Contrary to what many believe, the war currently unfolding in Israel – which broke out on October 7 in response to the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust – is not a territorial conflict, like the one Russia is currently waging against Ukraine. Among the dead, seriously injured and kidnapped are people of various nationalities, including Brazilians, and not all of them were Jews, as many believe.
Some of the victims, as well as many of the heroes, were Muslims – Druze and Arabs. Thus, the war that began on October 7 is not a conflict between Jews and Muslims, or between Israelis, Arabs and Iranians. It is a struggle between good and evil, similar to World War II. In reality, it is a conflict that began millennia ago. The two sides in this conflict – Israel and Amalek – are ancient enemies who have been fighting for more than three thousand years.
More than a year has passed since October 7, 2023 – the most tragic day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. The events of that day will live in infamy, never to be forgotten. No military victory can undo the suffering that thousands of heavily armed terrorists have inflicted on the citizens of Israel. Because Israel is a small country, virtually every Israeli knows someone – or knows someone they know – who has been victimized, who has lost loved ones, or who now lives in constant fear, knowing that their loved ones remain captive in Gaza, subjected to unspeakable abuse.
October 7, 2023 – the holy day of Shabbat which coincided with the feast of Shemini Atzeret (Simchat Torah), one of the most joyful celebrations in the Jewish calendar – marked a turning point in the history of both the State of Israel and the Jewish people. This event will affect Israel, if not forever, then certainly for generations to come. There was an Israel before October 7, and after that date, a different Israel. Moreover, the impact of that day reverberated far beyond the borders of the Jewish state, shaking the Jewish world, the Middle East, and the entire world.
For the citizens of Israel, October 7 and the war it triggered revealed that the country still faces existential threats. For Jews in the Diaspora, the reactions that followed the events of that day – an unexpected wave of hatred against Israel and Jews, rather than widespread solidarity – shattered the illusion that, after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism had ceased to be relevant.
There is no doubt that the tragedy of October 7 was due to a major intelligence failure and political miscalculation on the part of the State of Israel. But the root of the problem goes much deeper than most realize. In this essay, we seek to argue, drawing on Jewish religious sources, that the real cause of this tragedy lies in a fundamentally mistaken understanding of who the enemy really is.
The origin of the conflict
In the Book of Exodus, the second book of the Torah, we read that shortly after the Children of Israel left Egypt, a nation called Amalek launched a surprise attack against them. This attack is notable because Amalek chose to attack the most vulnerable and weary among the Jews—those at the rear of the camp. The choice of this target reveals Amalek’s attack as an act of cowardice and wanton aggression.
Although the Children of Israel faced many battles on their journey to the Promised Land, the confrontation with Amalek is distinctive for two reasons. First, it was a gratuitous attack; other nations fought against the People of Israel to defend their land or out of fear, while the Amalekites attacked without cause, driven only by hatred and the desire to hurt and kill Jews. Second, Amalek's cruelty was unmatched by any other we have experienced. midrash reveals that the Amalekites committed horrific acts of brutality against our people. Because of this cruelty, G-d commands the Jewish People to “blot out the memory of Amalek” (Deuteronomy 25:17-19). Thus, the Torah singles out Amalek among all the enemies of the People of Israel.
The nature of this attack – cowardly and cruel – reveals its essence. Amalek is not just another enemy of the People of Israel. In geopolitics, even a ruthless adversary can become an ally tomorrow, if interests change. This possibility does not apply to Amalek. Unlike other nations that fought against the Children of Israel, this cruel people had no reason to attack us. The anti-Semitism of the Amalekites is pure and unchanging, driven not by interests or circumstances, but by implacable hostility. Amalek’s war against the People of Israel was and remains rooted in unfounded hatred.
When enmity between individuals or nations arises for a specific reason, it can be resolved or mitigated. However, there is no solution when the hatred is without cause, as in the case of Amalek. For example, the Pharaoh of Egypt enslaved the Children of Israel to profit from their labor, not out of any inherent hatred. Likewise, Balak, king of Moab, hired the sorcerer Bilaam to curse the People of Israel out of fear when he saw them advancing toward his territory. Pharaoh and Balak were enemies of the Jewish People, but their hostility was rooted in practical concerns. Amalek’s hatred, in contrast, is irrational, absolute, and baseless—a feeling that cannot be mitigated or rationalized. Amalek’s primary goal is not to defeat, expel, or subjugate the People of Israel, but to exterminate them.
