Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro is an author, rabbinical scholar, and critic of Zionism. His book The Empty Wagon: Zionism’s journey from identity crisis to identity theft (2018) dives deep into Jewish history and argues that the founders of Zionism hijacked the religion while holding a lot of the same beliefs as the antisemites of their day. A former pulpit rabbi of over 30 years, Rabbi Shapiro serves on the Board of Directors of International Council for Middle East Studies (ICMES), a Washington DC-based think tank. He has been cited in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Haaretz, The Jewish Week, The Jewish Home, among other publications.