CIJR | Canadian Institute for Jewish Research
L'institut Canadien de Recherches sur le Judaisme

Analysis

Amalek and the Need to Name Evil

Dashcam photo of a Hamas terrorist capturing a man at the Supernova music festival, held near Kibbutz Reim in Israel's southern Negev desert on October 7 2023, where terrorists from Gaza killed hundreds of individuals- Wikipedia
Dashcam photo of a Hamas terrorist capturing a man at the Supernova music festival, held near Kibbutz Reim in Israel's southern Negev desert on October 7 2023, where terrorists from Gaza killed hundreds of individuals- Wikipedia

Mijal Bitton

Times of Israel, Mar. 6, 2025

“Amalek, by contrast, represents the kind of Jew-hatred that cannot be explained.”

The worst mistake Israel made before October 7th wasn’t a failure of intelligence; it was a failure of imagination.

This has been one of the most painful realizations as findings from probes into the attack were released to the Israeli public this week. The IDF had warnings. The political echelon was told an attack was imminent. Hamas operatives were moving suspiciously. But too many Israeli leaders were trapped in their own assumptions, convinced Hamas was too comfortable in its rule or too afraid of Israel to risk all-out war. They believed Hamas would not act irrationally, that it would not sacrifice itself just to massacre Jews.

That assumption – the failure to take Hamas at its word – was catastrophically wrong.

Far too many in the West are still caught in this same failure of imagination, convinced all conflicts can be resolved through dialogue, unable to grasp that some clashes brook no compromise.

We are now in a season of special shabbatot, weeks when each Torah portion comes with an additional reading. This week, in addition to Parashat Tetzaveh (which details the priestly garments and the Mishkan, or Tabernacle), we read a passage from Deuteronomy. Unlike the weekly Torah reading, which is a mitzvah to hear, this reading is obligatory.

It begins with a single word: Zakhor – remember.

It is a commandment from Moses to the Israelites: Remember what Amalek did to you when you left Egypt. A paradoxical command: to remember, and at the same time, to erase the name of Amalek from existence. ….SOURCE

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