Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning

Peter Beinart joined us to discuss his book, "Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning." In Peter Beinart’s view, one story dominates Jewish communal life: that of persecution and victimhood. It is a story that erases the nuance of Jewish religious tradition and warps our understanding of Israel and Palestine. After Gaza, where Jewish language, history, and texts have been deployed to justify mass slaughter and starvation, Beinart argues, Jews must tell a new story and offer a new answer to the question, “What does it mean to be a Jew?” Drawing on other nations’ efforts at moral reconstruction and a different reading of Jewish tradition, Beinart imagined an alternate narrative in which Israeli Jews have the right to equality, not supremacy, and in which Jewish and Palestinian safety are not mutually exclusive but intertwined. One that recognizes the danger of venerating states at the expense of human life. Moderated by Shaul Magid, HDS Visiting Professor of Modern Jewish Studies Transcript: https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/news/2025/05/08/video-being-jewish-after-destruction-gaza-reckoning