Book Description
Based on a careful analysis of the earliest Christian documents and recent archaeological discoveries, The Jesus Dynasty offers a bold new interpretation of the life of Jesus and the origins of Christianity. The story is surprising, controversial, and exciting as only a long-lost history can be when it is at last recovered.
In The Jesus Dynasty, biblical scholar James Tabor brings us closer than ever to the historical Jesus. Jesus, as we know, was the son of Mary, a young woman who became pregnant before her marriage to a man named Joseph. The gospels tell us that Jesus had four brothers and two sisters, all of whom probably had a different father than his. He joined a messianic movement begun by his relative John the Baptizer, whom he regarded as his teacher and a great prophet. John and Jesus together filled the roles of the Two Messiahs who were expected at the time: John, as a priestly descendant of Aaron, and Jesus, as a royal descendant of David. Together they preached the coming of the Kingdom of God. Theirs was an apocalyptic movement that expected God to establish his kingdom on earth, as described by the Prophets. The Two Messiahs lived in a time of turmoil as the historical land of Israel was dominated by the powerful Roman Empire. Fierce Jewish rebellions against Rome occurred during Jesus' lifetime.
John and Jesus preached adherence to the Torah, or the Jewish Law. But their mission was changed dramatically when John was arrested and then killed. After a period of uncertainty, Jesus began preaching anew in Galilee and challenged the Roman authorities and their Jewish collaborators in Jerusalem. He appointed a Council of Twelve to rule over the twelve tribes of Israel, and among the Twelve he included his four brothers. After Jesus was crucified by the Romans, his brother James -- the "Beloved Disciple" -- took over leadership of the Jesus dynasty.
James, like John and Jesus before him, saw himself as a faithful Jew. None of them believed that their movement was a new religion. It was Paul who transformed Jesus and his message through his ministry to the Gentiles. Breaking with James and the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, Paul preached a message based on his own revelations, which would become Christianity. Jesus became a figure whose humanity was obscured; John became merely a forerunner of Jesus; and James and the others were all but forgotten.
James Tabor has studied the earliest surviving documents of Christianity for more than thirty years and has participated in important archaeological excavations in Israel. Drawing on this background, Tabor reconstructs for us the movement that sought the spiritual, social, and political redemption of the Jews, a movement led by one family. The Jesus Dynasty offers an alternative version of Christian origins, one that takes us closer than ever to Jesus and his family and followers.
This is a book that will change our understanding of one of the most crucial moments in history.
Download Description
"Based on a careful analysis of the earliest Christian documents and recent archaeological discoveries, The Jesus Dynasty offers a bold new interpretation of the life of Jesus and the origins of Christianity. The story is surprising, controversial, and exciting as only a long-lost history can be when it is at last recovered. In The Jesus Dynasty, biblical scholar James Tabor brings us closer than ever to the historical Jesus. Jesus, as we know, was the son of Mary, a young woman who became pregnant before her marriage to a man named Joseph. The gospels tell us that Jesus had four brothers and two sisters, all of whom probably had a different father than his. He joined a messianic movement begun by his relative John the Baptizer, whom he regarded as his teacher and a great prophet. John and Jesus together filled the roles of the Two Messiahs who were expected at the time: John, as a priestly descendant of Aaron, and Jesus, as a royal descendant of David. Together they preached the coming of the Kingdom of God. Theirs was an apocalyptic movement that expected God to establish his kingdom on earth, as described by the Prophets. The Two Messiahs lived in a time of turmoil as the historical land of Israel was dominated by the powerful Roman Empire. Fierce Jewish rebellions against Rome occurred during Jesus' lifetime. John and Jesus preached adherence to the Torah, or the Jewish Law. But their mission was changed dramatically when John was arrested and then killed. After a period of uncertainty, Jesus began preaching anew in Galilee and challenged the Roman authorities and their Jewish collaborators in Jerusalem. He appointed a Council of Twelve to rule over the twelve tribes of Israel, and among the Twelve he included his four brothers. After Jesus was crucified by the Romans, his brother James -- the "Beloved Disciple" -- took over leadership of the Jesus dynasty. James, like John and Jesus before him, saw himself as a faithful Jew. None of them believed that their movement was a new religion. It was Paul who transformed Jesus and his message through his ministry to the Gentiles. Breaking with James and