Haman, a descendant of Amalek
In the Torah and the Books of the Prophets, especially in the Book of Samuel, we read about the battles fought between the People of Israel and the nation of Amalek. But it is only in the Book of Esther – one of the 24 books of the Tanakh – that we fully understand the depth of Amalek's evil and anti-Semitism. The Book of Esther, which tells the story of Purim and is read twice, in the evening and in the morning during this festival, it recounts the plan of Haman, an Amalekite, to exterminate the People of Israel. Haman becomes prime minister to King Achashverosh of Persia, and soon after plans a genocide against all Jews, only to be stopped by the courageous actions of Mordechai and Queen Esther, the Jewish wife of the Persian king.
At first glance, the story of Purim It seems incomprehensible: Haman decrees the destruction of all Jews – men, women and children – because their leader, Mordechai, refuses to bow down to him. But for us Jews, the reason behind Haman’s genocidal decree is clear: he is a descendant of Amalek – the arch-enemy of the People of Israel – and Mordechai’s refusal to bow down is just a pretext he uses to justify his plan to exterminate them from the face of the Earth.
Throughout the Book of Esther, we see Haman's obsessive hatred for Mordechai and his relentless determination to carry out his genocidal decree against the Jews. Nothing else mattered to him. midrash reveals that he was extremely wealthy, and the Book of Esther describes him as having a wife, many children, and being the most influential person in the empire—prime minister of the kingdom. Yet, as he admits to his family, nothing would satisfy him as long as Mordechai was alive. For an Amalekite like Haman, anti-Semitism is the very reason for his existence; it is as vital to him as the air he breathes. His hatred of the Jews drove his every action and consumed him completely. Everything else—family, wealth, and power—was secondary to Haman.
The Villain of Purim, Haman personifies the nation to which he belongs: Amalek. He is the archetypal anti-Semite who hates Jews for no reason at all, harboring an intense and obsessive hatred that demands nothing less than the destruction of the People of Israel. What sets the nation of Amalek apart from other enemies of the Jewish People is the absolute and unchanging nature of their hatred: they are impervious to bribes, persuasion, or reason. While one nation may resent another and even wage war, it is rare to see a people call for the total extermination of another. Amalek's hatred for the People of Israel is exterminatory.
Just like the other books that make up the Tanakh, the Book of Esther carries a timeless message. Writer Mark Twain once said that “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” an observation that suggests that while events do not repeat themselves identically, similar phenomena do reappear over the centuries. Throughout the millennia-long history of the Jewish nation, figures such as Haman, Amalekites who harbored the same genocidal intentions against the People of Israel, have emerged. However, none of them mirrored Haman as well as Adolf Hitler—a parallel we have explored in previous editions of this publication.
In the history of Purim, Mordechai and, especially, Queen Esther thwart Haman’s genocidal plans, ensuring a happy ending. However, when Adolf Hitler – the reincarnation of Haman and the most devastating Amalekite of all time – emerged almost 2.500 years later, the outcome was tragically different. Although the Axis Powers, led by Hitler, were defeated by the Allies, this man – the epitome of absolute evil – and his collaborators had, before that, managed to murder six million Jews, including one and a half million children. They succeeded in decimating two-thirds of the Jews of Europe and one-third of the Jewish population worldwide.
For over two thousand years, year after year, during the feast of Purim, the Jewish People follow the reading of the Megillat Esther – the Book of Esther – and celebrates the happy ending of the story in which Haman's plan of genocide against the Jews is thwarted. During the reading of the Megillah, it is common to treat Haman as a ridiculous figure, making noise to drown out his name every time he is mentioned. However, while this custom has a humorous tone, the reality behind Haman and his people, Amalek, is far from comical. One of the most crucial lessons the Jewish people should learn from the Holocaust is that threats from figures similar to Haman and Hitler should never be treated as mere bravado.
