The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words (1000 BCE – 1492)
by Simon Schama CBE (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars (1,275)
Book 1 of 2: The Story of the Jews
It is a story like no other: an epic of endurance against destruction, of creativity in oppression, joy amidst grief, the affirmation of life against the steepest of odds.
It spans the millennia and the continents – from India to Andalusia and from the bazaars of Cairo to the streets of Oxford. It takes you to unimagined places: to a Jewish kingdom in the mountains of southern Arabia; a Syrian synagogue glowing with radiant wall paintings; the palm groves of the Jewish dead in the Roman catacombs. And its voices ring loud and clear, from the severities and ecstasies of the Bible writers to the love poems of wine bibbers in a garden in Muslim Spain.
Within these pages, the Talmud burns in the streets of Paris, massed gibbets hang over the streets of medieval London, a Majorcan illuminator redraws the world; candles are lit, chants are sung, mules are packed, ships loaded with spice and gems founder at sea.
And a great story unfolds. Not – as often imagined – of a culture apart, but of a Jewish world immersed in and imprinted by the peoples among whom they have dwelled, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, from the Arabs to the Christians.
Which makes the story of the Jews everyone’s story, too.
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Inspiring… Schama tells it with panache, weaving facts and anecdotes into a vivid history ― Observer
An exuberant tour de force -- Simon Sebag Montefiore ― Daily Mail
Unforgettable…a delicious cacophony of conversations and clamorous arguments echoing across history ― Daily Telegraph
Schama at his best, a labour of love, as full of memorable incident as a Bellow novel and wittier than a Woody Allen movie ― The Times
Schama has written a proud and personal story of his people, one that will make a good starting point for those interested in one of history’s most fascinating and tragic tales -- Josh Glancy ― Sunday Times
From the Inside Flap
It is a story like no other: an epic of endurance against destruction, of creativity in oppression, joy amidst grief, the affirmation of life against the steepest of odds.
It spans the millennia and the continents – from India to Andalusia and from the bazaars of Cairo to the streets of Oxford. It takes you to unimagined places: to a Jewish kingdom in the mountains of southern Arabia; a Syrian synagogue glowing with radiant wall paintings; the palm groves of the Jewish dead in the Roman catacombs. And its voices ring loud and clear, from the severities and ecstasies of the Bible writers to the love poems of wine bibbers in a garden in Muslim Spain.
Within these pages, the Talmud burns in the streets of Paris, massed gibbets hang over the streets of medieval London, a Majorcan illuminator redraws the world; candles are lit, chants are sung, mules are packed, ships loaded with spice and gems founder at sea.
And a great story unfolds. Not – as often imagined – of a culture apart, but of a Jewish world immersed in and imprinted by the peoples among whom they have dwelled, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, from the Arabs to the Christians.
Which makes the story of the Jews everyone’s story, too.
About the Author
Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University. His award-winning books, translated into fifteen languages, include Citizens, Landscape and Memory, Rembrandt's Eyes, A History of Britain, The Power of Art, Rough Crossings, The American Future, The Face of Britain and The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words (1000 BCE - 1492).
His art columns for the New Yorker won the National Magazine Award for criticism and his journalism has appeared regularly in the Guardian and the Financial Times where he is Contributing Editor. He has written and presented more than fifty films for the BBC on subjects as diverse as Tolstoy, American politics, and The Story of the Jews and is co-presenter of a new landmark series on the history of world art, Civilisations.
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Satya Chari
5.0 out of 5 stars Resilience against every, all and persistent odds - that is the story of Jews...Reviewed in Australia on 17 December 2015
Format: Kindle
From the pages of history and on to the present day, one has not hesitated to benefit from the brilliance, creativity and industriousness of Jews, but in turn, meted out apathy, persecution, intolerance, inquisition, murder, forced conversion, appropriation and every any any possible evil....
A tiny state had to take on an extraordinary responsibility to offer the most persecuted and wrongly done people a home - Israel for Jews, all against the odds of states surrounding Israel, who swear to annihilate Jews from the face of the Earth.
.... and then we would like to be known as evolved and civilised!!!
Israel and Jews, I stand up and salute you, count me one amongst your friends for real....