the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, Paul preached a message based on his own revelations, which would become Christianity. Jesus became a figure whose humanity was obscured; John became merely a forerunner of Jesus; and James and the others were all but forgotten. James Tabor has studied the earliest surviving documents of Christianity for more than thirty years and has participated in important archaeological excavations in Israel. Drawing on this background, Tabor reconstructs for us the movement that sought the spiritual, social, and political redemption of the Jews, a movement led by one family. The Jesus Dynasty offers an alternative version of Christian origins, one that takes us closer than ever to Jesus and his family and followers. This is a book that will change our understanding of one of the most crucial moments in history. "
Customer Reviews:
Unconvincing..........2007-10-09
Being an agnostic does not mean that books like this one do not interest me, and it is not the first book I read on the subject of the historical Jesus. In fact, one does not need to be a believer to agree with Tabor that Jesus was definitely the most influential figure in the history of mankind; and if one does not subscribe to the dogmatic view of the Church on the Christ myth(the huge number of those who do would surely want to crucify the likes of me!), one at least wants to understand how Jesus the man lived and died. In this respect, this book offers some new insight on the subject, but Tabor goes sometimes too far in twisting facts to achieve what he is aiming to prove. In fact he goes so far as to lose his credibility as a historian.
I will just give a couple of examples:
- First, the genealogy of Jesus according to Luke, at page 46 : what is amazing here is that Tabor takes the exact position of the Catholic Church on this issue!When asked why there are two different genealogies of Jesus(supposedly both inspired by the Holy Spirit!!!)the priest who gave me religious instruction when I was a kid said exactly the same thing: Luke gives the genealogy of Mary, whereas Matthew's genealogy is that of Jesus! This hypothesis, brilliantly refuted by D.F.Strauss in his monumental "Life of Jesus"(Chapter 2, paragraph 21), does not stand any chance of being historically true. Furthermore, there is not one single version of the Bible which spells verse 3:23 of Luke as Tabor does:"...being as was supposed son of Joseph, of Heli..." All versions I know(King James, New Version, Bible de Jérusalem, Arabic versions...) read as follows:" being as was supposed a son of Joseph, son of Heli.." So what Luke is saying clearly is that Heli is the father of Joseph, not of Mary!Besides, the reduction of Eliakim to Heli is one of those twists that might convince the reader who has no idea about semitic languages: the H in Heli is in fact a "'ain", like the H in "Hebrew", and cannot possibly have become an "aleph", like in Eliakim!.And finally, a genealogy which pretends to go as far back as Adam can hardly have any credibility at all, and is only good for Christian Theology, not for historical research.
I will not dwell here on the following paradox, one of many that mar the Christian dogmatic view of Jesus: if, as we are told, Jesus is the son of God, why should the Gospel writers go to such extremes to prove that he is descended from David? The answer is simple: the "son of God" myth is a later addition to the original Christian dogma. As for the genealogies of Jesus, both of them cannot be taken seriously, as their authors were trying to prove that Jesus was the Messiah...And the whole of Tabor's "historical" construction of the Jesus Dynasty falls like a deck of cards!
- The second point concerns what Tabor says about Islam at page 187:"there is little about the view of Jesus presented in this book that conflicts with Islam's basic perception".No Dr Tabor! Arabic is my mother-tongue, so I have been able to read the Quran first hand, and Issa, the Arabic Jesus, is the most supernatural of all the prophets of Islam! In fact , Islam's basic perception of Jesus stems from apocryphal gospels rather than from the canonical ones, and we all know that the former have been discarded by the Church because they were judged too "fantastic"( but how they could be more "fantastic" than the canonical ones is for believers to explain!). In the Quran, Issa speaks to defend his mother while still in the cradle! He makes clay sparrows fly like real ones by just blowing on them, a story taken from the "Infancy Gospel" of James...In addition to the fact that the Quran clearly states that Jesus was conceived by Mary without human intercourse! And finally, Issa was not crucified(a reminiscence of the gnostic Basilides), but was "lifted" to Heaven before being caught, and it was poor Simon of Cyrene who was crucified in his stead["They did not kill him nor crucify him, but so it seemed to them(Quran 4:157)"]. So,according to Muslim belief, he actually never died, which is contrary to Tabor's main thesis.As a matter of fact, any devout Muslim will consider Tabor's view of Jesus no less a blasphemy than any devout Christian...
