When Community Becomes a Zero-Sum Game
Lessons from a Troubling Talmudic Text
Deborah Barer
Credit: Kurt Hoffman
Deborah Barer is Senior Faculty at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America.
The idea of Jewish peoplehood has always been bounded, but the boundaries have never been entirely agreed upon. In one sense, we understand Jewishness as a fact of one’s identity, something given and irradicable, ours by virtue of birth or conversion. But in another sense, the Jewish people are constituted by the idea of a shared mission, by our commitments to a set of practices, goals, or ideas; according to this outlook, Jewishness is something that is actively chosen and shaped by the ways we engage with our texts, our traditions, and our world.
The difference between these two orientations lies at the heart of a conflict that has threatened to divide the Jewish community at multiple points throughout history. While this conflict has coalesced around different issues at different points in time, the core question has remained the same: What do we do with those who we recognize as fellow Jews by birth or conversion but not as proper Jews by their behavior and commitments? Is there space in the Jewish people for those who do not share the practices, ideas, or beliefs that we see as central to our Judaism?
In a 2021 Tablet essay, Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy articulate this as the problem of the “un-Jews.” While their sights are set on anti-Zionists, Sharanksy and Troy argue that contemporary clashes over Zionism are only one manifestation of a broader, recurring conflict that stretches back to the time of the Roman Empire. The “un-Jew” is the fellow Jew who does not share the Jewish commitments one holds most dear; her very existence begs the question of how to define Jewishness and clarifies the stakes. As they write, “We call these critics ‘un-Jews’ because they believe the only way to fulfill the Jewish mission of saving the world with Jewish values is to undo the ways most actual Jews do Jewishness.” The “un-Jew” is thus a committed Jew—but one who is committed to a vision of Judaism that undermines one’s own.
Sharansky and Troy claim that their position represents the majority view, presenting the “un-Jew” as a problematic minority threatening to upend mainstream Judaism, but the problem they identify is not ultimately about the mainstream and the fringe. It is about discovering that those who we thought of as insiders are not on “our team,” that those we recognize as fellow Jews are rejecting our vision of Judaism. To be clear, the problem here is not simply difference; the problem is that these “un-Jews” present their version of Judaism as a plausible replacement of our own. In this environment, the rejection of what we thought were shared commitments reads both as a betrayal and as a threat. In order to defend ourselves, we attack.
Sharansky and Troy rightly point to Zionism, and rising anti-Zionism, as the battlefield where the wars over what Judaism is, or should be, are currently being fought. I think we can learn how to navigate this moment by turning to another point in history where different visions of Judaism shifted from coexistence to competition, exploding into vitriolic denouncements of a Jewish Other: the tensions between the emergent rabbinic community and the amei haaretz, or non-rabbinic Jews, who lived among them. On the battlefield of history, it was the rabbis who emerged triumphant, shaping the future of Judaism as we know it today. And yet, they did so while largely avoiding ideological warfare with the amei haaretz. How did they achieve this? What can we learn from their example about how to chart a path forward as liberal Zionist Jews, at a moment when battles over Israel threaten to tear us apart?
Rabbis, Non-Rabbis, and “un-Rabbis”
Given their remarkable influence on Judaism as we know it today, it can be difficult to realize just how marginal the early rabbinic community was. But when the rabbinic movement began to take shape in the first few centuries of the Common Era, the rabbis were not a central, recognized authority. Instead, mainstream Judaism was made up of a group the rabbis called the amei haaretz, literally, the “people of the land.” The amei haaretz were Jews who were not part of the rabbinic movement; they did not study with the sages, and they were neither knowledgeable about rabbinic laws nor trained in rabbinic methods of interpretation and Torah study.
English translations of the Talmud often gloss the am haaretz as an ignoramus, reflecting the fact that that the rabbis saw them as uneducated and viewed the version of Judaism that they practiced as inferior. But at this point in history, the Judaism of the am haaretz was far more prevalent than rabbinic Judaism. If the “un-Jew” seeks to reshape how “most actual Jews do Jewishness,” then it is the rabbis, not the amei haaretz, who would seem to have fit that definition in late antiquity. The amei haaretz were the mainstream.
As inheritors of rabbinic Judaism, however, most of what we know about the amei haaretz is filtered through rabbinic sources. Discussions in the Mishnah and the Talmud make it clear that both groups recognized the other as fellow Jews, but also that they did not fully share a vision of what Judaism should be, or of the core practices, values, and beliefs that were central to a Jewish life.
Most rabbinic discussions of the amei haaretz center on two key differences between the groups: tithing and purity practices. These practices had concrete implications for how rabbis and non-rabbis could interact. For example, mDemai 2:2 explores whether a rabbi who is the guest of an am haaretz and eats at his table should be considered trustworthy about tithing himself.
