Jews of Privilege: Elites, Anti-Zionists, and Our Secret Civil War

An examination of the class roots of Jewish anti-Zionism and anti-Israel activism, revealing how it ultimately fosters self-hatred and self-destruction.

In an era of rising antisemitism, a troubling phenomenon has emerged: Some of the most vocal apologists for hatred of Jews and Israel are Jews themselves. In Jews of Privilege, author Benjamin Kerstein investigates this striking and unsettling trend, exposing an affluent, insulated elite at the top of American Jewry’s unspoken class system.

These Jews of privilege, he argues, are detached from and often disdainful of their fellow Jews, acting—knowingly or not—as defenders of those who wish them harm. Drawing on two decades of life in Israel and his own experiences as an American-born outsider to this privileged world, Kerstein presents a penetrating portrait of an elite that is destroying itself from within.

Part social critique, part personal memoir, Jews of Privilege is a provocative and timely exploration of class, identity, and betrayal within the Jewish experience today.

“An eloquent and impassioned defense of the ‘non-privileged Jews’ who built Zionism and the Jewish state—and a provocative indictment of the Jewish elites who oppose them even today.”
—David J. Wolpe, author of Why Faith Matters

“Benjamin Kerstein has written a very brave and wildly enlightening book. There is an internal class war to be won, and Kerstein is quite certain who must claim victory.”
—Thane Rosenbaum, author of Beyond Proportionality

“In this important and insightful book Benjamin Kerstein points to the manner in which just a few decades of fragile privilege have led many Jews to lose the muscle memory of what it means to be Jewish. After reading this book, it should become much harder for those observing this phenomenon to mistake privilege for principle.”
—Einat Wilf, author of Teaching Zionism and Wartime Writings