How Jewish Is Jewish History?

by Moshe Rosman

With great vigour and from the vantage point of long experience of writing and teaching Jewish history, Moshe Rosman treats the key questions that postmodernism raises for the writing of Jewish history.What is the relationship between Jewish culture and history and those of the non-Jews among
whom Jews live? Can we-in the light of postmodernist thought-speak of a continuous, coherent Jewish People, with a distinct culture and history? What in fact is Jewish cultural history, and how can it be written? How does gender transform the Jewish historical narrative? How does Jewish history fit
into the multicultural paradigm? Has Jewish history entered a postmodern phase? How can Jewish history utilize the methodologies of other disciplines to accomplish its task? All these are questions that Jewish historians need to think about if their work is to be taken seriously by mainstream
historians and intellectuals, or indeed by educated Jews interested in understanding their own cultural and historical past. While engaging with the questions raised by postmodernists, the author adopts a critical stance towards their work. His basic claim is that it is possible to incorporate,
judiciously, postmodern innovations into historical scholarship that is still based on documentary research and critical analysis. The resulting endeavor might be termed 'a reformed positivism'. Rosman presents a concentrated, coherent, cogent argument as to what considerations must be brought to
bear on the writing of Jewish history today. By highlighting in one book the issues raised by postmodernism, How Jewish is Jewish History? provides those in the field with a foundation from which to discuss how it should be practiced in light of this generation's challenges. It is a valuable
resource for students of Jewish history and historiography and a handy tool for scholars who must confront the issues aired here in their own more narrowly focused scholarly works.

Genres: History, Judaism

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 26, 2007

Reviews

[Denise Blumenfeld · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelente libro que expresa claramente las complejidades a las que debe enfrentarse aquel historiador que quiera reflejar el pasado y presente el Pueblo de Israel dada su pluralidad y complejidad a lo largo de 5 milenios de historia judía.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, very interesting and helpful when thinking about jewish studies/history from an academic sense.

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rosman's How Jewish Is Jewish History first and foremost is a challenge to essentialist historiographies of Judaism. As someone who doesn't buy fully into the triumph of the postmodern critique over the validity of truth-claims but does take its concerns quite seriously, his perspective is somewhat refreshing. Neither a reactionary nor a member of the choir, his survey of relevant theories and the attempts to integrate them into Jewish Studies is an earnest account of his own making sense of how to do historiography today. I hope that later editions of his Founder of Hasidism will include an introduction that attempts to situate the research therein within the context of this book's concluding argument.

I can comfortably recommend How Jewish... to those with an interest in historiography in general or in Jewish Studies specifically. It might also be a helpful resource to individuals of faith who take the problematization of grand narrative seriously but don't see this as a hopeless situation by any means for religious traditions, for those who are wrestling with concerns about the challenge to grand narrative and for those seeking to infuse their own religious identity and praxis with an awareness of contemporary theoretical concerns.