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Robert L
5.0 out of 5 stars Jewish historyReviewed in Canada on 12 June 2025
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Excellent book on jewish history
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A man who loves to read and listen to a good 📖 🎧
5.0 out of 5 stars You must read both booksReviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 March 2024
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Simon tells this story as it is , no bias and shows just and why the Jewish faith is so strong and we must remember born from this faith , Christianity Baptist’s and many others were formed . A wonderful read , heartbreaking at times , as you realise they have without any doubt be displaced for over 2000 years
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Paulo Carneiro
5.0 out of 5 stars The Brightness Of The ScholarReviewed in the United States on 6 April 2017
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All the books that enrich the history of the Jews deserve to be well received. In this sense, Simon Schama's book is very good for offering a chronology of landmark events in Jewish History. Schama dresses himself as an archaeologist and analyzes traces since 1000 BC. to 1492 AD. I am conscious that there are points in common with my book "Dutch Connection - The Jewish Saga From Spain To America", also avalable at www.amazon.com. It is good for the Jewish History as a whole. First of all, this first volume of Schama's work ends where I begin mine. But let us return to our historian.
In precise narrative, he traverses meadows and deserts in this walk of about five thousand years. Schama works the history properly, but with detachment from the human truth accumulated by the Jews throughout the centuries. In certain passages he puts in check the divine value of sacred words. One of his favorite phrases is "If the Bible was right, as the Orthodox rabbis say (...)." However, the writer admits the importance of Deuteronomy in the formation of Jewish culture. In presenting the book, Simon makes it clear that he considers himself as "the" Jewish historian, not "a" Jewish historian. He says he was the only to be chosen to continue Cecil Roth's work, but decided to build his own castle.
"The Story of the Jews - Finding the Words 1000 BC-1492 AD" is his first monument in this way.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Great work!!!Reviewed in India on 1 January 2016
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One of the best books about Jewish history. Schama give s a detailed account about the lives of Jews in the ancient times. Usually history books speak about Kings and very prominent persons but Schama gives a good view about the common people living in ancient times. The book takes you to different places of the world from Egypt to Palestine, from Spain to Britain, everywhere where Jews were settled. The book gives deatailed description of the miserable lives of Jews and how they faced hatred of Christians and even Muslims. They were widely persecuted, subdued and forcefully converted. The religious intolerance of Christians is well shown.
Overall the book is good to know about lives of Jews from their Exodus to their deportation from western Europe.
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Danielle McPherson
5.0 out of 5 stars Great bookReviewed in Mexico on 22 July 2019
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Great history, well written
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Constantino Ruiz Matanzas
3.0 out of 5 stars Too dense and detailed.Reviewed in Spain on 25 April 2025
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Extra documented. Too dense for me. It's one thing to want to know about the history of these people and another to know every last of their cousins.
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Modeste
1.0 out of 5 stars The story of the Jews... Seen by SchamaReviewed in France on 2 March 2017
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First, the title is false : The book is not the story of the Jews, but a story of the jews reinveted by Schema accross a lot of fanciful characters. The result is not terrific, according to me, the book is frankly boring, the sentences are endless, and punctuation and paragraphs are rare.
The book is all but an historian's work.
After, that's just my opinion, everybody is free to like !
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars The Story of the jews -=Reviewed in India on 1 October 2019
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Great History well narrated and informative. an education in itself. Makes the understanding of the Jewish nation so fundamental and elementary. A great book to read for more information on Christianity from its roots in the Middle East.
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jonnymb
4.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book. Extremely well researchedReviewed in Canada on 10 April 2015
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Amazing book. Extremely well researched. It's a hard read though - very dense.
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jeremy marshall
4.0 out of 5 stars Surprising insights into a rich treasure trove of Jewish historyReviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 February 2015
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This fascinating history of the Jewish people takes us from the earliest origins to 1492 and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. There is also a TV series. Even the well read historian of the Jews will learn a lot and for the general reader, whether Jewish, Christian or something else or nothing at all you will learn a lot. It begins in a very surprising place - not for example with the Bible being given to Moses on Mount Sinai - but on Elephantine Island on the River Nile in 475 BC. There a large Jewish community is resident, complete with temple, acting as mercenaries to defend the King of Persia's southern frontier against raiders and bandits. Of course the alert reader will note that there is a problem in the previous sentence - there was absolutely only meant to be one temple in Jerusalem - and some of the correspondence is incredibly tactless as the elders in Egypt set out the issues around "their" temple. From its earliest origins then, the