Having said that, this book deserves to be read by all those who are interested in the search for the "historical Jesus", and they would have to draw their own conclusions...As for me, I am not convinced!
Excellent Work!!.......2007-09-07
Dr Tabor does due diligence in providing a verifiable historical perspective of what we know about the life of Jesus from the available archaeology and historical text. I found this book enriching my understanding of Jesus and my faith. Anyone wishing to understand Jesus within the context of his time in history will not be disappointed.
A great book that Christians need to read.......2007-09-02
Others have done a splendid job in pointing out both the positives and negatives in the book. The former greatly outweigh the latter in my opinion. But the overall idea that Paul, in a sense, 'invented' Christianity whilst pushing aside the remaining disciples is not a new one.
If more Christians investigated the true history of the birth of their religion I think they would be more than a little shocked. As this book makes clear, Paul developed a theology that differed markedly from what Jesus taught and did in his lifetime. The obvious question Paul supporters should ask is "who was best placed to carry on the Jesus revolution?" - the disciples who knew him intimately, or someone who never met him and claims he was given revelation by a vision? And why would Jesus change his ideas so soon after his death/resurrection and then give them to a total stranger anyway?
As this book reiterates, especially in last chapter ,the gradual destruction of what Jesus really preached by a mixture of Paul, the early church and the Romans is, in reality, a crime against humanity. As a direct result millions have died in the two thousand years since. And still are today.
Great Book!.......2007-08-04
This book was awesome. Anyone interested in history should read this. Lots of info here that many may have never thought about. Much better than Simcha's book.
Deists should love this work of fictional theories.......2007-07-28
Honestly, there were a number of things that I learned in this book:
1) Jesus's father was possibly a Roman soldier named "Pantera." The evidence comes from a late second century text, with no basis in its historicity before this time. Mary apparently was a slut who had a thing for boys planning to become Roman soldiers. Yet this theory goes against everything we read about Mary in the Bible! Dr. Tabor is such a naturalist when it comes to the paternity of Christ, as he holds to a presupposition that a human pregnancy cannot take place unless there is human sperm. Yet Pantera was a second century invention used to contradict the Matthew 1:18 account, as Christians then and today all hold to the miraculous conception of the Christ child. Should this late reference used to contradict the Virgin Birth be taken so seriously in a historical context?
2) Jesus was not really God in the flesh. Instead, he was merely a man. Thus, when he died--and Dr. Tabor agrees that crucifixion did kill Jesus--he was buried. Hence, there was no resurrection. He references a 16th century mystical rabbi to show how Jesus was buried in a town in Galilee. (Strange why the Jewish and Roman authorities didn't look further into the matter and follow this grave so they could produce the body of Christ, which would saved them a lot of hassle since it would have killed any "resurrection" theory. After all, neither the Jews nor the Romans desired the resurrection in the first place.) Just like Thomas Jefferson who cut the miracle stories out of his gospel accounts (ending his "Bible" with "And they laid him (Jesus) in a tomb"), Dr. Tabor is not a believer in miracles. Thus, he cannot accept a miraculous resurrection of a dead body. While he is an empirical evidentialist who cannot believe anything that runs contrary to the miraculous, isn't a presupposition really an act of belief/faith in its own right? Damn the historical evidence, he appears to say, and thus we need to come up with any theory that runs contrary to the supernatural ideas. Is this really fair from a historical perspective? I think not.
