On 20 July 2026 Reuven Roslyn answered the question “How would Shammai and Hillel treat the Palestinians?” on Quora. I debunked parts of the answer in the comments, and we argued there for about two hours. This is the thread as I saved it that night, in the order Quora showed it; some comments answer earlier ones.
My comments are as I wrote them, with the insults taken out. His are quoted in part. The answer and the whole thread are on Quora: the thread. My debunk of the answer is here.
Conceded in the thread. By me: “Point 2: True, I concede”, on when rabbinic Judaism began; “You are right that Kitos and Bar Kokhba post-date Josephus”; and that “most Jews” and “Pharisees” “can be compatible if you mean Pharisaic-aligned rather than card-carrying”. By Reuven Roslyn: “The initial Jewish revolt figure might be inflated”, and “Bait Hillel likely would have required them to do more”.
Me
“That Jews have a much closer genetic relationship to Palestinians, Israeli Bedouins, and Druze than they do to other Arab groups suggests that these demographics probably descend, in part, from Jews who managed to remain in the area following the Jewish-Roman wars.” Well, it’s good to know you admit that the Palestinians on the land you guys are EXTERNALLY attempting to come to are the REAL descendents of the land.
You wrote that the 1834 attacks on Safed and Hebron prove “local anti-Semitism was rising before Theodor Herzl was even born.” but the The 1834 events were the Peasants’ Revolt in Palestine, a rebellion against Egyptian conscription and taxation under Ibrahim Pasha, running May to August 1834. What triggered it was Ibrahim Pasha’s order to conscript 1 in 5 Muslim males plus new taxation categories that departed from both Ottoman and Islamic law. The rebels were peasants, urban notables and Bedouin.
The Safed attack on the Jewish community was real and it was wrong, but it happened inside a revolt against Egyptian conscription, and your second example is an Egyptian army leveling a Palestinian city.
“What’s more likely is that anti-Semitism was growing in the Southern Levant at the same time it was growing in Europe… Just as European sugar and coffee entered the Middle East in the 1830s, so did European anti-Semitism.” What kinda guessing and correlation is this? This guy correlated rise of sugar and coffee with anti-jewishness. You literally cited a battle where an Egyptian army destroyed a Palestinian city while crushing a Palestinian revolt, and presenting it as Arabs attacking Jews. Ibrahim Pasha’s Egyptian army were the ones who leveled Hebron.
Errors:
“Most Jews… were already transitioning to a rabbinic-led faith” before the Temple fell. Rabbinic Judaism emerged after 70 CE as the response to the destruction. That’s what Yavneh and the Mishnah are.
“What are they supposed to do if they can’t bring Passover sacrifices?” Jews did bring Passover sacrifices right up to 70 CE. A compromised priesthood didn’t shut the sacrificial system down.
“More than two million Jews (30-60% of Jews worldwide)” rests on Josephus’s figures, which historians treat as heavily inflated. And “the 2000-year exile” is the claim your own article dismantles.
You state Hillel’s principle yourself: “Jews must take all possible measures to ensure minimum harm to civilians.” Then you test Israel against it up to November 2023 and stop. Two years of war after that. The famine declaration. The death toll. The September 2025 UN Commission of Inquiry finding (A/HRC/60/CRP.3), covering October 2023 to July 2025, which found four of the five genocidal acts. You wrote the test and didn’t run it.
All in all, the one piece of evidence you presented as proof of anti-jewishness was wrong as the one piece of evidence you offered for pre-Zionist Palestinian antijewishness was a battle where an Egyptian army destroyed a Palestinian city.
Reuven Roslyn, in part
(1) 1834 Revolt - Yes, the revolt didn’t start because of Jews, but neither did European pogroms or really even the Holocaust. […] Historically, they are persecuted because of discord that already exists.
(2) Rabbinic Judaism began in 70 AD - That’s not true. Rabbinic Judaism was all that remained after 70 AD.
(3) The initial Jewish revolt figure might be inflated, but I’m also speaking about the Kitos War and Bar Kochba revolt, wars that happened after Josephus lived.
(4) Some Jews brought sacrifices until 70 AD. You think about Jews as this unified group of people. That wasn’t the case 2,000-years ago.
(5) 2,000 Year Exile - Same mistake as (4). Some Jews remained following the Jewish-Roman wars. The rest are exiled.
Me
first, why you deleting my debunks to you
Point 1: Fine, but that’s a theory of pogroms, not a defence of the Hebron citation. That one’s still wrong.