Jewish faith was one defined by the word and the continuing arguments about what that word meant. Christians and Jews together have very broadly fallen into two camps - those who believed that the "word" (OT for Jews, OT + NT for Christians) was God given and inspired and to be obeyed and those who thought it was of human origin and could be sifted through human reason. The former group then divide again into those who think Jesus Christ was the Messiah and those who did not. Schama falls into the second group, and my two criticisms of the book are that he tends to give short shrift to those in the former group. Poor old "second" Isaiah -writing Schama says two centuries after the first - is summarily dismissed as "isolationist" for example. Most of the OT prophets get similar short shrift. More surprisingly, the most influential Jew of all times, Jesus of Nazareth, hardly gets a look in: in fact Paul gets a far larger contribution. Putting these criticisms aside, the book is very well written and is especially good on the Victorian biblical scholars who dug up all kinds of early papyri in Egypt shedding light on early Jewish history. Most amazingly was the treasure trove of documents in the storehouse known as the Cairo Geniza in the Ben Ezra synagogue in Old Cairo. Because of the deep Jewish reverence for the word, which permeates this book (hence the title) nothing written could be thrown away in case it contained, unknown the scared name. So everything was placed in a storehouse. and there it remained until it was unearthed- children's scribblings, drawings, letters, tax bills, religious and not so religious instructions, shopping lists, fashion tips and on and on. So when the Victorian scholars in 1896 found this incredible treasure trove of chaos (the very opposite of an archive) they discovered the most complete set of medieval documents anywhere in the world, covering 9 centuries. Even more fascinating is that the prime movers in this discovery were two middle aged Scottish Presbyterian sisters, Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson. The documents are so vast that even now they are being explored in Cambridge. But while the Victorians had a creditably high view of the Jewish people (for example, the Earl of Shaftesbury the noted philanthropist and evangelical, used to take his hat off and bow to any Jewish people he passed on the street, the noted Scottish minister "Rabbi" Duncan devoted his life to the Jews) tragically this has not been true in general. Christians have to hang our head in sorrow for 2000 years of bad treatment in the main. as the book points out in general the treatment of Jews in this period by Islam was far better than that of Christians. And not just in Russia, Germany or France - in England too. The pogroms against Jews in York and Lincoln which seem to have been forgotten predated the murder and cruelty to come. Jews were only readmitted to England by Cromwell - great man! The problem seems to have set in as the Christians acquired power. The earlier Christians, while naturally trying to convince their Jewish friends that the Messiah had in fact come (and remember that nearly all the early Christian were Jews) are a sharp contrast with the situation a few hundred years later where writers like Jerome and especially John Chrysostom were outspoken in their hatred. Augustine uniquely "made the effort of historical imagination to register in full the Jewishness of Jesus and the apostles." God wanted the Jewish people to be cared for, argued Augustine, "as custodians of the Bible's prophecies of Christ". For according to a (probably apocryphal story) an agnostic King of France was told by his counsellor that the best argument for the existence of God was the survival of the Jewish people. This book takes us to 1492, I look forward to the second volume.
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Randall Smith
4.0 out of 5 stars What I most like about Schama’s book was the emphasis on the tangibleReviewed in the United States on 25 August 2014
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What I most like about Schama’s book was the emphasis on the tangible. He concentrates on archeological discoveries, surviving papyrus letters and fragments, the ruins of ancient synagogue, their styles, locations and decorations, in other words, things that can be seen, felt, read. He does not start the history with Abraham, Moses and similar mythic characters for whom there is no real evidence. Since he deals mainly with the tangible, the history does not start as early as one might have thought, but starts early enough, at around 1000 B.C.E., and follows the Jews through Hellenistic, Roman, and Medieval Ages up until nearly the 16th century.
One question that always comes to mind when reading Jewish history is how did this particular group survive when just about all other cotemporaneous religions and ethnicities disappear ages ago. Schama stresses the great advantage literacy gave the Jews for enduring cohesively through two Temple destruction, numerous exiles, attempted annihilations, forced conversions, and other scourges. Literacy seems always to have been encouraged. After all, even Yahweh himself was depicted as literate, inscribing the Ten Commandants himself and tagging Belshazzar’s wall. What other early gods sent missives to their people? I don’t recall off the top of my head Astarte, Baal, Zoroaster, Zeus depicted as reading and writing; usually their intentions were interpreted by oracles, omens and the like. But the laws of the Jews (unlike, say, the Moabites) were transcribed early on and apparently could be read a wide range of the populace. As early as the eighth century B.C.E., even heavy laborers carving a water conduit left inscriptions strongly suggesting they were literate. And from twenty-five centuries ago survive the letters of a Jewish mercenary at a faraway post to his family back home. The book has many more such examples.
Simon Schama is a noted British lecturer and TV documentarian. He has a pleasant, conversational manner of speech, and he attempts to infuse this manner into his writing. So his sentences often have asides, phrases and comments through the use of commas, parentheses, dashes, quotation marks and italics. The result is that, for a history, his style seems chatty. This chattiness might be off-putting to some, but I found it pleasant, like a friend telling a story.
