One of the great challenges of modern times is our lack of a meaningful understanding of history. Our Jewish youth are typical of their generation — especially when it comes to the history of the Jewish experience. This volume is designed to introduce young adolescents to this history without becoming deeply involved in the extensive religious aspects of the Jewish experience. Rather, the author approaches the Jewish experience more from a culture and social perspective which is designed to engage many of our youth who are more involved with their American experiences than their Jewish activities.
As Jewish education has taken a greater focus on the texts of Jewish life and the development of Jewish identity in recent years, this volume fills an important role of providing an overview of the Jewish experience. On the other hand, when one tries to cover the entire 3000-year history of the Jewish people in one volume, there is a strong tendency to either become too superficial or to provide more depth than can possibly be covered. Silver has chosen to cover the history in depth which will limit the use mostly to a Jewish day school environment where time is available to properly cover the entire history in a single year.
