Jonathan Spector’s ‘Birthright’ puts Jewish history and memory on the stage - opinion

The Tony Award-winning playwright Jonathan Spector's latest work, 'Birthright,' is making waves for its intellectual depth, bringing the concept of "historiography" to the stage. The play, which premiered in Miami in 2025 and had an extended off-Broadway run, centers on six friends returning from a Birthright Israel trip in 2006.

One of the characters, Lev, introduces the complex idea of historiography, the craft of writing history, referencing Yosef Hayim Yersushalmi's seminal work 'Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory.' This academic concept, typically confined to scholarly circles, is presented as a focal point for characters grappling with their Jewish past and present.

'Zakhor,' published in 1982, explores the inherent tension between the Jewish people's deeply ingrained collective memory and the challenges posed by modern, critical historical study. The play dramatizes this conflict, touching upon instances like Rabbi David Wolpe's controversial 2001 Passover sermon, which questioned the biblical account of the Exodus based on scholarly consensus.

Commissioned in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, events, Spector's play spans 18 years. It traces the evolving friendships, Jewish identities, and connections to Israel among the six protagonists. Spector's research led him to Yersushalmi's work, which he found so significant that an earlier draft of the play featured a 10-page discourse on 'Zakhor.' The play ultimately wrestles with how the Jewish past informs the fractured Jewish present.

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Zakhor shows, Lev explains, just which parts of Jewish history claim a unique place within Jewish tradition.