Philosophical Foundations of Historical Knowledge

Average customer rating:

Highly informative

Useful book for lower division instruction

Good choice for lay people or undergraduates

Concise, Readable, Essential

Superb, Stylish summary of Jewish History

A Short History of the Jewish People: From Legendary Times to Modern Statehood
Raymond P. Scheindlin
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Jewish | World | History | Subjects | Books
General | World | History | Subjects | Books
History of Religion | Judaism | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Religion & Spirituality | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People: From the Time of the Patriarchs to the Present

Back To The Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Texts

Essential Judaism: A Complete Guide to Beliefs, Customs & Rituals

Jewish Holidays

The Sabbath

ASIN: 0195139410

Amazon.com

"Jewish history is often told not as a narrative of real people with human problems and interests but as an idealized national myth," writes Raymond Scheinlin, in the introduction to his excellent A Short History of the Jewish People. Scheinlin is an observant Jew, but his book is not a history of the Jewish religion. It is a history of Jewish tribes around the world and the ways "they have interacted with the nations and cultures among whom they have lived, adapting to their environment while retaining a variety of continuities." The book's brevity precludes exhaustiveness, but its focus on particular Jewish communities and its disciplined analysis of their political successes and foibles give readers a firm grasp on the movements in Jewish history that have shaped the Middle East, Europe, and America. Amply illustrated with maps and photographs, the fluid prose of Scheinlin's History make this book a useful starting point for anyone seeking a secular history of Judaism that is neither skeptical nor hostile to religion. --Michael Joseph Gross

Book Description

Where did the Jews come from? How did they retain their strong sense of community through centuries of dispersion? How have the Jews of the present, with their proud ethnic identity and thriving national home, emerged out of the downtrodden Jews of the past? Such questions arise naturally in the minds of anyone contemplating the long history of Jewish people. In one concise, authoritative volume, A Short History of the Jewish People provides insights and answers. This sweeping and highly informative work presents the major geographical, cultural, and political forces that have determined the course of Jewish history, introducing the many individuals, both religious and secular, who have shaped the character, mindset, and prospects of the Jewish people. Organized chronologically, the narrative follows the Jewish experience from legendary times to the peace agreements currently being negotiated in the Middle East. And, to give this overview an international and timely perspective, Raymond P. Scheindlin focuses his study on the pivotal events and dominant communities within each historical period. Written by a respected Hebrew scholar, cultural historian, noted author, and rabbi, A Short History of the Jewish People carefully describes the story of a people as varied as the many cultures in which they have lived. Including detailed maps and stirring photos, as well as timelines and sidebars, this pioneering work is a valuable resource for anyone broadly curious about the Jewish people.

Customer Reviews:

Highly informative.......2007-08-24

This book is packed with information that is offered in a very readable manner. The author did an exceptionally fine job. I did not expect to learn so much or be so fascinated.

Useful book for lower division instruction.......2006-12-23

Scheindlin has managed to write nearly the perfect book for a lower division course on Jewish history. He successfully spans the entire scope of Jewish history from legendary times to the modern State of Israel in a mere 263 pages of very readable prose. His writing is neither dry nor laden with jargon. He writes like Leon Uris or Herman Wouk.

Two issues of debate in the book should be supplemented with additional readings. The first is that the portrayal of the Jewish-Christian schism is only presented in the context of medieval Antisemitism, and a more balanced and informative view of the formative period of Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity is found in From Text To Tradition by Lawrence Schiffman. The second is the lachrymos portrayal of Jewish life in the Middle Ages. That should be balanced with Salo Baron's groundbreaking article "Ghetto and Emancipation," reprinted in The Menorah Treasury, ed. Leo W. Schwarz (Philadelphia, 1964).

With those two caveats, I would recommend this book for any introductory Jewish history or Jewish studies survey class.

Good choice for lay people or undergraduates.......2005-12-09

I teach a survey of Jewish history course at the freshman/sophomore level, and this is a great text for a course of this sort. It is easily understandable, concise and has all the important information. The index is helpful. I would also recommend it for the non-student looking for a quick introduction to the basics of Jewish history. Scheindlin is particularly good with material from Jews in the Middle East. For my course I supplement it with primary texts.

