A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People [antikvár]

T^ 00 much history, not enough geography - this famous aphorism in which Sir Isaiah Berlin tried to encapsulate the predicament of the Jewish people - came to my mind as I was reading the proofs of this boolc. Not enough geography ? Why, even a brief glance at this Adas reveals that mapping the course of Jewish history involves cartography covering virtually the entire face of the earth! Indeed, an interest in an abridged version of Jewish history should by no means be restricted to ajewish readership; quite the contrary. Precisely because the Jews resided in lands not their own for almost two thousand years, their fate has always been inextricably intertwined with the history of other nations and cultures.The professional historians responsible for this work have sought to maintain in it the highest standards of scholarship, without, however, tainting it with the kind of scientific 'jargon" that might alienate the lay reader. This book may be read in sequence as one continuous and coherent narrative. Yet at the same time, each chapter can also be read on its own. Every chapter is presented as a double-spread featuring four elements: a text offering the reader key insights into a specific period, a socio-cultural issue, or a fundamental myth; a map, or a combination of maps, which sites the recounted historical events in a spatial context; a chronobgical table organizing the text in the appropriate time sequence; and finally, illustrations, which are intended to do more than merely decorate the text - hopefully helping the reader to visualize central aspects of the issue under discussion. The chronological excursion into Jewish history is regularly interrupted by digressions tracing thematic sections through time: the flow of migrations, the art of the manuscript, the idea of monotheism, religious taboos, relations between state and religion, the legend of the Wandering Jew, etc. Three introductory texts greet the reader; the first two analyze Jewish perceptions of space and time, while the third outiines major demographic fluctuations of a nation which was promised that it would number "as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore" (Genesis 22:17).A book is a series of choices, some of them quite painful. One of our first decisions was that this would be a history of the Jewish people, not of Judaism or of the Jewish faith. Rather than being an ideological postulate, this decision was based on historical reasoning which also forms the justification for the whole project. After all, how can one conceive a chronicle of the people of Israel without presupposing its existence ? Only thus can Sir Isaiah's words be properly understood : his "geography" - that which Jews have so sorely lacked - means, in fact, "naizona/geography". In sum, too much history, not enough State.Yet, once this was cleared up, our real troubles began. For in a fresco such as this, attempting to cover the universal history of the Jews - from Ur to New York, from Babylon to Tel Aviv - what place should be accorded to the State of Israel? In other words, is it possible to avoid transforming a "national" perspective into a teleological narrative recounting the four-millenia history of the Jewish people as inevitably leading to a specific end, an end which retroactively bestows upon the entire history a preordained significance? Further, can a Judeocentric view of history be avoided or resisted? Moreover, how can one hope to achieve what Salo Baron tried to do half a century ago in his monumental A Social and Religious History of the Jews-to release Jewish history from the Vale of Tears with which it is so often associated?Thus, Zionist mythology (and all national movements are nourished by their own myths) tends to represent the twenty centuries of Exile as'a long arduous trek through a dark and sordid tunnel - an unusually long "Middle Ages" culminating in a national "Renaissance." Today, obviously, the Diaspora is no longer perceived in quite the same way, and we have sought here to restore it to its proper place. Furthermore, difficult as it may be to portray in