For at least four centuries, the intellectual center of rabbinic Judaism was located in the Sasanian empire, a pre-Islamic Persian kingdom that included Mesopotamia, home to a vast Jewish population and its flourishing yeshivas. Yet despite the fact that these Jews produced the Babylonian Talmud, several other works, and numerous inscriptions, surprisingly little is known to scholars about how they related to the state that ruled over them. Jeffrey L. Rubenstein reviews a new work by Simcha Gross that attempts to shed light on the subject:

Previously, scholars viewed the Babylonian Jewish community as largely independent, autonomous, and tolerated in the empire. The ruling Sasanians and the local political institutions were seen as remote, operating in the background but not really influencing Jews, who lived at some degree of social and political remove from their neighbors and overlords. Gross rejects this in favor of “a more immanent and integrationist model of Sasanian rule, which Jews could not avoid, and within and against which they positioned and defined themselves.”

The older model of a remote and largely tolerant empire emerged in part due to the relatively few references to the Sasanian court in the Talmud and the fact that when talmudic sources portray the Persian kings, they paint favorable, sympathetic pictures of them.

Likewise, the absence of many reports about persecution, violence, and martyrdom suggested to earlier scholars that Babylonian Jewry was not oppressed. When friction did occur, it was assumed that this was the work of fanatical Zoroastrian priests rather than the fault of the Sasanian kings. Gross is skeptical of this irenic picture, and for good reason.

One need not be an expert in international law to see the absurdity of the ICC prosecutor’s determination that the leaders of Hamas and the leaders of Israel are equally guilty of war crimes. It takes only a little more knowledge to understand that the court has no jurisdiction over Israel, which is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty. In a careful analysis, Avraham Russell Shalev outlines some of the many legal holes in this case, and observes that the problems are inherent in the court itself:

A review of the ICC’s relationship towards Israel over its two decades of existence demonstrates a fundamental bias and double standard toward the Jewish state. This bias is not a function of any specific prosecutor. Rather, it is an institutional feature, found even in the Rome Statute. . . . Israel initially refused to sign the Rome Statute as it became apparent that the Arab states had politicized the Rome Conference and introduced language that departed from existing international law specifically to criminalize Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Therefore, argues Shalev, Jerusalem should deal with the case against it not as a legal problem, to which it would respond by dispatching lawyers to make carefully reasoned arguments, but as a political and diplomatic one. More specifically, he contends that

collaboration with the ICC will not reduce the very high chances of arrest warrants being issued against Israeli officials, but will give those charges great weight and legitimacy when they come. Instead, Israel must adopt a policy of non-cooperation and even offense.

And what does a policy of offense entail?

Israel has repeatedly stated that it does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction. Therefore, any legal proceedings are completely illegitimate and as such, the various legal bodies—the attorney general, the Justice Ministry’s International Affairs Office, the Foreign Ministry’s legal advisors, and the Military Advocate General’s International Law Department—will no longer communicate with the ICC. [In addition], the Knesset must pass legislation modeled on the American Service-Member’s Protection Act. This legislation would bar any government agency from cooperating with the ICC without a government decision.

While Israel has never accepted the ICC’s jurisdiction, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has willingly accepted it. The court can hardly turn around now and deny jurisdiction to avoid prosecuting Palestinian crimes. . . . Palestinian nationals, acting on behalf of Hamas, Fatah, and other terrorist organizations, and with no affiliation, have carried out serious war crimes against Israelis and Palestinians. Israel must publicly demand that the ICC issue indictments against them.