3) James and Paul contradict each other. So which of these men were right? Based on my careful reading of both James and Paul, though, I completely disagree and would say it is very clear they actually are in sync. Yes, Martin Luther called James an epistle of straw, but I think a careful reading of this with Paul shows no compromise. The two mean had different audiences and perspectives, which at first glance can be confusing, but when you study what they say, there is no contradiction between James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, and Paul, who was the apostle to the Gentiles.
4) Jesus was a disciple of John the Baptist. In fact, he says the gospels get it wrong, as apparently Jesus believed John was better than he. Among other implications, the Lord's Prayer is a reflection of the Baptist, not originally Jesus's words. The history used in support? It's called grasping at straws, as it's just not there, or at least objective historians without presuppositions would call this a theory floating in the wind. Anyone can make up what they want and turn it into historical "fact." The question is, what does the evidence support?
5) Jesus's family formed the "Dynasty" who were disciples and leaders of the church. While there is no early support for this theory as well as the fact that this view contradicts Acts and the earliest accounts we have, Dr. Tabor theorizes that James (the "Beloved" disciple written about in the gospel of John) and his brothers played a much more prominent role than the NT lets on. Of course, it is obviously true that James plays an important role in Acts, as he was the head of the church in Jerusalem. But James is never called an apostle, as one sent forth, and he did the vast majority of his ministry in Jerusalem. The evidence to show that Jesus intended a dynasty of his family is lacking.
All in all, the premise of the entire book comes down to these presuppositional nuggets: Don't trust the accounts of history found in the Bible; miracles can't occur; and, billions of people are believing in their Christ in relative ignorance. While I obviously am not a fan of this work, let me give some positive points. One, the creative writing style is quite imaginative, and the author forced me to consider things from an entirely different angle. I like the fact that he tries to utilize archeology in determining history, as this is something that not all historians utilize enough. And, finally, the book does contain beautiful pictures and illustrations, perhaps worth the price of admission.
Unfortunately, however, the work that I thought was meant to be historical comes away as reading fictional. So, if you're looking for another DaVinci Code, then I would recommend this book. But if you are looking for true history, this Jesus of Dynasty just doesn't make the cut.
Book Description
On August 2, 1940, as on every other morning for weeks before, a long line of Jewish refugees waited outside the Japanese consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania. Many had already witnessed Nazi atrocities in Poland and other Axis-occupied lands, and they were desperate to escape. To leave Europe they needed foreign transit visas. And at the window, the smiling Japanese consul was issuing them. Before his government closed down the consulate and reassigned him to Berlin, he would issue thousands of such visas.
This is the story of Chiune Sugihara, a diplomat and spy who saved as many as 10,000 Jews from deportation to concentration camps and almost certain death, Because of his extreme modesty, Sugihara's tremendous act of moral courage is only now beginning to become widely known.
Unlike Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat whose government sent him to Hungary with the express purpose of saving Jews, and Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who at least initially had a vested economic interest in protecting the lives of "his Jews," Sugihara had no apparent reason to perform his acts of rescue. Indeed, he acted in direct violation of official Japanese policy, which directed all government and military personnel to cooperate with the murderous policies of their Nazi allies. Examining Sugihara's education and background -- a background shared with the colonial administrators and military men who committed "the rape of Nanjing" -- author Hillel Levine finds nothing that explains his extraordinary behavior.
Levine's search has taken him from the old Japanese consul building in Kaunas (now Kovno), Lithuania, to the Australian outback; across Japan from the rice fields of Sugihara's native town to the boardrooms of conglomerates where his younger schoolmates still hold power. But the more Levine sought answers to Sugihara's puzzling behavior, the more he encountered questions. Remarkably, Chiune Sugihara was not the only Japanese official to save Jews. Yet none was ever punished for insubordination. Was there a secret Japanese plan to save Jews from Nazi genocide?
Much Holocaust scholarship focuses on the perpetrators of evil, trying to illuminate what drove ordinary men and women to commit horrifying and murderous acts. But perhaps as difficult to understand is the phenomenon of rescue: what inspired courageous individuals to swim against the tide of cruelty and indifference. This sensitive and nuanced biography concludes that there is no link between a person's background and his moral inclinations. Mercy remains a divine mystery despite our human craving to reduce it to behavioristic formulas.