History itself supports the Torah’s teaching that Amalek’s primary goal—its very reason for being—is the annihilation of the Jewish people. No figure has better personified anti-Semitism of an exterminatory nature than Adolf Hitler—the most successful Amalekites of all time. Some historians believe that Nazi Germany lost the war because it devoted enormous resources to the extermination of our people, diverting efforts that could have been spent on the battlefield. If Hitler had been given the choice between winning the war and exterminating all the Jews, it is safe to assume that he would have chosen the latter. He would probably have preferred to eradicate every Jew from the face of the earth rather than to win a world war. And the reason for this is that for Amalek, the destruction of the Jewish people is the ultimate goal, above all other evil priorities. The Amalekites are even willing to sacrifice their own lives if in the process they can inflict great suffering on the people of Israel.
This obsessive and genocidal hatred is what distinguishes Amalek from any other type of anti-Semite. But there is another unique characteristic of Amalek that should concern all lucid and moral human beings: the devastating impact he has on the world – affecting not only the People of Israel, but also humanity as a whole, including the very nations where the Amalekites operate. Hitler unleashed a world war that took the lives of more than 60 million people and left Germany in ruins. Thus, Amalek represents an enemy not only of Israel, but of all humanity.
A crucial question arises when we study the history of Purim, as well as the period of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust: how was it possible for the Amalekites to gain so much support for their genocidal plans against the Jewish people? How did Haman manage to convince King Achashverosh to approve the extermination of all Jews? And how did Hitler persuade millions of people to collaborate, or at least support, his campaign of mass murder against the Jews? The answers to these questions are fundamental to understanding the forces that fuel today's widespread anti-Semitism. One of the answers – perhaps the most illuminating – is found in a passage from Midrash Rabbah, which reveals the methods used by those who sought to destroy the Jewish People.
Purim: Understanding How Anti-Semitism Spreads
The history of Purim – possibly the most blatant account of open and violent anti-Semitism anywhere in the world Tanakh – brings valuable lessons about the oldest hatred directed against an entire people.
O Midrash Rabbah, in his commentary on the Megillat Esther, offers timeless lessons on the origins and spread of anti-Semitism. For those who wonder how violent hatred of the State of Israel and Jews has spread so widely today, the Midrash Rabbah provides illuminating insight. In one especially revealing passage, the midrash explains how Haman managed to mobilize an entire empire with the aim of annihilating the Jewish People.
When reading the story of Purim, we learn that Haman offers King Achashverosh an exorbitant sum in exchange for permission to exterminate the Jews of the empire. However, it is clear that it would not be the king's army that would carry out Haman's plan. He offered the king money in exchange for permission to kill all the Jews, but not to mobilize Achashverosh's armed forces to carry out the genocide. Haman's intention was for the citizens of the empire themselves—including the various nations under Achashverosh's rule—to become the executioners. In order for his genocidal plan to succeed, Haman needed a large number of executioners and collaborators willing to carry out his plan, just as the Nazis needed the people to exterminate six million Jews.
How did Haman manage to mobilize an entire empire, including ordinary citizens, to commit genocide? midrash offers us an explanation, relating that Haman gathered the wisest men from various parts of the world and instructed them to write a letter, which was then distributed among all the nations under the rule of King Achashverosh. The midrash reveals the content of this long letter and we will include here its most relevant parts for our analysis.
The letter begins: “Let it be known to all that there is among us a certain man... a descendant of Amalek. He is one of the great men of this generation, and his name is Haman. He has made a simple and reasonable request concerning a certain nation among us—a despicable nation like no other, known for its arrogance and evil nature... And, worse still, its members are ungrateful to their benefactors. Just think of poor Pharaoh.”
The letter continues: “Moshe had a disciple named Yehoshua bin Nun, who was exceptionally cruel and merciless. Moshe ordered him, ‘Choose men for us and go fight against Amalek’” (Exodus 17:9).
