The Daily Signal, November 27, 2023.
108. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds., The Jewish Annotated New Testament: New Revised Standard Version Bible Translation (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011).
109. Sara Weissman, “A Catholic University Welcome Mat for Jewish Students Feeling Embattled,” Inside Higher Ed, October 23, 2023, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/diversity/religion/2023/10/23/catholic-university-expedites-transfer-jewish-students.

     See also David Israel, “Who Would have Thunk? US Jews Feel Safer in Catholic Universities than Ivy League Schools,” The Jewish Press, January 7, 2024, https://www.jewishpress. com/news/on-campus/who-would-have-thunk-us-jews-feel-safer-in-catholic-universities-than-ivy-league-schools/2024/01/07/.