This book does not attempt to explain "man's humanity to man." Instead Levine has woven a fascinating narrative of one man's heroic efforts to save lives, in the midst of so many seeking to destroy them.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Book.......2007-05-13
This book was fascinating, and should be required reading in all History classes.
Book Description
The Seventh Million is the first book to show the decisive impact of the Holocaust on the identity, ideology, and politics of Israel. Drawing on diaries, interviews, and thousands of declassified documents, Segev reconsiders the major struggles and personalities of Israel's past, including Ben-Gurion, Begin, and Nahum Goldmann, and argues that the nation's legacy has, at critical moments--the Exodus affair, the Eichmann trial, the case of John Demjanjuk--have been molded and manipulated in accordance with the ideological requirements of the state. The Seventh Million uncovers a vast and complex story and reveals how the bitter events of decades past continue to shape the experiences not just of individuals but of a nation. Translated by Haim Watzman.
Customer Reviews:
One more voice in a vast area of study.......2006-12-15
The Jewish and Israeli reaction to the Holocaust (both during and after its occurrence) is a fascinating area of study, and in the Seventh Million, Segev offers an interesting, wholly readable, and well researched account. It is quite easy to have an overly mythologized treatment of this topic, but Segev is careful to illustrate that the Israel response to the Holocaust was varied and evolving. Through time, the destruction of the European Jews changed in Israeli perceptions as something which was little discussed and even shamefully viewed, to a topic which became almost a secular religion. I was most struck by the end, where Segev accompanies a group of Israeli high school students on a tour of camps in Poland. Walking down the train tracks to the entrance of Auschwitz, he likens it to the journey of Christian pilgrims on the Via Dolorosa to the site of Jesus' crucifixion. Such pilgrims care little for the modern State of Israel. They are in Jerusalem to relive a mythic, martyred past. The same holds true for modern, Jewish pilgrims to Auschwitz. Modern Poland is irreverent; it is the past which is important. And this past, rather than static, is constantly evolving.
A History of Israel With Broad Implications.......2006-09-22
This one volume focuses on Israel from before its beginnings as a nation until the early 1990's. Owing to the breadth of this book, this review is necessarily limited to a small fraction of its content. Its content sheds light on many issues, including ones not explicitly elaborated in the book.
On the origins of the Holocaust, Segev comments: "Scholars of the Holocaust know of no extermination order signed by Hitler...David Ben-Gurion said that no one needed official announcements to know that Hitler intended to exterminate the Jews--it was all in Mein Kampf. All that people had to do was read the book." (p. 79). This, of course, undermines the common argument that Germans did not understand what they were doing when they freely voted for Hitler.
Segev's book sheds light on the world's reaction to early news of the Holocaust. David Engel has criticized the Polish government-in-exile for allegedly being slow and low-keyed in publicizing the extermination of Polish Jews, and then doing so only within the context of other wartime events (all because of ulterior motives). It is therefore interesting to note that comparable accusations could be made against Jewish sources in Palestine at the time. As Segev writes: "The newspapers generally published such Jewish stories beside the major reports from the war fronts, as if they were only a local angle on the real drama. From a professional point of view, the newspapers missed one of the biggest stories of the century." (p. 73). And, "...the Revisionists charged that the Mapai leadership had known about the extermination of Jews for months and had deliberately kept the public in the dark. Their silence had been intended to conceal their own failure, the Revisionists claimed..." (pp. 78-79).
Segev wades into controversial issues. He tackles Jewish passivity as follows: "Yitzhak Gruenbaum said, while the Holocaust was still at its height, that the fact that the Jews of Poland 'had not found in their souls the courage' to defend themselves filled him with a feeling of 'stinging mortification.'" (p. 109). Segev also discusses the Judenrat, and focuses harshly on Jewish collaborators: "The kapos had authority to impose punishments; many were notorious for their cruelty. 'Every one of them murdered, ' Dov Shilansky related. 'The Jews who worked for the Germans, and almost every Jew with even the ribbon of a deputy kapo on his arm, murdered---all but an exceptional few.'" (p. 259).