The letter describes how Yehoshua bin Nun defeated Amalek in battle under the leadership of Moses. It then recounts the victories of the People of Israel in various wars: “The People of Israel attacked Sihon and Og, the most powerful kings in our land. Then they attacked the kings of Midian. And what else did that man, Yehoshua, the disciple of Moses, do? He brought the People of Israel into the Land of Canaan. And as if that were not enough, he also killed thirty-one of their kings and divided the land among the People of Israel, showing no compassion for the Canaanites. Those he did not kill became his slaves… Then the People of Israel had their first king, named Saul, who fought in the land of my ancestor Amalek and killed a hundred thousand of his horsemen in a single day, showing no mercy to man, woman, child or infant… And after him they had a king named David, son of Yishai, who destroyed and annihilated all the kingdoms around him, showing them no mercy.”
The letter’s chilling conclusion reads: “And now, when this letter reaches you, be ready on that day to destroy and kill every Jew among you—young and old, children and women, in a single day—without leaving a trace or survivor among them.”
What makes Haman’s commissioned letter extraordinary is its malevolent ingenuity and its timelessness. Its message remains as relevant today as it was in antiquity. The way the Jewish people and the Jewish homeland are portrayed in this letter closely resembles the rhetoric we hear today. This letter represents one of the earliest examples of fake news, distorting reality and completely inverting the narrative.
The representation of the Jewish people in this letter reflects the narratives we see in the media today – both traditional and social media – about the State of Israel. Then, as now, Jews are portrayed as “villains” while their oppressors assume the role of “victims.” The accusations in this ancient letter echo in modern contexts, from media outlets and universities to the United Nations and the streets of Europe and the United States, where the claim persists that “Zionists” are violent, oppressive and cruel, who took another people’s land to found a country; who commit genocide, kill innocent people and launch unprovoked attacks.
The strategy Haman employed more than two thousand years ago has been repeatedly adopted by those who followed him and continue to follow in his footsteps today. He understood that in order to justify mass murder, it was first necessary to construct a compelling narrative that would persuade people that it was the right and noble course of action. Following Haman’s example, the modern-day enemies of the Jewish people understand that by demonizing the people of Israel—portraying them, as the letter describes, as “the most despicable of all, known for their arrogance and evil nature…and, worse, ungrateful to their benefactors”—they can influence the average person to commit unthinkable acts against the Jews.
Every year, in Purim, we celebrate how Mordechai and Esther thwarted Haman’s plan to exterminate the Jewish people. Haman died on the same gallows he had built to hang Mordechai, but his war against the Jews outlived him. The letter he commissioned remains, nearly 2.500 years after it was written, a model followed by anti-Semites to justify their hatred and spread anti-Semitism among the masses. Every anti-Semite resorts to similar descriptions of the Jews: arrogant, selfish, cruel, a fifth column, disloyal to the country where they live, manipulative, trying to control politicians for their own benefit or that of the State of Israel, and concerned only with themselves.
Hitler used similar, if not worse, language to describe the Jewish people. By portraying them as evil incarnate, enemies of the people and responsible for all of Germany’s problems, he was able to mobilize millions to carry out the genocide or, at the very least, remain silent. Just as Haman told King Achashverosh that exterminating the Jews would be a favor to the king—a “dirty job” done in his name—Hitler framed his actions as “a service to humanity.”
The Torah, through the midrash, warned us thousands of years ago about the strategy that enemies like Haman would adopt to incite the world against us: spreading fake news and conspiracy theories about the Jewish people, paving the way for their malicious and genocidal intentions. Many wonder how it is possible that after October 7, so many people see the State of Israel as the aggressor and the terrorists, who committed atrocities and unspeakable crimes against humanity, as victims or freedom fighters.
The answer lies in recognizing that anti-Semitism and opposition to Israel’s existence did not begin on October 7. Rather, they are the result of widespread slander and defamation against the Jewish people and, today especially, against their country. Even before the rebirth of the State of Israel, and particularly in the last two decades, those who embody the spirit of Haman have compared Israelis to Nazis and equated Israel—the only democracy in the Middle East—with the racist apartheid regime of South Africa. Around the world—whether online, in the mainstream media, on American campuses, or on the streets of Europe and the United States—we have seen people not only justifying, but in some cases celebrating, the horrors of October 7. Haman's strategy for promoting genocide has proven effective for millennia and remains so today: portraying the Jewish people as inherently evil and their country, the State of Israel, as illegitimate, violent and cruel, allowing any tragedy that befalls them to be justified on the grounds that they themselves brought it on themselves.
