A Short History of the Jews

by Michael Brenner, Jeremiah Riemer (Translator)

This is a sweeping and powerful narrative history of the Jewish people from biblical times to today. Based on the latest scholarship and richly illustrated, it is the most authoritative and accessible chronicle of the Jewish experience available. Michael Brenner tells a dramatic story of change and migration deeply rooted in tradition, taking readers from the mythic wanderings of Moses to the unspeakable atrocities of the Holocaust; from the Babylonian exile to the founding of the modern state of Israel; and from the Sephardic communities under medieval Islam to the shtetls of eastern Europe and the Hasidic enclaves of modern-day Brooklyn. The book is full of fascinating personal stories of exodus and return, from that told about Abraham, who brought his newfound faith into Canaan, to that of Holocaust survivor Esther Barkai, who lived on a kibbutz established on a German estate seized from the Nazi Julius Streicher as she awaited resettlement in Israel. Describing the events and people that have shaped Jewish history, and highlighting the important contributions Jews have made to the arts, politics, religion, and science, A Short History of the Jews is a compelling blend of storytelling and scholarship that brings the Jewish past marvelously to life.

Genres: History, Judaism, Jewish, Nonfiction, Religion, Israel

421 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2008

Reviews

[Georgia Kapitsaki · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history of Jews is described as a series of migrations, showing us where the Jews lived throughout history. The book is very interesting. I have not read any other book on this issue but it is very easy for anyone to read.

[Vera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein, so weit ich das beurteilen kann, sehr kompletter Überblick der Geschichte der Juden. Angefangen bei den ältesten biblischen Quelle bis zum Beginn des 21. Jahrhundert, nimmt uns Michael Brenner mit auf die Reise. Wie die jüdische Bevölkerung selbst, reisen wir von der arabischen Halbinsel nach Ägypten, zurück ins Land Kanaan, mit ins babylonischen Exil, nach Spanien, Italien, Deutschland, Russland, den USA und über den schrecklichsten Flecken der Geschichte, den Holocaust, schließlich zurück ins Heilige Land mit der Gründung Israels durch die VN.

Ich finde es interessant, wie Michael Brenner den Staat Israel für die jüdische Gemeinschaft auf der Welt vorsichtig in Frage stellt. Hat sich ihre Geschichte doch immer dadurch geprägt, dass die Juden eine Minderheit in einer anderen Gesellschaft bildeten. Amos Oz beschrieb es in seinem Eine Geschichte von Liebe und Finsternis: Roman. Geschenkausgabe treffend: die Juden waren die ersten Europäer. Keine Italiener, Franzosen, Niederländer oder Deutschen: sie waren Europäer, jüdischen Glaubens halt.

Mit seinen 360 Seiten kann das Buch natürlich auf fast nichts im Detail eingehen. Dafür gibt es eine wunderbare, nach Thema sortierte Literaturliste, für die, die über ein gewisses Zeitfenster in der jüdischen Historie mehr wissen möchten.

Hinweis eines Buchnerds: dieses Buch ist auch wunderbar gestaltet: ich liebe das Papier, die Schrift, das Layout, die wunderbaren Bildern.

[Metin Yılmaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adının hakkını veren bir kitap. Kısa ve öz bir biçimde konuyu anlatmış. Fakat bana biraz dağınık ilerliyor gibi geldi. Biraz daha muntazam ilerleyebilirdi. Konuların detayı yerine, konu başlığı ve nedenlerine girilip, daha fazla bilgi bile yer alabilirdi diye düşünüyorum.

[Matti · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am glad I read this book. I learned a lot - about Jewish figures, migrations through 4,000 years of history, and the incredible survival after many wars, Pogroms, cruel policies and laws and expulsions, and assimilations. The narrative jumped around a lot, not only in terms of geography but also how it describes the different religious movements and key figures. It was difficult to keep it all together, and I wish the writing was clearer and easier to follow. If a friend asked me to give him or her a summary of a topic or chapter, I would probably have difficulty explaining to them just because of the academic tone and (understandably!) how closely packed everything is. In addition, I think there might be an error: on page 218 it says that Simon Guggenheim emigrated from the Swiss village of Lengnau. But I believe (and please correct me if I am wrong) it was Meyer Guggenheim who emigrated.

I really liked the images throughout the book, and I appreciated how in each chapter Brenner often began with an individual, then expanded to a macro perspective in terms of policies or migrations. This method of zooming out and zooming in was well done. It was also very fair and nuanced, explaining how Jews lived in relation to their Christian and Islamic neighbors. At the end of the book, it amazed me how Brenner put our current political and geographic crises in perspective. We are only in a small part of a very, very long and interesting story.

This book encouraged me to dive deeper into specific histories, like Jewish histories of the USA, Holland, India, and Egypt. It was also rewarding to learning so much even in 400 pages. For these reasons, I am thankful.

[Batu · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book dense with information (and also has a lot of pages). I have long wanted to learn something of Jewish history and this book provides a plethora of information. I also have long wanted to understand whether being a Jew is a religious or a nationalistic identity. Again, Mr. Brenner gives all he's got to explain that issue. In the closing pages, he reveals "It has become impossible to give a universally valid answer to the question: Who is a Jew? . . . Is a profession of belief in Judaism what counts, or should ancestry suffice?" So, perhaps my second question is unanswerable, but I learned a lot related to the first question.