Segev elaborates on efforts to free the Jews from Nazi-ruled Europe, including the unfulfilled Europa Plan (p. 91) and Trucks-for-Blood proposal (p. 93); as well as the successful Kastner-Eichmann deal, in which 1, 685 Jews were freed (p. 265) to go to neutral Switzerland. Based on Document D. I 5753, housed in the Bundesarchiv Koblenz (p. 534), Segev comments: "And the idea of trading Jews for ransom was not, apparently, foreign even to Adolf Hitler himself. A memo Heinrich Himmler wrote on December 10, 1942, states that Hitler agreed to the exchange deals, on condition that they bring Germany large amounts of foreign currency." (p. 96). The potential and actual freeing of Jews by Nazis contradicts the claim of Holocaust uniqueness, which posits that, unlike the situation of non-Jews, the killing of EVERY SINGLE Jew was the Nazi goal, and furthermore that this was the very highest of Nazi objectives. Along the same lines, columnist Boaz Evron is mentioned as rejecting the claim that the extermination of Jews had been a unique Nazi crime (p. 402). He cites the non-Jewish victims of the Nazis and the fact that the Germans intended eventually to exterminate other peoples besides the Jews.
Segev's description of the red tape that Holocaust survivors encountered in securing German reparations (pp. 246-248) rings true. My father, a former inmate of the concentrations camps at Dachau and Gross Rosen, had the same experience.
Some recent authors (e. g., Jan Thomas Gross) would have us believe that the Zydokomuna (Jewish Communism) was something between imaginary and insignificant. Such was emphatically not the attitude of early Israeli leaders: "Thus the Joint Distribution Committee continually came under attack in the Zionist executive for helping Jews build new lives in Europe. 'I feel the danger of the Communist vermin uniting with the Joint,' Ben Gurion said. He called the Jewish Communists of eastern Europe 'the dregs of Judaism.'" (p. 129).
In this book, common Polonophobic views stand in contrast with some reasonable ones, including those related to the subject of the victims of Auschwitz. Segev writes: "Teveth attacked the Poles for concealing from visitors to Auschwitz the fact that most of those murdered there had been Jews...Shalmi Barmor tried to explain to the students that the Poles were not guilty of the murder of the Jews. Indeed, the Poles felt they had been defeated in the war---they had traded the Nazi conquest for a Soviet occupation. Anti-Semitism in Poland should not be ignored, Barmor told his students, but he emphasized that the Poles considered the mass murder of the Jews part of their Polish national tragedy. The students argued with him. 'Someone, after all, has to be guilty of the Holocaust,' one of them said. 'We have to hate someone, and we've already made up with the Germans.'" (pp. 491-492). Although not developed further by Segev, the common displacement of Jewish anger over the Holocaust from the Germans to the Poles, besides being an act of historical revisionism that parallels that of Holocaust denial, is a discouraging portent for the future.
It turns out that the Carmelite convent controversy had been fuelled, in part, by old-fashioned politics: "Riegner said that Auschwitz was not only a national memorial belonging to the Jewish people that should not be taken by anyone else; it was also an important political asset. Among other things, it served the diplomatic efforts of both the World Jewish Congress and Israel." (p. 474).
Excellent! Very Well Done! .......2005-09-28
I'm biased. I am a huge Tom Segev fan. I have read all of his books now and am amazed by his objectivity and thoroughness in research. This is not a book about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. This is a book about the psyche of the Israeli state and experience. Very well done! I would highly recommend this, and any Tom Segev book to any student of the state of Israel and the modern Middle East.
Israelis and the Holocaust.......2003-04-28
In the the span of only two weeks, Jews mark three separate modern holidays: Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Yom Hazikaron (Israel's Memorial Day), and Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israel's Independence Day). These holidays, while observed separately, share many commonalities. This is a book that combines the Holocaust with the State of Israel, focusing on the issue of communal memory.