Point 2: True, I concede. But, you made an overstatement initially when you said “Jews were already transitioning to a rabbinic-led faith based on Torah observance alone” so maybe you shoulda been accurate the first time.
Point 3: You are right that Kitos and Bar Kokhba post-date Josephus. But the Bar Kokhba figure of 580,000 comes from Cassius Dio, and Dio’s Kitos numbers are treated with the same caution. And “30-60% of Jews worldwide” requires a total population figure that’s itself contested as estimates run from about 4 to 8 million.
Point 4: Your post says “what are they supposed to do if they can’t bring Passover sacrifices, because the temple had been corrupted?” but your reply says “some Jews brought sacrifices until 70 AD.” You are now walking back on your original claim. The sacrificial system operated continuously. Josephus describes enormous Passover crowds right up to the destruction.
Point 5: The Palestinian refugee case rests on documented expulsions and a documented denial of return. The Roman case has no expulsion decree, and the diaspora predated the wars and was already the majority. Palestinian refugees in 1948 did not have a centuries-old voluntary diaspora that outnumbered the population at home. Jews in 66 CE did.
You did make some corrections but the initial claims were overstated and your replies have contradictions to your initial post.
Your reply doesn’t mention Hillel at all. You quoted Hillel’s standard yourself: all possible measures to ensure minimum harm to civilians. Then you tested Israel against it up to November 2023 and stopped. Two years, the famine, the death toll, A/HRC/60/CRP.3 covering October 2023 to July 2025, none of it appears. You answered five points and skipped the one that mattered. You wrote the test and you still haven’t run it.
Reuven Roslyn, in part
Re - Passover: I’m not walking back on the original claim. The original claim is about Shammai and Hillel. Their audience were Pharisees, not all Jews.
Re - Death toll: The actual Jewish death toll isn’t really so relevant to the point of the piece. It’s an estimate.
After the revolt was suppressed and Judea was destroyed, the army left. The Roman army mostly consisted of mercenaries.
If you look into it, Jews were a majority again by 400 AD because Roman Christians didn’t exactly want to move there.
Me
you’re gonna edit your comment to expand your argument by whole paragraphs AFTER I reply?
Now: “Jews were a majority again by 400 AD.” original post: “the 2,000-year exile that Jews returned from to create the State of Israel.”
Those cannot both be true. If Jews were a majority in the land in 400 AD, there was no 2,000-year exile beginning in 70 or 135.
“The Roman army mostly consisted of mercenaries. They only stayed for however long they were paid.” verified false.
Legio X Fretensis was garrisoned at Jerusalem from around 73 CE to the late 3rd century. Roughly 150 years, as a permanent camp on the Western Hill. A second legion, Legio VI Ferrata, was added at Caparcotna in 117. The army did not leave. It stayed for two centuries.
And the Roman imperial legions were a professional standing army of citizen-soldiers on fixed terms, not mercenaries. X Fretensis was raised in 41 BC and still existed after 410 AD. That is not how mercenary companies work. Your whole “bad business to comb the desert” argument rests on an army that wasn’t there, when in fact two legions were permanently stationed in the province
Your Qumran Example is backwards as you offer it as an example of Jews hiding out and waiting out the war but Legio X Fretensis destroyed Qumran in the summer of 68 CE. The community didn’t wait the war out. The Romans wiped it out during it.
“What numbers do you expect me to use beyond what the conventional sources estimate?” Fair.
“why is the precise figure relevant to how Bait Shammai and Bait Hillel rule?” Also fair. The precise toll doesn’t change the theological analysis. But you stated “30-60% of Jews worldwide” flatly, with no qualifier, and only called it an estimate once it was challenged. That’s the point, not the arithmetic.
Four replies. Still nothing on Hebron. Still nothing on Hillel.
Reuven Roslyn, in part
I correct typos - the substance remains the same.
Most Jews had stopped bringing temple sacrifices before 70 AD as they transitioned to Rabbinic Judaism.
Not all Jews had yet transitioned to Rabbinic Judaism.
These statements are not compatible.
Me
more than just typos
post said: “most Jews had accepted the temple had been corrupted and were already transitioning to a rabbinic-led faith.”
reply said: “Their audience were Pharisees, not all Jews.”
“Most Jews” and “Pharisees” are the incompatible ones.
The daily tamid sacrifice stopped on 17 Tammuz, 70 CE, commemorated as a fast day ever since. It stopped because the Temple fell, not because people had drifted away from it. If most Jews had already stopped, there’d be nothing to commemorate.
