The Maccabees

by Moshe Pearlman

. 1973, bright clean copy, with dustjacket, no markings, Professional booksellers since 1981

Genres: Nonfiction, History

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

From Wikipedia:

Moshe Pearlman (Hebrew: משה פרלמן; 1911 – 5 April 1986), born Maurice Pearlman, was an Israeli writer.

Biography
He was born in England and his original name was Morris Perlman. His father was born in Minsk, his mother was born in England by an immigrant family who came from Poland.

He studied at the London School of Economics and was a student of Harold Laski.

He first worked as a journalist and emigrated to Israel. He joined the Army of the newly founded state. From 1948 to 1952 he was the first Israeli military spokesman. In 1960 he retired and devoted himself to literary activity.

Reviews

[Timothy]

Great book on so many levels. it's probably out of print, though. the book's author writes about the battles and strategy with the skill of a military historian. but, what's more interesting is the conflict between monotheism (Judaism) and polytheism/secularism (Greek/Selucid/Roman). Judah is an amazing leader and, it can be argued, if it werent for his leadership, there would be no jews and no jesus, either. he fought against the subjugation of his nation and the influence of hellenistic culture. this struggle is reminiscent of our time. we see in our time that ilicit behavior is condoned, much in the same way as it was back then.