Concise, Readable, Essential.......2005-01-13

In taking a "Survey of Jewish History" course this fall, which is a broad subject, a broad and sweeping primary textbook was needed. In the short space of 263 pages, Scheindlin covers equitably the history of world Jewry, balancing coverage of religious and sociopolitical elements.
Although accurately described as a secular book, Scheindlin is a practicing Jew and the book is certainly not irreligious. In most cases (esp. premodern situations,) Scheindlin approaches an event or a conflict as a neutral observer, a historian documenting causes and effects. Importantly, he explains the way Jewish societies around the world conceived of and reacted to their circumstances, without actually adopting their views in his writing. This allows both Jew and non-Jew to feel comfortable with the book.
Anyone who faults the book for its lack of detail misunderstands the point of the text and the feasability of what they are asking for. What Scheindlin does with stunning success is give an interesting, accurate depiction, albeit with broad brushstrokes, of the forces that have shaped Jewry throughout the ages.
(I especially recommend the chapter on the Holocaust as riveting and awe-inspiring. Scheindlin, in his understated tone, evokes the horror of "Shoah" (destruction) in a way that impresses even veteran readers with its vividness.)

Superb, Stylish summary of Jewish History.......2005-01-06

Although one can quibble over specific statements and interpretations (e.g. he writes that Yiddish is a dialect of modern German, when actually it derives from Middle German and is as much a dialect as English is, which also evolved from Middle German) or his inclusion or exclusion of certain figures, facts, etc.-- overall Scheindlin has created a superb work. It is concise, well written, and nicely complemented with clear historical timelines, maps, and small topical essays.

The book is well organized with sensitivity to the difficulty of understanding the tremendous amount of material being covered. The chapters break down as follows:
1) Israelite Origins and Kingdom [Biblical] (c1220 BCE - 587 BCE)
2) Judea and the Origins of the Diaspora [2nd Temple Period] (587 BCE - 70 CE)
3) Roman Palestine and Sassanid Babylonia [Classical Rabbinic Period] (70 CE - 632 CE)
4) Jews in the Islamic World: From the Rise of Islam to the End of the Middle Ages (632 CE - 1500 CE)
5) Jews of Medieval Christian Europe (9th century to 1500)
6) Jews in the Ottoman Empire and Middle East (1453 - 1948)
7) Jews of Western Europe (1500 - 1900)
8) Jews of Eastern Europe and the United States (1770 - 1940)
9) The Holocaust (appx. 1925 - 1946)
10) Zionism and the Origins of the State of Israel (appx. 1862 - 1948)
11) The Jewish People after 1948

This is an excellent historical primer and contains a good bibliography for further study.

Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry: From the Golden Age of Spain to Modern Times

Average customer rating:

Outstanding Survey of Sephardic/Oriental Jewry

Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry: From the Golden Age of Spain to Modern Times
Zion Zohar
Manufacturer: NYU Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Spain | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0814797067
Release Date: 2005-06-01

Book Description

View the Table of Contents. Read Chapter 1.

"Younger scholars have much to gain by their encoutner with these brilliant essays especially where the authors generously gesture precisely to those lacunae in excisting scholarship that may prove to be the foundations of future careers."
—Midwest Jewish Studies Association- Shofar Book Reviews

Sephardic Jews trace their origins to Spain and Portugal. They enjoyed a renaissance in these lands until their expulsion from Spain in 1492, when they settled in the countries along the Mediterranean, throughout the Ottoman Empire, in the Balkans, and in the lands of North Africa, Italy, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, mixing with the Mizrahi, or Oriental, Jews already in these locations. Sephardic Jews have contributed some of the most important Jewish philosophers, poets, biblical commentators, Talmudic and Halachic scholars, and scientists, and have had a significant impact on the development of Jewish mysticism.

Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry brings together original work from the world's leading scholars to present a deep introductory overview of their history and culture over the past 1500 years. The book presents an overarching chronological and thematic survey of topics ranging from the origin of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry and their history to kabbalah, philosophy, and biblical commentary, and Sephardic Jewish life in the modern era. This collection represents the most up-to-date scholarship about Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry available.

Contributors include: Mark R. Cohen, Norman Stillman, David Bunis, Jonathan Decter, Yitzhak Kalimi, Moshe Idel, Annette B. Fromm, Zvi Zohar, Morris Fairstein, Pamela Dorn Sezgin, Mark Kligman, and Henry Abramson.