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Amos
2.0 out of 5 stars Difficult to readReviewed in Germany on 25 March 2014
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You can feel the text was written to be spoken on TV. It is cumbersome and full of unnecessary everyday jargon whose purpose seems to be accessible to a broad public. But it is difficult to read and still treats its subject matter as if it would be banal.
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Pronob Mukerji
5.0 out of 5 stars Spellbound !!Reviewed in India on 16 December 2019
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I have always been fascinated by Jewish history, so naturally my review might sound a bit biased. But what do you do when the storyteller is none other than Simon Schama ? Schama's book "The Story of the Jews - Finding the Words" does not simply chronicle the high and low tides the Jewish race faced from the time of their Exodus led by Moses before 1000 BCE till their expulsion from Spain in 1492 CE. Rather, the book delves deep into the very definition of Jews as a race, their unwavering faith when faced with excruciatingly painful circumstances and their undying spirit before the enemies of Judaism.
What fascinates me about the Jews is their immense ability to Adapt, Acclimatize, Survive and Thrive in a world hostile to the very reason of their existence. Are not these the very qualities our work force in the 21st century expected to have ? What are those human traits and skills corporates today look for, before hiring age 40+ candidates ? When I think on these lines, I realise that the story of the Jews across two millennia are as much relevant today as they were back then. Their stories are yours and mine as much as they are for anybody who comes centuries after us.
I cannot wait to begin reading the second part of Schama's chronicle "Belonging - From 1492 till the Present".
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Katherine Glover
5.0 out of 5 stars Five StarsReviewed in Canada on 16 June 2018
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Still reading and love it, then to the next one!
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C Heath
5.0 out of 5 stars Tavern Books recommendedReviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 November 2025
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Delivered promptly and as described
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Gilbert Sebbag
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent work, clear and extensive.Reviewed in the United States on 18 May 2025
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I enjoyed every single chapter of this work, learnt a lot on my people. Only one correction: Jews from Morocco still move the Seder plate over the head of every member of the family, chanting in judeo-Arab “bibi luya salu mimitzraim”, before “ha lahma Ania…”.
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Prof M. Baum
5.0 out of 5 stars If only I'd been taught history like this as a school boyReviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 December 2013
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I thought the television version of the Story of the Jews was remarkable but I now realise it simply scratched the surface of the subject.
Simon Schama makes his fun and easy to read. His powerful narrative drive, the frequent comical asides and the extraordinary scholarship of his work make the book unputdownable. As a Jew I thought I knew the story of my people but this book makes me realise how many pieces of the complex jigsaw were missing in my knowledge. Schama provides all the missing pieces so that I can now see the whole picture in it's grandeur, complexity and bloody mindedness.
And this is only part 1!
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saksham
5.0 out of 5 stars BrilliantReviewed in India on 27 April 2021
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This book is so brilliantly written that you will feel like that you are really there at every described event. This book is very thought provoking and makes you appreciate the will of the true Jewish people for the sake of their language, tradition and identity.
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steven wallace
5.0 out of 5 stars Eye openingReviewed in the United States on 30 November 2019
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I've been reading recently about Middle Eastern history, and usually in these books the Jewish people are talked about in a paragraph or two. The history is usually Greek, Rome, or Egypt focused, so there isn't much mention of ancient Israel or the Jewish people.
I did grow up reading the Bible, but there was always so many Jewish history references in movies or television that I had no clue about. I bought this book to help me understand the parts of Jewish history I didn't get hear about being raised in a Christian family.
The Story of the Jews is very thorough. The author regularly uses original sources to make his claims and takes an objective view of Jewish history. I never thought I was being preached to, even though it is clear the author his proud of Jewish heritage. His writing is fair and intellectual.
Later on in the book, it does seem like the author is trying to fit as many details as he can into each paragraph, which lowered my reading speed a little. But even then, it seemed more like a conscious writing decision and not something based on inexperience.
My take away from the book is that somehow, someway, the Jewish culture has survived thousands of years, even when so many other religions went extinct with the appearance of Christianity and Islam. Their minority status has made the Jewish people a scapegoat by many government and religious leaders, but they still found a way to maintain their dignity through it all.
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Marian Atkinson
5.0 out of 5 stars Simon Schama -- he writes as well as he does documentaries.Reviewed in Canada on 27 September 2014
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Fantastic book. Can't wait to get volume II in November. Well written; easy to read; extremely informative and interesting.
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A_Lien
5.0 out of 5 stars Buy the hardback!Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 October 2019
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Great book, no need to add to what everyone has already written.
Only, the paperback has small, densely packed print that makes it very difficult to read. It's one of those things that buying online does not show. The 2 volumes should have been made into 4 or 5 paperbacks for ease of use.