(It took me so long to finish this book because I had several other books going at the same time and this one required close attention.)

[Johan Rehnstrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written and a fairly easy read about the fascinating Jewish history and culture. It is an amazing, heartbreaking and at the same time uplifting story about the global struggle and survival of a rich and diverse culture that is marked by an astounding hatred and jealousy from so many groups and people. I will definitely read more about the Jewish people in my quest to understand and learn more. I definitely recommend anyone with the slightest interest in Israel and the Jewish people to read this book. Can serve as an excellent introduction to the topic. I think I will shortly move on to read Ian Black's book Enemies and Neighbors.

[Santiago López Moskovits · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bird's eye view of the history of the Jewish people, and it does a good job at it. My main problem however is that I wish that the sources were more present in the text, so one could easily refer to them and seek for yourself. Of course, like all surveys it leaves important things out and nuance is not always possible, but that is naturally beyond the scope of the task that the author intended to complete.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid, mostly chronological outline that takes you through 4000 years of beautiful history, from Moses to Sandy Koufax (or, really, modern Israel).

[Sam Seitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is exactly what it claims to be, an accessible and compact history of the Jewish people from their origins up to the present. The book is broken up into geographic and thematic chapters, which cover issues including Judaism’s origins; the diaspora that resulted from the destruction of the Second Temple; the emergence of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Judaism; the origins of Hassidism as well as the reason for the tripartite division between Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism; along with many other topics. What’s so nice about the book is its wide-ranging coverage, encompassing both theological as well as historical and sociological issues. I also very much enjoyed the organizational approach of describing Jews through their migrations, a technique that helps to highlight how and why Judaism has come to be so decentralized and diverse.

The downside to this approach is that every chapter is just long enough to cover the key events, and not much else. Moreover, because the book is written for a more popular audience, there are no in-text citations, making it difficult for the curious reader to dig up more on topics of particular interest. But despite these irritants, I found the book an easy and enjoyable read full of interesting information. If you’re already quite well-versed in Judaism and its history, the book will probably be unsatisfying. But I suspect those that simply want to develop a general acquaintance with the world’s oldest monotheistic religion will find this book an excellent place to start.

[Ruth Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book I've read on the topic, so I don't have anything to compare it to, but it was an absorbing read for the most part. It was salutary to read the Jewish perspective on periods of history I've read about from the non-Jewish perspective. The overall theme was that Jewish history can be understood as a long series of migrations, and each chapter focused on the dominant migratory movement of a certain period, such as "From Jerusalem to Yavneh: The Diaspora Legitimates Itself."

The author pays close attention to the legal restrictions and social barriers that have been imposed on the Jewish people in nearly every place they have emigrated. There is also a considerable amount of demographic data -- the size of the Jewish communities in dozens of cities and countries, what percentage of the population they represented and what percentage of the practitioners in various trades and professions. The narrative does get a little number-heavy in the later chapters, where the early and middle chapters were enlivened by portraits of influential leaders of the Jewish communities being described.

Overall though this was interesting, thought-provoking, and made me want to read more. There's a very helpful bibliography of further reading which I'm glad to have. Also, the illustrations in this book are gorgeous, and because the entire text is printed on glossy paper, they are interspersed throughout the book instead of segregated to a photo section in the middle.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a wide-ranging book that tried to include the history of Jewish communities around the world. This meant, of course, that it had to be pretty general, especially before the modern period. Since I teach Western Civilization and Middle Eastern history courses, this book provided what I needed: a general overview of Jewish history that helped me know more background for the Jewish communities that are so important in Western and Middle Eastern civilizations. It left me with a lot of questions about pre-modern Jewish history that I would like to pursue.

It's a visually beautiful book, with every chapter beginning with an image from a Haggadah, a set of Passover readings and some other high-quality pictures in the chapters. Unfortunately, Brenner doesn't
seem to believe any Biblical history before King Josiah.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a classic case of "It does exactly what it says on the tin." I was looking for a short (but not too short), readable overview of Jewish history, and this is just that. Since it covers a lot of ground in a relatively short space, some topics are bound to get short-changed (for instance, there isn't as much in-depth discussion of Judaism as a religion as I for one might've liked). But Brenner effectively sketches the broad strokes of the history while providing enough human detail to make it meaningful. This history has often been one of migration, and Brenner shows how Jewish people have adapted, and flourished, in diverse--and frequently hostile--environments.

[Tami R Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brenner's book is accessible, knowledgeable and concise. It is an excellent starting point for those wanting to learn more about the history of the Jewish people. The book also contains interesting images from various versions of the Haggadah through the centuries from different countries. This underlines the deep respect one gets upon completion of the book for a people who have maintained their culture through centuries of diaspora. Recommended for students of religion and history.

[Waseem Abunnadi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the mentioning of Palestine often. A very little group of people say that Palestine had never existed. That group of people is growing. Frankly, I loved how this book displayed that history right,

[Katharine Holden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very readable, but has sufficient detail.

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of wandering. Lots and lots of wandering.