One who accepts upon himself to be trustworthy (ne’eman) must tithe whatever he eats and whatever he sells and whatever he buys, and he may not be the guest of an am haaretz. Rabbi Yehudah says even one who is the guest of an am haaretz can still be considered trustworthy.
Since the two communities do not follow the same rules about tithing, the concern here is that the rabbinic guest of the am haaretz might end up eating improperly tithed food. On one hand, the text shows a high degree of interaction between the two communities; at least some rabbis were eating in the homes of the amei haaretz, and there was an internal rabbinic debate about the degree to which this was acceptable. On the other hand, the text seeks to establish a boundary: As long as the amei haaretz persisted in their improper practices, the rabbinic community needed to distance itself. Notably, the existence of the amei haaretz and their different practices are not presented as a threat to the rabbinic way of life in and of themselves, provided that proper boundaries are maintained. Coexistence is possible.
A similar instinct towards separation is reflected in bShabbat 63a. Here, the issue is not tithing and dietary practices, but rather a recognition of the fact that the amei haaretz are not committed to the same goals and values as the sages: “Rabbi Abba said that Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: If a sage is as vengeful and begrudging as a snake, wrap him around your waist. If an am haaretz is pious [a hasid], do not live in his neighborhood.”
The passage is striking because of its open acknowledgement that a rabbi may possess character flaws and that a non-rabbi may possess virtues. (In classical rabbinic texts, the language of being a hasid typically denotes an unusual level of strictness or carefulness in one’s practice, which is distinct from some of the religious orientations later associated with Hasidism.) And yet, the text tells us, what is ultimately the most important is not personal character but shared commitments. A fellow sage or rabbinic disciple may be spiteful and difficult to be around, but he shares the community’s norms, values, and vision. As a result, the rabbis should embrace him, even if he is a difficult person.
By way of contrast, the am haaretz is ultimately oriented towards different goals and values. He does not share in the rabbinic vision or mission and thus, regardless of his personal virtues, a rabbi should keep his distance. As in mDemai 2:2, the existence of the amei haaretz does not threaten the rabbinic project, but here, perhaps even more clearly than in the previous example, strong boundaries between the two communities must be erected. This emphasis on erecting boundaries to negotiate difference is reiterated in numerous other passages.
One passage, however, stands out from the rest. In bPesachim 49b, the am haaretz is not portrayed simply as a non-rabbi but as something we might, paraphrasing Sharansky and Troy, call the “un-rabbi.” In a shocking display of vitriol, the rabbis now move to reject and denounce, in the most violent and derogatory language available, those engaged in a project of world-building that seems opposed to their own. The am haaretz, with his insistence on another way of living Jewishly, is presented as a threat to everything the rabbis hold most dear. The boundaries, it seems, are not holding. In this text, we are told that forming bonds with these Jews, primarily by marrying them, could undermine the commitments of the next generation and bring the rabbinic project to a crashing halt. In the face of this threat, the rabbis’ language is hateful and retaliatory:
One should not marry the daughter of an am haaretz because they are vermin [sheketz] and their wives are similar to a creeping animal [sheretz]. With regard to their daughters, the verse states: “Cursed is he who lies with an animal” (Deut. 27:21).
To read the sages using such dehumanizing language to describe their fellow Jews is shocking, all the more so because this rhetoric is entirely absent from other passages discussing the am haaretz. What has happened?
The page goes on to compare the am haaretz to various animals in the most degrading terms possible and justifies violence against him. A person is permitted to stab the am haaretz or gut him like a fish. The am haaretz is like a donkey who bites a person and breaks their bones; he is like a lion who will physically and sexually assault one’s daughter. The message is clear: not only should one keep their distance from the amei haaretz, but their very essence is malicious and threatening. Coexistence is not possible.
Eventually, the text introduces a clue that might explain this vitriol. Amidst the animal comparisons and the attribution of violent and base tendencies, the Talmud levies a peculiar charge against the amei haaretz: their hatred of rabbis. “The hatred which the amei haaretz have for a sage is greater than the hatred that the nations of the world have for the Jewish people, and their wives even more than them.”
The charge is strangely resonant. After all, whose rejection wounds us most: those who we think should be part of our community, or those we never expected to join in the first place? As the rabbis embark on their project of rebuilding and re-envisioning Judaism after the fall of the Second Temple, the amei haaretz—these fellow Jews—are precisely the people they expect to join them. The rabbis hold up a picture of what Judaism can and should be to their neighbors, and, instead of embracing this vision, the neighbors reject it. They choose the life of the field or the city square instead of a life of Torah learning.
