In shul yesterday, as we headed into the second half of Deuteronomy, we happened on some of those passages that contain one of the invocations of Amalek that Netanyahu made famous after October 7: “Remember what Amalek did to you.” “You shall blot out the memory of Amalek.” These and another passage were mentioned by Netanyahu and a great many other right-wing Zionists to justify and explain the slaughter of Palestinians that ensued in response to the attacks of October 7. But there are two fascinating wrinkles in the Parsha that complicate that simple story. First, the injunction to destroy Amalek comes after a whole series of other injunctions that are designed to turn the Israelites into a civilized, moral […]