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding Survey of Sephardic/Oriental Jewry.......2005-11-02

The reviewer is a teacher.
This is a fantastic, interesting, and very readable overview of all the important aspects of Sephardic and Oriental Jewry--origins, language, history, culture, contributions to the Jewish and non-Jewish world, etc... Very accessible for the layperson and yet sophisticated enough for the scholar. Clears up what exactly are the 3 main ethnic groups within the Jewish people and how they came about. The introductory essay gives an excellent overview of each chapter and its highlights. The final chapter by the editor proposes a new and very challenging theory as to why Jews from Arab lands experienced discrimination upon making aliyah (coming to live) in Israel. This is THE book you want if you are looking for the most up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of this subject. A pleasure to read!!!

A history of the modern Jews; or, Annals of the Hebrew race. From the destruction of Jerusalem to the present time. By Samuel M. Smucker ...

Average customer rating:

A history of the modern Jews; or, Annals of the Hebrew race. From the destruction of Jerusalem to the present time. By Samuel M. Smucker ...
Michigan Historical Reprint Series
Manufacturer: Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

United States | History | Historical Reproductions | Formats | Books
ASIN: 1425536123
Release Date: 2005-12-20

Product Description

This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program.

Scholem, Arendt, Klemperer: Intimate Chronicles in Turbulent Times

Average customer rating:

Scholem, Arendt, Klemperer: Intimate Chronicles in Turbulent Times
Steven E. Aschheim
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Early Civilization | Ancient | History | Subjects | Books

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

History of Ideas | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0253338913

Book Description

Through an examination of the remarkable diaries and letters of three extraordinary and distinctive German-Jewish thinkers--Gershom Scholem, Hannah Arendt, and Victor Klemperer, Steven E. Aschheim illuminates what these intimate writings reveal about their evolving identities and world views as they wrestled with the meaning of being both German and Jewish in Hitler's Third Reich.

Average customer rating:

History of the Jews in Modern Times
Lloyd P. Gartner
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Renaissance | World | History | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0192892592

Book Description

Lloyd Gartner presents, in chronologically-arranged chapters, the story of the changing fortunes of the Jewish communities of the Old World (in Europe and the Middle East and beyond) and their gradual expansion into the New World of the Americas. The book starts in 1650, when there were no more than one and a quarter million Jews in the world (less than a sixth of the number at the start of the Christian era). Gartner leads us through the traditions, religious laws, communities and their interactions with their neighbours, through the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and into Emancipation, the dark shadows of anti-Semitism, the impact of World War II, bringing us up to the twentieth century through Zionism, and the foundation of Israel. Throughout, the story is powerful and engrossing - enlivened by curious detail and vivid insights. Gartner, an expert guide and scholar on the subject, writing from within the Jewish community, remains objective and effective whilst being careful to introduce and explain Jewish terminology and Jewish institutions as they appear in the text. This is a superb introductory account - authoritative, in control, lively of the central threads in one of the greatest historical tapestries of modern times.

The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times

Average customer rating:

Good reference, should be in every Jewish library

The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times

Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Africa | History | Subjects | Books

General | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

General | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

jp-unknown1 | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0231107978

Book Description

Despite considerable research on the Jewish diaspora in the Middle East and North Africa since 1800, there has until now been no comprehensive synthesis that illuminates both the differences and commonalities in Jewish experience across a range of countries and cultures. This lacuna in both Jewish and Middle Eastern studies is due partly to the fact that in general histories of the region, Jews have been omitted from the standard narrative. As part of the religious and ethnic mosaic that was traditional Islamic society, Jews were but one among numerous minorities and so have lacked a systematic treatment.

Addressing this important oversight, this volume documents the variety and diversity of Jewish life in the region over the last two hundred years. It explains the changes that affected the communities under Islamic rule during its "golden age" and describes the processes of modernization that enabled the Jews to play a pivotal role in their respective countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first half of the book is thematic, covering topics ranging from languages to economic life and from religion and music to the world of women. The second half is a country-by-country survey that covers Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, the Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.

Customer Reviews:

Good reference, should be in every Jewish library.......2005-11-06

I received this book as a gift from a friend and I have enjoyed going through it for specific information. It opens some of the specific dynamics of various Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa. I like the way the book is structured to cover the same type of issues for each community give you an interesting canvas of sociatal issues. There are sections not only about the religious environment of each community, but also the political and population statics.

It is best to use this book as a reference guide, because it is not a noval of a book that some people will be able to read from front to back in one sitting. I would suggest that this is a book I feel that every Yeshiva and Jewish educational institution should have. Especially with the lack of informaiton on Mizrakhi and Maghrebi communities. I truly enjoy having this book as a part of my library.