As I read it, the shift in the rabbis’ orientation towards the amei haaretz in this passage comes directly from concerns about the viability of their vision and from a new sense that the presence of the amei haaretz poses a threat to rabbinic continuity. It is not coincidental that this antagonism towards the amei haaretz surfaces in the context of a Talmudic discussion about marriage, a topic that inherently raises questions about future generations.
In bPesachim 49a-b, right before the Talmud launches into its attack on the amei haaretz, we read the following:
The Sages taught: A person should always be willing to sell all he has in order to marry the daughter of a sage, as if he dies or if he is exiled, he can be certain that his sons will be sages. But a person should not marry the daughter of an am haaretz, as if he dies or is exiled, his sons will be amei haaretz.
For the rabbis of bPesachim 49a-b, intermarriage with the am haaretz poses a different set of risks than simply eating at his table. When the primary difference is tithing, as it was in mDemai 2:2, the costs of interaction remain relatively low. After all, there are mechanisms available to correct for an improper tithe. But no such mechanisms are available to correct for a future generation that abandons the rabbinic way of life. The stakes have changed completely.
bPesachim 49b not only opens with this anxiety about the future but returns to it at its conclusion. Having explained that the amei haaretz and their wives all hate the sages, the final line of the passage takes a surprising turn. It claims that “a person who studied Torah and then separated [from the rabbinic community] hates the sages even more than they [the amei haaretz and their wives] do.” This is the ultimate concern underlying the rabbinic denouncement and degradation of the amei haaretz. It is bad enough if their children intermarry with the amei haaretz and abandon the rabbinic way of life, but the rabbis’ deepest fear is something even worse: that their own children will ultimately become their opponents.
Shaping the Jewish Future
Reading bPesachim 49b, I was struck by the ways that these rabbinic fears parallel contemporary tensions over Zionism and anti-Zionism. Although the rabbis target the amei haaretz in their attacks, the real object of their concern is their own children, who they worry may come to reject and even oppose the rabbinic way of life. Conversely, if the real target of concern for modern Zionists is the future of the Jewish state, the targets of their attacks are often young anti-Zionists. There is a sense that this new generation of anti-Zionists is rejecting the Torah of their parents’ Zionism, much like the person in bPesachim 49b who studied Torah and then separated from the rabbinic community. Many anti-Zionists view their Zionist upbringing as based on lies, and they oppose their parents’ Zionism with the zeal of converts. They have not simply left the fold; they have found a different truth, one which requires them not only to abandon Zionism but to oppose it actively.
This shift has become especially acute in recent years. While there have been Jews who rejected the Zionist project since its earliest articulations, something important changed in the wake of October 7. At a moment when many see Israel and Zionism as especially vulnerable, anti-Zionist voices have emerged that explicitly seek to replace Zionist Judaism with a different vision of what Judaism “really is.” As Sharansky and Troy argue,
[these anti-Zionists] are not ex-Jews or non-Jews, because many of them are and remain deeply involved Jewishly, despite their harsh dissent. Many un-Jews are active in forms of Jewish leadership, running Jewish studies departments, speaking from rabbinic pulpits, hosting Shabbat dinners. For many of these un-Jews, the public and communal staging of their anti-Israel and anti-Zionist beliefs appears to be the badge of a superior form of Judaism.
These anti-Zionist “un-Jews” are deeply committed to Judaism and are devoting considerable time, energy, and resources to arguing for their vision of what Judaism should be. They are living Jewish lives, but their religious and ideological commitments are not the same as those of Zionist Jews. And, crucially, their vision is increasingly popular with a younger generation of Jews.
We are again living in an age of Jewish sectarianism. The gulf dividing “us” and “them” is not seen as a question of difference or degree but of depravity: who is depraved and who is not. The battle for the Jewish future is framed as a zero-sum game; as Sharansky and Troy would have it, there are the true Jews (i.e., Zionists), and then there are the “un-Jews” (i.e., anti-Zionists) whose existence threatens the Judaism we hold dear.
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Zionist vitriol against anti-Zionists—including Troy and Sharansky’s piece from 2021 and other more recent writing and activism—emerges in a context of dual threats to the Zionist project: threats to the State of Israel itself and a potential rejection of Zionism by the next generation of Jews in the diaspora. As in bPesachim 49b, the response to this threat is a counterattack.
And yet, it is precisely within this heightened environment that I find rabbinic discourse about the amei haaretz encouraging, despite—or perhaps because of—bPesachim 49b’s disturbing outburst. The rabbis emerged onto the historical scene in the wake of a period of deep fissures within the Jewish community; scholars often refer not to Second Temple Judaism but to Second Temple Judaisms to underscore the divisions of this period, in which each group vied to emerge triumphant as the “true” Judaism that would define the Jewish future. We could easily imagine a world in which the apocalyptic tenor of some Second Temple texts, like the War Scroll from the community at Qumran, continued to shape Jewish life even after the Second Temple was destroyed.