The Pharisees were one movement among several, alongside the Sadducees and Essenes, and most Jews weren’t formally affiliated with any of them. A movement is not “most Jews.” You swapped “Pharisees” for “not all Jews” and called it a typo correction.
Reply five. Still nothing on Hebron. Still nothing on Hillel.
Reuven Roslyn, in part
You keep focusing on other things so I haven’t read Hebron yet as I’m focused on addressing your claims.
If “most Jews” and “Pharisees, not all Jews”, what do you think the deduction is about support for the Pharisees in relation to other Jewish movements 2,000-years ago?
Me
Josephus does say the Pharisees held the allegiance of the masses. Antiquities 13.297-298: the Sadducees had the confidence of the wealthy alone with no following among the populace, while the Pharisees had the support of the masses. So “most Jews” and “Pharisees” can be compatible if you mean Pharisaic-aligned rather than card-carrying.
Antiquities 18.15, the standard text on Pharisaic influence: “on account of which doctrines they are able greatly to persuade the body of the people; and whatsoever they do about divine worship, prayers, and sacrifices, they perform them according to their direction.”
Your own inference proves most Jews were bringing sacrifices right up to 70. You asked me to deduce Pharisaic mass support, there it is. Your own argument proves most Jews were sacrificing until the Temple fell.
And Josephus does name a group that withdrew from Temple rites. Antiquities 18.19, the Essenes, described specifically by their withdrawal from the temple. Josephus knew what a Temple-withdrawing sect looked like and said so. It wasn’t the Pharisees. “I haven’t read Hebron yet as I’m focused on addressing your claims” makes no sense as Hebron was in the original debunk, before any of these five replies. You’ve had it in front of you the whole time and answered five other points instead.
Please, no more clarifications about the Pharisees as the substantive argument ended five replies ago.
Reuven Roslyn, in part
I’m not seeing Hebron? I think I’m clearly implying Israel responded to October 7th with a course of action that is similar to how Bait Hillel would have ruled but wasn’t willing to do more than keep the corridor opened. Bait Hillel likely would have required them to do more.
The Israeli government is not sitting down and reading the Talmud to make decisions.
Me
“Bait Hillel likely would have required them to do more”, that’s the answer I asked for six replies ago. Your post said Israel’s conduct was consistent with Hillel. Now you’re saying Hillel would have required more than Israel did. That’s my point, and you’ve just made it.
And “the Israeli government isn’t reading the Talmud” is strange coming from the man who wrote a post applying Shammai and Hillel to Gaza. 2,000 years applies when it’s the exile you’re claiming and stops applying when it’s the standard you quoted.
Hebron: you cited the Battle of Hebron as evidence of pre-Zionist antisemitism. It was Ibrahim Pasha’s Egyptian army leveling a Palestinian city while crushing a Palestinian revolt against conscription. Six replies, still nothing.
Me
No no no no those are clear walk backs.
original sentence: “most Jews had accepted the temple had been corrupted and were already transitioning to a rabbinic-led faith.”
Reply: “Their audience were Pharisees, not all Jews.”
Those are contradictory claims.
I am not arguing your correction in the reply as it is historically accurate but your reply IS the historically accurate one while the MAIN POST is the historically inaccurate one.
You wrote: “the deaths of more than two million Jews (30-60% of Jews worldwide), the enslavement of 100,000 more.” and not once did you do anything but state it flatly. Never once said “oh it may be inaccurate” or “an estimate” as you are doing now. You are retreating and attempting to spin it into clarification.
If it isn’t relevant, it shouldn’t have been stated as fact with a percentage range attached. It was doing work in your original post.
And you can’t discount the death figures because Rome didn’t count civilians and then call the slave figure reliable. Your 100,000 comes from the same ancient sources. Josephus gives about 97,000 for the First Revolt. You’re rejecting the tradition for one number and citing it for the other.
You’ve now written three replies about Pharisee demographics and Roman census methods, and you still haven’t said a word about the fact that your evidence for pre-Zionist antisemitism was an Egyptian army leveling a Palestinian city, or about the standard you quoted yourself and stopped testing in November 2023.
Reuven Roslyn, in part
What does most mean to you? Most months have 31 days. Not all months have 31 days. Is this a contradiction to you?
On the death toll, again, what numbers would you use for casualty estimates if not the consensus estimates? Some modern scholars suggest the death toll is inflated, but not enough to not go off the consensus.
I’m a fan of deferring to the consensus for facts because it makes life easier to accept facts as they are, and focus on analyzing what those facts lead to.
Me
Ill refer to my second comment after your edits as my reply