American Space Jewish Time: Essays in Modern Culture and Politics

Average customer rating:

American Space Jewish Time: Essays in Modern Culture and Politics
Stephen J. Whitfield
Manufacturer: M.E. Sharpe
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1563249324

Average customer rating:

The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times
Norman A. Stillman
Manufacturer: Jewish Publication Society of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Egypt | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

General | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

History of Religion | Judaism | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0827607652

Just for the record in the history of the Karaite Jews of Egypt in modern times

Average customer rating:

Magnificent historical work

Just for the record in the history of the Karaite Jews of Egypt in modern times
Mourad El-Kodsi
Manufacturer: Wilprint, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Egypt | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

Magnificent historical work.......2007-10-11

I was extremely fortunate to obtain a copy of Murad al-Qudsi's rare 2002 book (Wilprint, Inc, Lyons, N.Y.) while researching a piece on former Stanford professor Joel Beinin.

Beginning on page 202, the book includes 2 pages of al-Qudsi's comments on Beinin's discredited 1998 book, The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry, followed by some 26 pages of documents, articles and letters, elucidating Beinin's determination to misrepresent the factual history concerning the Karaite Jewish community of Egypt.

Al-Qudsi, for those who know no Arabic, means "from Jerusalem," indicating the al-Qudsi family's ties, dating back thousands of years, to the capital of Israel and the Jewish people. In fact, contrary to Beinin's contention, as the documents and record in this book show, the Karaite Jewish community are fervent Zionists, as they have been since the Babylonian conquest of Judea in 568 BCE--and the movement's origin, as a movement, following the second conquest of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

Al-Qudsi includes information about Beinin's false representations of Karaite history, and more specifically, the contents of interchanges he had with Beinin following the latter's initial misrepresentations in a 1997 online article, as well as Beinin's written replies, in which he dared to deny facts as experienced and documented by the Karaite Jewish community, which was isolated in ghettos for its duration in Egypt, and then forced to leave Egypt in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, along with other Sephardic Jewish people whose rights, possessions, jobs and wealth were stripped.

A genuine scholar would have, in addition to interviewing the subjects of his work, documented their statements with written Karaite and Egyptian historical publications and records such as are included in this book. But Beinin denied their veracity without even so much as citing any of these valuable sources in his work.

Al-Qudsi here exposes as an American-born, Communist anti-Zionist whose stated political agenda--rather than thorough and genuine research--governs his entire body of work. This material clearly demonstrates why the Karaite community is so deeply offended by Beinin's polemical work, which his Stanford affiliation allowed him (for a time anyway) to falsely parade as scholarship.

In addition to this extremely valuable chapter, the book also contains exact photocopies of many Karaite historical photographs, journals, newspapers, manuscripts and so on, in English, Hebrew and Arabic, and the important truths about this intellectually rich, Jewish religious community.

At the time I received this book, al-Qudsi was about 91 and remained as lucid as the day is long. His book is likewise lucid and scholarly, a source of enlightenment, in short, a real treasure.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

Inside of Time: My Journey from Alaska to Israel

Average customer rating:

going along with ruth gruber to alaska and israel
compelling
What A Wonderful Life!

Inside of Time: My Journey from Alaska to Israel
Ruth Gruber
Manufacturer: Carroll & Graf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Israel | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

Memoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0786713674

Book Description

Inside of Time is a memoir that comprises the vivid recollections of Ruth Gruber, award-winning writer and a pioneering eyewitness to history. Her sixteenth book since the 1930s, it chronicles her intimate friendships with luminaries of the century, her encounters with the native peoples of Alaska, and her work in Israel as the nation was born. Gruber presents a unique personal philosophy—living inside of time—that has enabled her to forge a trailblazer’s life and contribute decades of unique service to humanity. Now she looks back on life from the age of ninety-one, creating a book that all readers eager to learn about the human side of global events will treasure. 16 pages of photographs add to this fascinating life story including the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt, Harold Ickes, and Golda Meir.

Customer Reviews:

going along with ruth gruber to alaska and israel.......2006-11-10

this book takes one to alaska -to the people who work hard and take pride of their state. we meet the people who are proud of their state.
ruth gruber went to israel as a correspondent during a difficult time in their history.we learn a lot of the country and the places that she lived in and visited.

compelling.......2004-08-13

A role model because of her age, sex, and faith. I didn't find out much about Alaska but was captured by her involvement in her world. It was a different time. Could her experiences be repeated today?

What A Wonderful Life!.......2003-05-27

What an amazing woman. Ruther Gruber is interviewed on BookTV.org. Don't miss the book or the interview!

