Customer Reviews

Jews of the Amazon: Self-Exile in Earthly Paradise

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It is a well written book, in which the author tell us how a group of people that live in a small town named Iquitos and located in the middle of the peruvian amazon, have a certain way of living, and share some common beliefs and customs that originally come from the integration of two types of ancestors with different cultures or religions or even races: the "mestizos" and the inmigrant jews. The result is an interesting population with particular characteristics. The author has to be congratulated on the smoothness with which he mixes hystorical features, actual facts and the "subjective" aspects of the life and thinking and feeling of these people. He also achieves to put all these observations into a hystorical and phylosophical perspective. Finally the book has a beautiful hardcover and excellent design and is complemented with good pictures. I strongly recommend it.

It is a well written book, in which the author tell us how a group of people that live in a small town named Iquitos and located in the middle of the peruvian amazon, have a certain way of living, and share some common beliefs and customs that originally come from the integration of two types of ancestors with different cultures or religions or even races: the "mestizos" and the inmigrant jews. The result is an interesting population with particular characteristics. The author has to be congratulated on the smoothness with which he mixes hystorical features, actual facts and the "subjective" aspects of the life and thinking and feeling of these people. He also achieves to put all these observations into a hystorical and phylosophical perspective. Finally the book has a beautiful hardcover and excellent design and is complemented with good pictures. I strongly recommend it.

The content was excellent but the organization and writing was repetitive. It appeared to be more a series of articles that covered too much of the same ground or a PHD document that needed to be seriously edited.

Ever since the Jews were originally exiled from the land of Israel they can be found in many far-flung corners of the world. But who would have thought that in the middle of the Amazon jungle Jews could be found? Ariel Segal does an amazing job of both presenting how Jews got to the Amazon and how they are currently expressing their religion and culture. It is a wonderful tale of the blending of cultures and the desire for religious and cultural continuity.

Ariel Segal did an amazing job writing this book. It is so interesting and incrediable. I couldn't put this book down, i just loved it. Ariel, congratulations on writing an amazing ethnography...

Well researched but not engaging.The author never immersed my interest or compassion with the "Jewish mestizos" living in one of the most remote cities in South America. Ariel Segal made me feel detached and unemotional about a subject that one could feel compassion. That of Jewish men, woman and children living in isolation from their culture and history. Perhaps, this subject could be reworked as a novel. The story of a white family in the Belgian Congo was addressed rather grippingly in The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.