By
– August 14, 2012
The history of the Jewish people is anything but brief — so many centuries, so many countries, so many languages, so many movements and personalities and so much source material, both primary and secondary. Squeezing all this into a slim volume that is readable, concise, accurate, and that balances comprehensive scope with rich details is quite a challenge. For the most part Rabbi Dr. Weiss manages to do just that. One may quibble with what was omitted and how many paragraphs were allotted to certain topics, as one may differ on certain interpretations of events. However, this volume is a very good and efficient summary of many major elements of Jewish history.
It is difficult for an historian to critically evaluate another historian’s work. There will always be differences of opinion. In this case there were 16 such points of contention — not too bad for a volume that covers all of Jewish history! One point is that an objective historian should never mix history with theology. Traditional Jews writing about the Biblical and Rabbinic periods of Jewish history have difficulty viewing events and texts in an unbiased manner. Rabbi Dr. Weiss gives away his biases for the first 80 pages of this otherwise well-written book. His treatment of the Hasmoneans and their connection to the Sadducees, neglect of the fact that the Talmud was still being edited into the Geonic period, and statements on the origin of the Karaites and of certain terms such as marano, are some areas which do not reflect contemporary scholarship. Additionally, that Shlomo Carlebach is given credit for the ba’al teshuva movement, is as surprising to see as the term “occupied” territories used in place of “disputed” territories.
This book is well suited as an introductory text of Jewish history, and the Glossary and Index are quite useful.
Wallace Greene, Ph.D., has held several university appointments, and currently writes and lectures on Jewish and historical subjects.
