How and why did the Jewish people survive for so long without a home country of their own? How did they end up disbursed throughout the world and always seemed to be in the middle to upper middles classes? Why was there such a concentration of Jews amongst the world's moneylenders and bankers? These questions have been asked for many years, if not centuries and this book offers its own theory as to why and how this came to be. This book takes a somewhat different tack as it is written by two economists who apply current economic theories to try and understand Jewish history over the past two millennia.
Their theory boils down to an observation that the Jewish people decided to focus on literacy as the key element of their religious practices and developed primary education for all boys and many girls as well. This focus on literacy allowed them to capture opportunities that arose when the population shifted from purely agrarian pursuits to urban environments with a heavy reliance on trade. Farmers did not need to be literate to be able to properly farm their lands and would actually pay a higher price if their children did not help in farming chores since they were studying. Add to this the costs of the education and these economists point out that economic theory predicts that there must have been something of value to have the Jewish people focus on literacy. In turn, these skills helped them take advantage of opportunities that required those skills as a base and therefore the Jews were best positioned, as a people, to move into trade, crafts, medicine, scholarship, and money-lending (i.e. banking).
The book covers the time period from the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70, to 1492 which was the height of the European expulsion of Jews from Spain, buy came at the end of several waves of expulsions throughout Europe. Tracing this timeline, the authors describe the history and population distribution of the Jews, as well as the rise and fall of various population measures. Comparing these to the equivalent movements among non-Jews the authors point out why their theory explains these various movements and therefore provides a more satisfactory explanation that any other posited up till now.
Before the destruction of the temple, the Jewish people were mostly illiterate farmers who relied on a small cadre of high priests for their religious guidance. This was identical in all respects to every other community of that time with the exception of the Jews believing in the existence of only one god. Of course, there were many sects amongst the Jews at that time - some of which are described as Christians. Once the temple was destroyed, that pillar of faith was gone and the remaining sects either demanded a closer adherence to the Torah through study, or relaxed their strictures on what it meant to be a Jew. This latter movement led to Paul's teaching which took Christianity in a completely different direction so that it became its own separate religion, rather than a Jewish Sect. The Jews focused on the requirement that each father must educate his sons to read the Torah and learn a craft. No other religion or sect required this. To allow this to happen, the leaders of the Jewish community created a system of primary and secondary schools where Jewish children could go to study in each Jewish community. The costs for this were born by the Jews themselves as well as the opportunity costs when the children could not perform other work as they were studying. These extra costs caused two things to happen: First, The Jewish people were well positioned to take advantage of commercial opportunities which started arising in the large Muslim empire of the early 7th century. And secondly, those Jews who could not afford these costs, or were not committed enough to bear them, moved away from Judaism and converted to Christianity or Islam - religions that were much less demanding.
The Jews also self-selected. Those who could not, or would not, learn to read and study were shunned by those Jews who could with restrictions of association and marriage made on them. This further alienated those Jew would did not learn to read and that pushed them away from the one religion on to another. That is the reason why - the authors claim - that in some cases Jewish populations shrank by 50 to 90 percent while the other peoples they resided amongst shrank by significantly smaller percentages. This is in contrast to the commonly accepted theory that Jews were slaughtered or forced to convert. The authors point out that while there were certainly events of such type over the years, they cannot explain the huge falls in Jewish numbers, while a willing conversion due to dire economic conditions does. This always seemed to happen when the society of the time was hit by a large extraneous shock that caused that society to go back to a more subsistence agrarian basis than before. The two main such waves are the times right after the various Jewish revolts in the first century AD, and right after the Mongol invasion of the Middle East which effectively destroyed the rich and vast Muslim empire.
Since this is an economic study, it is written carefully with some economic jargon mixed in. There are also annexes to chapters that present the mathematical underpinnings of some of the points made in those chapters. In other words, this is not a light reading book. As it happens, I did take it with me on a beach vacation, which was not a good move, as this book requires reflection and concentration to really understand the message. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the followup book which the authors promise. This next one is supposed to cover the time from 1492 to the present day and will deal with another major shock to Jewish life- the Holocaust.
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I've always wondered how Jews are so rich and successful. Now I have an idea why. What's more, the implication of education in Jewry plays a much bigger role than I thought, and probably more so than many today seem to think, so this is quite an enlightening. The quality of the paperback and printed pages is good and they are well designed. The book also challenges some of the ideas people have about Jewish history such as the notion that Jews moved into money lending because they were forced into it. Overall an interesting and enlightening read for a newbie like me. This book also reveals quite a good amount on Islamic and Christian history which was more than I expected as I expected only Jewish history. This book also raises questions, and well, that's good I guess. I mean all books raises one or several questions but for this one it's particularly notable I feel. It can be dry but once you're in the right mood it's a smooth read.
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Gabriel Stein
Absolutely fascinating
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Religiös motivierte Alphabetisierung als Schlüssel zum Verständnis der jüdischen Geschichte
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