Amalek and October 7, 2023
On October 28, 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referenced the Torah’s commandment to “remember what Amalek did to you” (Deuteronomy 25:17) when announcing the second phase of Israel’s war on Gaza, which included a ground invasion aimed at defeating the terrorists and rescuing the hostages. The mention of Amalek is deeply meaningful and has resonated strongly with Israelis and Jews around the world, who are still trying to recover from the aftermath and trauma resulting from that day’s attacks. The Israeli prime minister’s reference to Amalek highlights the realization that this war is not just another episode in the long string of violence in the Middle East, but rather a confrontation with an enemy that embodies absolute evil and poses an existential threat to the Jewish people.
The reason why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the terrorists as “Amalek” is clear: October 7 was much more than a tragic day in Jewish and Israeli history. It was, in a sense, a reliving of the Holocaust, albeit on an incomparably smaller scale. Even the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which claimed more Israeli lives, did not provoke the same sense of existential threat. The brutality of October 7 made Israelis perceive the attack as fundamentally different from all the wars and terrorist campaigns the country had ever faced. Unlike the Yom Kippur War, in which soldiers were the main targets, on October 7 the terrorists deliberately killed civilians, including women, children and the elderly, and the atrocities committed brought to mind the horrors of the Nazis. Nothing compares to the Holocaust, of course, but October 7th was a grim reminder of those horrors and therefore far more traumatic than any other tragedy faced by the Jewish people since.
Were it not for the Israel Defense Forces, those who invaded Israel on October 7 would have carried out their brutal plans against the country’s entire Jewish population. The savage cruelty they inflicted—sadistic murders, burnings of people alive, horrific sexual violence against women, children, and men, and mutilations specifically targeting the genitals—is a terrifying echo of Amalek’s actions against the vulnerable and defenseless among the Jews in the desert. As US President Joe Biden has said: “You know, there are times in this life—and I mean this literally—when pure, undisguised evil is unleashed upon the world. The people of Israel experienced one of those times this weekend. The bloodied hands of the terrorist organization Hamas—a group whose stated purpose is to kill Jews. This was an act of pure evil.” Indeed, it was. Absolute evil is the hallmark and essence of Amalek.
The war that began on October 7 is existential in nature for Israel and the Jewish people. The enemies Israel faces today are Amalekites, just as Haman and Hitler were. But unlike the events celebrated on Purim or during World War II, today the Jewish people are not defenseless. The Jews are no longer dependent on the political maneuvering of a Jewish queen married to a foreign king, nor are they being exterminated while they wait for leaders of other nations to defeat the Amalekites. Today, Am Israel, the People of Israel, have the strength to confront and defeat Amalek, and even the United States, supposedly the greatest military power in the world, has been impressed by Israel's military achievements.
Today, much of the media, along with political leaders in many countries and the UN, have adopted the “Amalekite narrative” about the war, portraying the State of Israel as the aggressor and the terrorists as the victims. This tactic of smearing the Jewish people is very old: for thousands of years, lies have been spread about us Jews; now they are doing the same thing about the State of Israel.
This age-old anti-Semitic tactic will not prevent the State of Israel from decisively defeating the Amalekites to ensure that another October 7th never happens again. For those seeking the truth about the current war that Israel is facing, it is enough to turn the narrative that Amalek and his “useful idiots,” as they are called, on its head. The reality is that the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces—hundreds of whom have already sacrificed their lives—are fighting not only for the State of Israel and the Jewish people, but for all of humanity. We owe them our eternal gratitude. And one day, honest historians will recount how a small Jewish country in the Middle East, surrounded by enemies, fought in the name of humanity to defeat evil and bring true peace and security to the world.
REFERENCES
The Midrash, Midrash Rabbah - Ruth/Esther, Kleinman Edition, Artscroll Mesorah
By Tev Djmal