The Middle East conflict became personal for Professor Roth in 2005, when his closest friend, a journalist in Iraq, was kidnapped and murdered by Shi’ite terrorists. But as early as 9/11/2001 Professor Roth began to rethink his intellectual considerations toward Israel and Zionism in the context of the rise of militant and anti-democratic Islamism. At San Jose State University he has seen an increasingly ugly anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism accepted as normal, and even laudatory, discourse; and he has become angered by the lack of a Zionist voice on campus.

His view about the Arab-Israel conflict is that we need to see Israel not only as a Jewish state, but as a democratic and liberal Middle Eastern state. We need to insist that it is not a colonial entity, but an integral part of the region; and that its population includes Arab-, Persian- and Turkish- speaking Jews expelled in the 20th century from their Middle Eastern abodes. “ While working for a just and equitable peace, that includes statehood for Palestinians, we need to reject terror and Islamic extremism, even when it is masked as ‘resistance’. I would like to see Zionism raise its profile on campus, and begin an honest discussion about the region, and the real dangers to peace.”

Professor Roth was born in Redwood City, California. He completed his B.A. in Ancient Near Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley in 1979 then spent a year studying Assyriology at the Georg-August Universitaet in Goettingen, Germany, under a Fulbright scholarship. After studies in Germany, he moved to New York City, where he worked in a number of jobs and enlisted in the New York Army National Guard where he earned his commission as a second lieutenant.

After leaving the military, he went on to earn his Ph.D. in Ancient History from Columbia University, with a dissertation on “Logistics of the Roman Army in the Jewish War, 66 to 73 A.D.” He traveled in Israel visiting battle sites of the war, including Gamla and Masada, on a Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture Fellowship. An expanded version of the thesis was published as The Roman Army at War, (1999) Leiden: E.J. Brill.

He was a visiting professor at Tulane University in New Orleans before spending three years as a Dorot Teaching Fellow, with a joint appointment in Jewish Studies and Classics departments, at New York University, before coming to San Jose State University (SJSU), in 1994 as an Assistant Professor. In 2005 he was promoted to Full Professor. He served as Chair of the History Department from 2005-2008. Since 1999, he has been the Director of the department’s Burdick Military History Project, and in 2010 he became chair of SJSU’s chapter of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.

Dr. Roth has published numerous articles and given talks on Jewish subjects, including “Jews and the Roman Army. Perceptions and Realities” in Lukas de Blois and Elio Lo Cascio (eds.) The Impact of the Roman Army, Leiden, Brill, 2007; “The Army and the Economy in Judaea and Palaestina” in Paul Erdkamp (ed.) The Roman Army and The Economy, Amsterdam: Gieben, 2002; “Masada” and “Josephus,” in Magill’s Guide to Military History, John Powell (ed.), Salem Press, 2001.

Jonathan P. Roth
Professor
History Department
San Jose State University
San Jose CA