A History of The Jews Fifth (5th) Edition

This is an excellent book. I'm always interested in reading history books. This one takes us from Biblical days to the not too distant past, to the 1960s. It takes a realistic look at Biblical times, not an overly religious look. It makes you want to visit Israel. It was interesting to read that the young Israelis of the early 1960s found it so foreign to them that the prior generation succumbed to the Nazis without putting up more of a fight. Today's Israelis have to fight for their existence, and they do it well. Then again, today's Israelis have a country of their own. They are not a despised and mauled minority surrounded by vicious, satanic enemies, as their ancestors were in the mid 20th century. That in itself is a powerful argument for the existence of Israel.

This book is an interesting account of the history of the Jewish people. I have a copy of the 1940 edition. The first three chapters deal with his theory as to the origin of the Hebrew people, and cannot be said to be really history. It is simply theory - which largely departs from the Biblical narrative- without any real proof or substance. Yet it is an interesting theory nonetheless. The author puts more stock on Assyrian and Moabite accounts of ancient Hebrew history than on Hebrew accounts, and there is no real reason for this. The theory which Sachar puts forward here seems to have been a popular one , and was later taken up by Howard Fast in his `The Jews : Story Of A People'. Sachar go's on to document the history of Israel, with accounts of the reigns of King David and Solomon, the two kingdoms in the north and south, the Prophets, the revolt of the Maccabees, the Roman occupation and the destruction of Jerusalem and exile of most of the Jews from Israel by the Romans. What follows is the experiences of the Jews in Europe, through the centuries, the travails and persecutions in Spain, Germany and Poland. The contributions of the Baal Shem Tov, the Vilna Gaon and Moses Mendelssohn, right up to the beginnings of the holocaust, and the rising of the Phoenix from the ashes of the Nation of Zion. The State of Israel represents the hope after years of pain, of the Jewish people. In the name of all that the Jews have been through , the State of Israel, the embodiment of the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland , must prevail.

Those three words came to mind when I read Abram Sachar's A History of Jews. Sachar passionately tells the story of his people with pride and racial patriotism as he praises Jewish heroes and excoriates the enemies of the Jews. He also has the ability to evoke sympathy for the plight of Jews living as a minority in society for so many centuries. This is the type of patriotic history that is used to build pride in one's heritage and defends its people against its critics.The first part covers the history of the ancient Israelites. One gets a view of the Old Testament from a secular Jewish viewpoint in the "man created God" mode. Sachar says that Jewish priests wrote the history of Israel primarily during the Babylonian captivity--centuries after the events happened. The lesson of their history is that the Jews lost their country because they did not follow the laws of Yahweh closely enough. The second part covers the life of Jews during the Middle Ages. There was a golden age in Moslem Spain when the Jews were tolerated quite well and they produced many accomplishments for that society. One learns about all the great Jewish thinkers and leaders in general during the Middle Ages. But the Middle Ages were primarily not a good time for the Jews because there was no concept of religious tolerance during that time. Christian leaders thought that it was very progressive to make their states into wholly Christian ones and therefore tried to drum out infidels. Sachar says that Jews were forced to live in ghettoes in the worst side of town. He says concerning the Talmud trials of the Middle Ages that the accusations against the Talmud are false. The supposedly anti-Christian elements in it are irrelevant since such elements were in irrelevant and obscure parts of Talmud that were not taken very seriously by the Jews. In the latter Middle Ages in Christian Spain, the Jews were forced to convert to Christianity and were known as Marranos who were often considered crypto-Jews even after conversion. The Jews were often restricted economically from participating in gainful occupations. Some became usurers because Christians were generally discouraged from charging interest on loans to other Christians because of religious reasons. There were often accusations from Christians that the Jews were cheating the Christians on such loans, but Sachar says that the few Christian lenders often charged higher interest rates than the Jews. Jews were often the tax farmers for the king who oppressed people with high taxes and many Jews were resented for being agents of the oppressive king. The king would not usually send the Jews out of the country because they were a great source of revenue for him because he also taxed the Jews. One gains an understanding why the Jews did not like Christians that much and vice-versa. Part Three covers the modern era in which the many Jews supported the new liberalism of the Enlightenment with its values of tolerance of other religions diff