Josephus Explained How Nations Collapse
What The Jewish War Teaches About Unity, Leadership, and National Survival
Today, in 70 AD Jerusalem fell to the Romans.
Josephus tells us something uncomfortable about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
The Romans were outside the walls and may not have been as victorious as the records suggest if the Jews were tearing themselves apart.
In The Jewish War, Josephus describes rival Jewish factions fighting in the streets, murdering one another, and even burning large stores of food that could have sustained the city through the siege. Whether every detail is accepted by modern historians or not, his central lesson is unmistakable:
A nation divided becomes far easier to conquer.
What failed in 70 was learned in 1948.
The Jewish people again faced an existential war. The newly declared state was fighting for its survival while competing claims to leadership threatened to divide it from within.
Just weeks after Israel declared independence, during the Altalena affair, members of the Irgun, led by Menachem Begin, came under fire from forces loyal to David Ben-Gurion. Men died. Begin had armed supporters. He could have answered force with force.
He didn’t.
Instead, he ordered his followers not to retaliate because he believed a Jewish civil war would have been a greater disaster than the political dispute itself.
Unity came before personal victory.
The names change. The lesson doesn’t.
America can debate on every subject and topic under the sun. Being argumentative is good and healthy.
What isn’t healthy is forgetting that we’re ultimately on the same team. As the old parable reminds us, you don’t drill a hole under your own seat in a boat and assume everyone else will stay dry.
The United States has oceans, allies, and defensible borders.
What ultimately determines our future is whether Americans still believe they owe one another a basic level of respect. Especially in times of war and uncertainty.
I have no idea what the truth is in Iran. But we are there and have to believe it’s the right decision at the right time.
To me, the measure of America’s success isn’t GDP alone.
Nor is it the stock market.
It’s whether ordinary people can build a meaningful life and believe our leaders are doing the right thing for honest taxpayers.
This leads me to the inspiration of these thoughts, an editorial from the NY Post
Where agendas, not reality, has caused massive layoffs from Starbucks and other big corporations in the state without even bringing to vote the concerns addressed by these companies.
The core questions are:
Can they find work that allows them to raise a family, save, invest, retire with dignity, worship freely, and believe that tomorrow can be better than today?
That’s the environment long-term investors should care about.
I don’t just invest in companies but invest in the societies that nurture them.
Because over decades, businesses flourish when the society around them values stability, opportunity, productive work, and mutual respect.
Josephus recorded what happens when a nation consumes itself from within.
History also records what can happen when people choose unity over ego.
The investment lesson may be the same as the civic one:
Can we come together when it counts?
Today, make it a point to tell one person:
“I respect you.”
We don’t have to agree on everything.
We just have to remember we’re building the same house.
America will be stronger for it.
Josephus wasn’t just writing the history of Jerusalem.
He was writing a warning for every nation that came after it.
— Eric
P.S. If history rhymes more often than it repeats, investors ignore it at their own expense.
Every week I connect history, markets, geopolitics, and investing to help readers think in decades instead of news cycles.
If you’d rather understand the forces shaping tomorrow than react to yesterday’s headlines, subscribe below.