Strikingly, this is not what we find. The rabbis do not adopt the sectarian mantle, waging an ideological war against the amei haaretz and their alternative vision for Jewish life. The language of bPesachim 49b remains an outlier. Instead, the rabbis repeatedly opt for a strategy of boundaried coexistence, and this approach allows them to do something crucial: to focus not on fighting but on building.
The Talmud can be understood in many different ways, but I read it as a conversation that explores the question of how the Jewish people should live. Admittedly, it is a conversation that often meanders, diving into such detail that the reader may lose sight of the forest for the trees. But while the Talmud is not a manual or step-by-step guide for how to live, it models a vibrant engagement with that question. The rabbis were actively working out and deepening their vision for Jewish life, and they clearly found their experience of Torah life-giving.
So, it seems, did others. How the rabbis evolved from a marginal group to the powerhouse driving Jewish life remains something of an open question. But I think part of what allowed them to carry the day was simply this: They believed so deeply in their path that they expected it to be compelling in and of itself. Rather than focusing on defending their vision of Judaism, they focused on living it. At times, like the rest of us, they were goaded into internecine disputes. At times, they responded to fear by lashing out, as in bPesachim 49b, when they seek to rhetorically destroy those who threaten to undermine everything they hold dear. The rabbis were, after all, human.
But what if we read bPesachim 49b as a moment of wrestling, one that gives voice to the challenges of these struggles without providing a strategy for the future? We should remember that the rabbis do not ultimately get distracted from their project of world-building. Instead of being drawn into a battle against the amei haaretz, the rabbinic focus returns to the questions that most concern them. As Jews, how should they live? What should Jewish life look like? Why is their vision of Judaism important? These are the questions to which they devoted their lives, and they model what a life that is deeply engaged with those questions might look like.
By and large, the rabbis trust that if their path is the right one, it will be persuasive—to the members of their own rabbinic community but also to others. History seems to have borne that faith out. The Judaism we have today stems not from the amei haaretz but from that fringe rabbinic community that trusted deeply in its own vision.
Liberal Zionism today faces challenges not only from without but from within. While the situation on the ground is rapidly changing, the current war in Gaza raises profound moral questions for those of us who remain committed to the possibility of an Israel where Jewish flourishing is not predicated on Palestinian suffering. If we are truly committed to that goal, then we must be able to articulate our vision for Israel clearly, speak plainly about the ways in which that vision is not yet a reality, and work to chart a path from where we are to where we want to be. The conflict with Iran has only intensified the urgency of this task. Instead of devoting our energies to fighting anti-Zionists, what would it look like if we devoted ourselves to this far more complicated and more pressing responsibility? What if, like the rabbis, we pulled back from ideological warfare and focused instead on our own project of world-building?
This is not to say that Zionists need to welcome anti-Zionist ideas with open arms; just as the rabbis counsel some separation and distance from the amei haaretz, so too it may be necessary to have multiple different Jewish communities, each working towards its own vision of the Jewish future. These communities will have competing visions, and they will not all be realized. But this need not draw us into acrimony. Sharansky and Troy argue that anti-Zionism is threatening because it seeks to “undo the ways most actual Jews do Jewishness,” but I believe that how we do our Jewishness is in our hands. Rather than threatening us, the fact that someone offers an alternative vision of Judaism, or of Israel, should motivate us to articulate more clearly why our own vision is both necessary and compelling.
As liberal Zionists, we need to share the fullness of our vision with the next generation—a fullness of vision that includes both our commitments and our concerns, our love for Israel and our grave critiques of the present reality. We have been operating from a sense of threat, and, like the rabbis in bPesachim 49b, our response has been all too human. We have closed ranks in order to protect that which we hold most dear, and in so doing, we have framed the conversation as a dispute between us and them, between the “Jews” and the “un-Jews,” rather than as an exploration of what is and what should be, of what is possible and how to build it.
We cannot dream the Jewish future in black and white. Our task is to paint a picture in vibrant color, one that will make other Jews stop and look more closely, whether they share our vision or not. This, I think, is the model that the rabbinic treatment of the amei haaretz offers us, one that is counterintuitively more compelling precisely for its momentary dabbling in hateful rhetoric. The Talmud acknowledges the temptation to attack and reject those who seek a different Jewish future, a temptation that the rabbis themselves did not always resist. But even when they got drawn into these dynamics, the rabbis did not stay there. They returned to their own project of world-building, to illustrating and exploring in fine-grained detail their vision for Jewish life. So must we.