I bought the hardback and gave this one away. Even though the hardback is a hefty volume, the kind that requires an armchair to be comfortably read, it's well worth it. This is not the kind of book to be read in a hurry anyway.
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vaibhav
4.0 out of 5 stars Jerusalem!Reviewed in India on 16 February 2014
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apart from Ubisoft's franchise of games I think less has been done to inform the world or the rising global democracy of the story of Jews since civilization began - especially in East Asia from a neutral point of view - more than the religion and bloodshed, it is a story of humans who like us all subjectively have objectively finally found a place for themselves albeit in a stormy circumstance and sadly even now with hostility from history and culture of some of us. I hope to learn more from this book
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D. Scott Beach
3.0 out of 5 stars Great, I imagine.Reviewed in Canada on 13 December 2016
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I purchased as a gift so I don't really know how it is. Sounds interesting. Shipped and arrived when promised.
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scarlet knight 60
3.0 out of 5 stars Rather wordy, unusual approachReviewed in the United States on 12 April 2014
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The story of the Jews is a complex, unconventional telling of a very old story. Based of archeology rather than the chronological story from the bible, the text can be very wordy. It seems to bounce around in its approach and needs significant concentration abilities to stick with it. The print was much to small and I than purchased the e book version which, as the pages went by became, much easier to follow. Of course as the centuries move on, the entire story becomes more familiar and more interesting. It is packed with facts and information and is a remarkable research project. It only takes us to the Jewish expulsion from Spain, so there is much more to come in the second volume..
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Dr. Alvin Newman
5.0 out of 5 stars readable, lucid, excitingReviewed in Canada on 12 May 2014
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A magisterial work covering more than two millennia of Jewish history placing it in the real world. Surprisingly fun to read even if some of the chapters deal with horrible events in Jewish history..
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Sanky
5.0 out of 5 stars One of my professors recommended this book in order to trace out the history ...Reviewed in India on 10 April 2015
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One of my professors recommended this book in order to trace out the history of Jews. I must say that Simon Schama is at his best. Phenomenal research work and outstanding execution of facts. Whatever I have read so far is enriching. Reading has been going on. I strongly feel that, by the time I finish reading this book, I will gain a lot of information about Jews.
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Mark Ray
5.0 out of 5 stars Story of the Jews Finding the Word..Reviewed in the United States on 14 August 2014
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This book is an expansion of part of Prof Schama's superb TV documentary `The Story of the Jews' which covered Jewish history from early to modern times. The volume takes us from settling the hill fort that became Jerusalem up until the massive persecution and eventual expulsion of the Jews in late mediaval Spain. I do hope a second volume is in preparation. Be prepared to have some cherished biblical tales questioned. For example despite much searching by Israeli and other archaeologists no traces have been found of any mass migration of the Israelites from Egypt. It is hinted that the so called Exodus was actually a marauding mob of Semitic tribesmen who were defeated and forced out of the country. Much later, under Greek domination Judaen soldiers and their families were imported to the Egyptian city of Elephantine on the Nile near Abu Simbal to guard the border against invasion.
Detailed records of that settlement have been discovered, many on potsherds and the settlers even built another Temple although this was frowned upon by the Jerusalem Establishment.
The ebook also contains a comprehensive supplement of photographs illustrating key parts of the text.
All in all a long, detailed, and fascinating read.
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Michael S
4.0 out of 5 stars Not the Old TestamentReviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 September 2013
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Simon Scharma calls this a Story rather than a History and perhaps with reason. If you were to expect the familiar Jewiosh stories from the Old Testament you would be sadly disappointed. There is no reference to the great tales of Samson, of Elijah in his chariot of fire and (astonishingly perhaps) barely a mention of Abraham. In fact, Scharma has amassed copious evidence about the Jewish experience throughout history from ancient times up to 1492 while ignoring what many would imagine its major source, the Hebrew Scriptures.
Jesus of Nazareth hardly gets a mention but his followers certainly do and their treatment of the Jews, while familiar, still manages to fill one with dismay. Islam treated them slightly better but there were still massive burdens to be borne by Jew living in Moslem areas of the world. A good deal of the book is somewhat depressing, particularly since we know that the worst is yet to follow.
This is not really an easy read because it contains a massive amount of scholarship, far more than the TV programmes that accompany it. However, Scharama has a most attractive style and if you watched the programmes you can imagine his voice as you read: its humour, sardonic asides, deliberate anachronisms and moving passages that touch us more deeply.
It is the first of two volumes, covering the earlier TV programmes: the second volume is due next year. I will certainly be among those who are loooking forward to reading it.
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