This book is a survey of the history of the Jewish people from biblical antiquity to the present, spanning nearly 2,500 years and traversing five continents.
Opening with a broad introduction which addresses key questions of terminology and definition, the book’s ten chapters then go on to explore Jewish history in both its religious and non-religious dimensions. The book explores the social, political and cultural aspects of Jewish history, and examines the changes and continuities across the whole of the Jewish world throughout its long and varied history. Topics covered include:
- the emergence of Judaism as a religion and way of life
- the development during the Middle Ages of Judaism as an all-encompassing identity
- the effect on Jewish life and identity of major changes in Europe and the Islamic world from the mid sixteenth through the end of the nineteenth century
- the complexity of Jewish life in the twentieth century, the challenge of anti-semitism and the impact of the Holocaust, and the emergence of the current centres of World Jewry in the State of Israel and the New World.
Introduction: The dimensions of Jewish history. 1. The world of the Hebrew bible 2. The age of Hellenism: Athens, Rome and Jerusalem 3. The rise of rabbinic Judaism 4. The Jews of Islam 5. The Jews of medieval Christendom 6. World Jewry in flux, 1492-1750 7. The age of enlightenment and emancipation 8. Anti-semitism and Jewish responses, 1870-1914 9. From renewal to devastation 10. Jews in the post-war world Conclusion: world Jewry faces the 21st century. Bibliographic essay.
Biography
Howard N. Lupovitch is the Waks Family Associate Professor of Jewish History at the University of Western Ontario. He is the author of Jews at the Crossroads: Tradition and Accommodation during the Golden Age of the Hungarian Nobility (2007)
'Recommended' – Choice
'...a welcome and helpful introduction for the non-specialist.' – Journal of Jewish Studies