Book Description

In this innovative study, Jean Lave moves the analysis of one particular form of cognitive activity--arithmetic problem-solving--out of the laboratory and into the domain of everyday life. In so doing, she shows how mathematics in the "real world", such as that entailed in grocery shopping or dieting, is, like all thinking, shaped by the dynamic encounter between the culturally-endowed mind and its total context, a subtle interaction that shapes both the human subject and the world within which it acts.

Customer Reviews:

Respecifying Cognition.......2006-11-30

Many readers are introduced to Jean Lave's work through Situated Learning (1991) with Etienne Wenger. However, readers interested in the genesis of Lave's two decade long effort to critique a reified understanding of cognition created in the narrow confines of a sterile experimental room by situating the study of learning within the everyday activities of social life may find Cognition in Practice (and also Everyday Cognition (1985) with Barbara Rogoff) insightful. Though the cognitive sciences themselves have moved on from the `information processing' or `transmission' model of learning that is an artifact of the experimental method and a 1960s fascination with the computer, this model of cognition remains endemic in formal educational today and particularly in educational policy decisions such as the No Child Left Behind Act that reveal a belief in the infallibility of science, so Lave's critique remains relevant today, two decades after the book was written.

However, Cognition in Practice aims not merely at critique but at developing a new framework for thinking about cognition - respecifying a `psychological theory of cognition' as an `anthropological' one - and the book is divided into two sections to address each. This endeavor of theory creation does make the book a cumbersome, though not difficult, read at times. The greatest challenge, Lave notes, is involved in depopulating reified meanings of the vocabulary of cognition that we no longer question and respecifying them in specific social/anthropological terms. Lave, in Cognition in Practice, makes the effort to address such dualities as theory/practice and mind/body, revaluing the latter concepts with respect to learning (cognition/learning is another such duality). Yes, two decades later, this is no longer groundbreaking.

Though Cognition in Practice is derived from anthropological ethnographic fieldwork and is therefore empirically-based criticism, it shares many of the goals if not the particular focus of literary critical theory. Indeed, in the two decades since the book was written, the lines have been blurred between what Gee (2000) identifies as more than 20 research programs within the great `social turn' in the social sciences and humanities, as ideas and methodologies have cross-populated within critical communities of practice - Gee's (1999) own "Big D" Discourse is Lave and Wenger's (1991) `Communities of Practice,' for example.

Cognition in Practice lays the groundwork for Situated Learning (1991), and though the latter is probably more familiar to readers and the concepts more refined (e.g. "whole persons acting in social worlds" becomes "legitimate peripheral participation"), readers interested in the cognitive basis for sociocultural theories of cognition that place learning as an activity located not exclusively in the brain but socially constructed in interaction with others and artifacts in everyday contexts will find Cognition in Practice useful.

Astoundingly awful. A joke?.......2006-05-11

One part uncontroversial cognitive psychology and five parts lit-crit bluff--the kind the author clearly doesn't understand, and hopes no one else in the seminar will admit they don't either. To be fair, the almost random juxtaposition of bits of continental philosofeces is consistent with the author's apparent contempt for reason.

If this book was intended to be a hoax, or a test of editorial standards similar to Alan Sokal's bogus article in "Social Text", then I apologize for the low rating, but it really is about time to reveal the joke.

Cognition in Practice : Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life (Learning in Doing S.)

Average customer rating:

Cognition in Practice : Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life (Learning in Doing S.)
Jean Lave
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MUBFUC

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Reference.......2001-06-21

A hard-line critique of industrial forest management in Maine. Meticulously researched with many bold questions and conclusions. This book is an essential resource for those who've been confused by both environmental and industry PR campaigns. This book asks the questions that neither side is asking and exposes many of the commonly held myths that seem to show up daily in political rhetoric. A word of warning, this book is not light reading, but it serves the serious student of sustainability issues well.

Myths of industrial forestry exposed.......1999-12-10

This is an excellent reference work on industrial forestry as practiced in Maine, in particular, and northern New Engalnd, in general. It exposes many of the popular beliefs surrounding clearcutting, herbicide spraying, tree plantations and other practices of industrial forestry for the fallacies that they are. It also exposes the numerous links between industry, academia and government that help to keep these ecologically disastrous practices alive. All the information included is carefully reseaerched and referenced. My only possible criticism of the book is that it is very dense reading.

Very Biased Writting and Reporting.......1999-05-03

Not a book for individuals who like to come up with their own decision on the balance between Society's desire for wood products, and the professional talents brought to the forest to maintain sustainablity.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books