Customer Reviews

History of the Jews

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4 star:		(1)
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This a fine work for getting a feel on what has shaped and molded the Jewish people over the centuries. The author's analysis is pretty good and one can expect to learn a great deal about the critical characters of Jewish history. But while nearly everything from ancient times to modern Isreal is discussed, I feel some topics get too little attention. The holocaust, for instance, is covered in about two pages! So while no stone is left unturned, the reader may wish to spend more time looking under some stones.

This is a wonderful history of the Jews, done by a Jewish historian. Before I came to this book, I read A History of the Jews by Johnson, which gave me a really good factual understanding of Jewish history. But Grayzel's volume goes into the real meat of the old royal court history and the signifigance of the different parties involved in the successive revolutions under Roman rule. Why did the Jews rebel so many times, inflicting countless casualties on their populace? The extemists who could not stand Hellenization, and the Hellenizers who wanted to get rid of the Jewish religion altogether, created a struggle that would lead the ultimate destruction of Israel and dispersal of the Jews.

Overall, I highly recommend this work as a fine addition to the Jewish history fold.

This book was used as the textbook assigned to me when I took a high school Jewish history course in a private school. It is an outstanding resource. It may be a bit dry, but it is comprehensive and accurate. More educators should use it as a resource.