Jewish anti-Zionists aren’t going away—how should Jewish communities respond?
According to the JFNA (Jewish Federations of North America), some 32% of American Jews between the ages of 18 and 34 define themselves as “anti-Zionist.” Essentially, a third. That number may well grow.
How should the “mainstream” Jewish community respond? Try to understand them with greater sympathy, or raise the walls higher? Remove flags from the bimah in our synagogues so these people will find our sanctuaries less off-putting, or insist that no, we are who we are? Should we abandon the word “Zionism,” because Israel has already been founded, and perhaps because it’s the “movement” terminology that surfaces the question about whether or not Israel should exist?
Rabbi Abi Dauber Sterne and Robbie Gringas, authors of the book Stories for the Sake of Argument (which we discussed on our podcast when it first came out), have begun exploring some of these issues. In a conversation we’ll air shortly, Abi explains why these two committed Zionists thought it was important to engage the anti-Zionist community, what they learned, and what they still don’t know. I suggested other angles that I hope they’ll explore as their research continues.
More on that, coming soon.
Iran menacing from the outside. Countries like Qatar, Indonesia and Turkey possibly ending up just across our border, “overseeing” Gaza in Phase II. Jewish infighting that threatens to shake the very foundations of the Jewish state.
It all sounds very current, and it is …
But all of this is also in many ways a replay of history, a chapter from Jewish history that we should know much better than we do. That’s why I thought that Professor Barry Strauss’ book, Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World’s Mightiest Empire, is so important for us to know about.
Barry Strauss is one of those scholars who’s got the extraordinary ability to bring scholarship to life in writing that almost reads like non-fiction. When I read the book, several of the themes to which he returns time and again in the book struck me as surprisingly current. Is the present a replay of the past—that wouldn’t be so great. Or is the past a way for us to learn where we stumbled last time, so we don’t make the same mistakes again?
In the two-century long war with Rome that the book covers, there were three major Jewish rebellions against Rome. The one that led to the destruction of the Temple most of us know about, but what about the other two?
It’s a story filled with all sorts of issues that we see on the “front pages” of our newspapers:
Resilience and survival: Despite their suffering catastrophic military defeats, genocide, and exile, Strauss argues that the Jewish people displayed a unique “spiritual armor.” He argues that while Rome destroyed the physical Temple, it could not destroy the Torah or the emerging rabbinic leadership, which allowed Jewish identity to survive and eventually thrive.
Geopolitic influence: Strauss places the conflict within a broader global context, highlighting the role of the Parthian Empire (ancient Iran) as a potential ally to the Jews and a constant rival to Rome.
Internal disunity: A major sub-argument is that Jewish infighting was as much a cause of their defeat as Roman military might. Strauss notes that during the siege of Jerusalem, rebel factions were busy fighting each other and even burning their own food supplies.
Historical continuity: Strauss connects these ancient battles to the modern era, suggesting that the spirit of resistance and the geopolitical reality of Israel as a small state among empires remain remarkably consistent.
Barry Strauss is the Corliss Page Dean Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies Emeritus at Cornell University. Strauss is a 2025 recipient of the prestigious Bradley Prize. He is a member of the American Academy of Sciences and Letters.
Strauss is a military and naval historian with a focus on ancient Greece and Rome and their lessons for today. He is the author of nine books on ancient history, several of them bestsellers, and co-author or co-editor of several others. His latest book, Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World’s Mightiest Empire, was published in August and was named one of the five best book lists of 2025.
You can find out more about Barry on his website.
For our paid subscribers
The link at the top of this posting will take free subscribers to an excerpted portion of today’s conversation.
For paid subscribers, the link at the top will take you to the full conversation; below, paid subscribers will also find a transcript for those who prefer to read, as always.
