Beatriz W. de Rittigstein
Amalek is a malevolent character who appears in the Jewish Bible to refer to the enemies of ancient Israel; he alludes to the descendants of Esau's grandson, the elder brother of the patriarch Jacob, to whom he sold his offspring. This refers to individuals or nations who, throughout history, have attempted to destroy the Jewish people.
The Bible conveys to us the obligation to remember what made us Amalek. The Amalekites were an ancient Levantine nation established in what is now known as the Negev Desert (present-day Israel). Although the Amalekite nation no longer exists, having disappeared millennia ago, the memory of a devious and cruel enemy lives on in all the forms of antisemitism with which the Jewish people are attacked.
In the Book of Exodus, it is recounted that, in an unjustified attack, the Amalekites attacked the Israelites at a fortuitous moment, as they traveled through the desert after miraculously escaping slavery in Egypt. Although Israel defeated the Amalekites, the belief persists that in every generation a descendant of Amalek may appear, intent on annihilating the Jews.
The Bible tells us that Amalek attacked the most vulnerable, the stragglers, and attacked them from the rear when they were tired. This is the legendary expression that Jews recall about the appearance of those they considered dangerous in different eras; that is, Amalek is the prototype of the devastating enemy of the Jewish people.
During their prolonged diaspora, the Jewish people suffered massacres, expulsions, discrimination, and humiliation, so much so that they learned to survive, fleeing the fate that the Amalekites of the day had in store for them. These days, we celebrate the Jewish holiday of Purim, which commemorates their salvation from the extermination that Haman, prime minister of King Ahasuerus of Persia, had in store for them some 2.500 years ago. The evil Haman is considered a descendant of Amalek.
After more than a thousand years on the Iberian Peninsula, in 1492, the Catholic monarchs issued the edict of expulsion, and through the Inquisition, compliance with the prohibition of Judaism was enforced in their dominions. The pinnacle of these centuries of crimes, in which certain tyrannies attempted to annihilate defenseless communities, occurred with Nazism, which perpetrated the systematic slaughter known as the Holocaust.
Under the communist yoke, Jews were forced to disassociate themselves from their ancestral ties to the land of their ancestors. Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, Iran's Jewish community has been held hostage, forced to reject its ancestral ties to Israel.
There is no doubt that, since the fateful October 7, 2023, the Jewish people have faced vivid representations of Amalek seeking to overthrow the State of Israel and wipe out the Jewish people. First, there is the Iranian theocracy, which makes no secret of its desire to eradicate the Jewish state, and on numerous occasions, its authorities have publicly stated this without any shame. For example, at the recent meeting of foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member countries in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi dismissed the "two-state solution" and cynically advocated for a Palestinian "democratic state" throughout Israeli territory. To this end, the ayatollahs' regime has established so-called proxies: Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.
The legend of Amalek endures in Jewish culture and collective memory, and from time to time, it takes on a concrete form and shape, animated by absolute evil—be it Haman, the Spanish inquisitor Torquemada, Hitler, Akhmatova al-Husseini, Khamenei, Nasrallah, or Sinwar—and it strikes when least expected, with brutal violence; currently, through terrorism, which undoubtedly must be eradicated for the well-being of humanity.