The Jewish March of Folly - Still Marching On?
Recommended New Book to the Readers of Judaism: Born Divided?
Hello Friends
Today I want to recommend a book for your summer reading. It is no light fare - yet it is a page turner and a fascinating companion to our journey that explores the origins of Jewish schism - why and how we got here, and what may help us heal divides.
(Yes, I’m also looking at you, NYC - rumbling in the wake of the most recent primary elections and clear signs that old politics are shifting, support for Israel is wavering, and dynamics of alliances among Jewish voters, elected officials and the public are changing fast - bringing up both fears and cheers, depends on whom you ask. Time will tell.)
On the Jewish calendar. We are midway through the month of Tammuz, and next week marks the fast day of 17th of Tammuz, the first of two annual mid-summer fast days that commemorate national traumas, destruction and exile.
The second summer fast, the 9th of Av, is the closing bookend of the three weeks of sorrow that link these two days, holding space in our collective body, and literally in our bodies, for our remembrance of rupture and our hope for healing, even thousands of years later. We fast in solidarity with suffering, as a way to reflect inwards, and to rise from the rubble towards repair.
But while these days use liturgy and tell stories that have to do with the tragic destruction of Jerusalem and Judea in the 6th Century BCE by Babylon and in the 1st Century CE by Rome - they do not mourn or even mention another massive national tragedy of turmoil, destruction and dispersion: The total annihilation of the Northern Kingdom of Israel by Assyria in the 722 BCE.
Why is this colossal crisis not remembered or grieved?
Because our history was written and moulded by the sages of the South - the survivors of the Kingdom of Judah, who wanted to focus on their tragedy and minimize the good and bad history of their Northern neighbors - who were family, allies, and at times brothers in arms - the Kingdom of Israel.
The mostly hidden history of this ancient rift and the narratives that help us understand how we got to today’s deepening divides among Jewish people all over the world is what this year-long course is all about and what has become, quite frankly, my obsession.
The more I delve into this topic and as our course progresses into its second half I am drawn to the details of the demise, like a moth to the flame. Yet this is not a morbid fascination with how the errors and woes of the past got us kicked and how they still impact modern reality.
I am fascinated by this lesser told history because by learning how we got here I am hopeful we can pause to reflect, and pave a better path, honoring differences and forging some sort of better union, finding common ground. I want to learn from the follies of our past towards a better future.
In the past weeks I’ve been deep inside a book that I can’t put down and recommend to you today:
The Jewish March of Folly , recently translated into English, is by Israeli journalist Amotz Asa-El.
I devoured the original Hebrew version when it first came out a few years ago - and now it seems prophetic.
This is how the introduction to the book frames the project:
“The Jewish March of Folly is a revolutionary history of the Jewish people that discovers ancient Israel’s forgotten civil wars, places them at the heart of Jewish history, and probes their meaning for the future of the Jewish people and the Jewish state. Blending journalistic storytelling with historical narration, The Jewish March of Folly reads like a news reporter’s account of political dramas, military battles, personal tragedies, spiritual crises, and social revolutions, while bringing the past to life and probing its consequences—to this day.”
Daniel Gordis, in his podcast, just interviewed Asa-El about the book, and I encourage you to listen to the conversation, regardless of your political positions that may not align with Gordis’ more center-right stand - if you want to delve in even deeper, linking the book’s purpose to the political realities unfolding in present time:
Our next monthly LIVE LEARNING session will be on July 19 - right in the middle of the Three Weeks of Sorrow. We will focus on the story of the exiles - Judah and Israel, Jerusalem and Samaria. As Asa-El shows in his book - to fully understand the scope of our story and how we got here we must pay attention to both these narratives - especially the one we were never told.
Here’s one teaser text from Asa-El’s book - as he tells the terrible tale of the trauma of the northern tribes, victims of Assyrian Ethnic Cleansing in the 8th Century BCE. :
“The view was appalling. Had we boarded back then a small airplane at the airstrip by today’s Kibbutz Mahanayim and flown toward the Jordan River’s springs between the Naphtali Mountains and the Golan Heights, we would have seen an endless convoy of deportees snaking north—some carrying their bundled belongings, others holding children and babies—all trekking toward the unknown through smoldering fields strewn with dead bodies, while hobnailed horsemen whip the elderly lagging at the column’s rear. It was more than just the ugly face of ethnic cleansing, the Assyrian invention for which one historian used the loaded term “final solution”; for ahead of that caravan loomed a defeated nation’s wretched future, and behind it sprawled its fractious past.
This grand political fiasco—the refusal to behave like a nation and the unwillingness to unite, even in the face of a common threat—caused the holocaust of the northern tribes’ disappearance and sent the Jewish March of Folly from its founders’ reckless politics to their successors’ fateful dislocation.
Yes, in almost any sense biblical Israel’s downfall cannot be called a holocaust.
Ancient Israel was treated no differently than other nations, Assyria had no special theories concerning the Israelites, and their extinction was not its aim. Even so, in one sense the North’s downfall was a holocaust nonetheless: Israel was destroyed.
The blows it sustained demographically, politically, and psychologically left the people who emerged from biblical Israel’s ruins—the Jews—feeling much as American Jewry felt the morning after European Jewry’s Holocaust: amputated, decimated, shocked, haunted, guilty, and flooded with longings for a multitude of siblings that had vanished overnight.
Had ancient Israel avoided its schisms and placed nation above tribe, Israel might never have died, its Jewish successor may never have been born, and the Israelite homeland might never have been lost. Moreover, the North’s collapse precipitated the South’s demise; for the minuscule kingdom into which Israel’s remainder now shrank—Judah—would eventually be even easier prey for its own invaders than the northerners had been for theirs.”
🚩 Next LIVE LEARNING Session:
Sunday 7/19/26
A Tale of Two Exiles - Mourning Both Jerusalem and Samaria
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Judaism: Born Divided Landing Page
Wishing us all Shabbat Shalom.
Peace שלום سلام
PS: I’m thinking of turning this course into a book - want to help? I’m seeking editors and people who want to work with me in turning the transcriptions of our monthly sessions into compelling chapters. Interested? Got time, ideas, talent or what to help support? Please be in touch. Thank you!
Amichai
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