It is no secret that the modern Jewish State would not be in existence without the Holocaust having occurred. Yet, we often do not consider the relationship between Israel and Israelis to the Holocaust. Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum has long been the first stop in Israel for visiting world leaders, and virtually no Jew who visits Israel leaves without stopping there. However, as author Tom Segev documents in his study of Israelis and the Holocaust, the story of Israel's response to the Holocaust and its commemoration of the greatest atrocity to humankind is not so simple. Looking at the role of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in pre-1948 Palestine) during the Holocaust, how Israelis received survivors in the early years of the nation, and the struggle to establish national memory, Segev tells the story of the Israeli path from contempt to acceptance, and finally to compassion and commemoration.
Israelis reacted very critically to Segev's controversial book when it first appeared in Israel in the late 1980s. By the time it was translated into English and brought to the American audience, much of the controversy had subsided, yet it still makes for an uncomfortable reading, as it is very critical of Israeli society in the first few decades following World War II. As Segev describes, most Israelis were of the belief that their European relatives walked "like sheep to the slaughter." Also telling of the Israeli sentiment toward the Holocaust was the moniker "sabon" (soap) given to survivors during the first decades of Israel's statehood, taken from the myth that the Nazis made soap from the skin of Jewish victims in the camps.
Segev writes passionately about the refugees who found themselves despised by a society devoted to heroism. The new Jewish nation wanted to focus on the heroes of the Holocaust who in the face of death rose up to revolt (note that Yom Hashoah takes place on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising). Much of Israel's identity in the years after the Holocaust was defined by the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Israel, the secret negotiations between Germany and Israel over reparation payments (how much for a human life?), and the revenge schemes against former Nazis (including a plot to poison the water systems of major German cities hoping to exact the same outcome on six million Germans). The decisions to create a national day of memory and to construct a Holocaust museum were major controversies in Israel. The focus was to be not on the sorrow of the demise of European Jewry, but rather on the stories of courage by some who chose to fight back. After all, to the brave young pioneers, the Holocaust was nothing short of embarrassment to the Jewish people.
This controversial and compelling book shows the divisive impact of the Holocaust on the identity, ideology, and politics of Israel. Segev was able to use many documents, previously classified by the Israeli government, for his research, and for this reason, many of his stories will come as a surprise to the reader. Was David Ben-Gurion involved in secret negotiations to buy Jews out of the camps? How did Prime Minister Menachem Begin's "survivor syndrome" affect his governing of Israel? In The Seventh Million, Segev answers these questions and expertly shows how the Holocaust continued to shape the experience not only of the individuals who experienced it, but also the experience of an entire nation.
It has taken much healing and newfound understanding for Israel to confront the Holocaust. We can now see how meaningful it is that immediately after Passover (our national commemoration of our ancestors' exodus from Egypt), we first remember our six million European ancestors, and then a week later, we pay homage to those who fell while defending our Jewish homeland only to advance to joy and merriment the next day celebrating another year of Israel's independence. As we learn from this important book, we must not take these acts of commemoration for granted.
a rare and interesting view.......2003-02-21
Segev, renowned for his other books 'One Palistine: Complete' and '1949 the First Isrealis' has tackled a subject that to my knowledge has never been fully documented in another single book.
the only problem with this book is that Segev is a biased writer, coming from the left of Isreali politics and taking a decidedly revisionist tone in his documenting the birth of the Isreali state. nevertheless this book is the finer of the three he has written for it documents such interesting aspects of the holocaust as the Eichman trial, the Kastern affair, the Havarra agreements and the treatment german jews(Yekkes) recieved on arrival in palistine. He rigourously documents a myriad of sources and illuminates the struggle that Isreal has gone through to come to grips with the Holocaust.
I strongly recommend this book because it touches on so many subjects and no other account will provide the reader with such a variety of historical events, from retribution to reparations.
Average customer rating:
- The significance of the little girls on the cover...
- Perfect for Father's Day.....
- A journey of discovery for the reader as well as the writer
- Not just another Holocaust story
- A warm and compelling narrative that brings memory to life
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Hiding Places: A Father and His Sons Retrace Their Family's Escape from the Holocaust
Daniel Asa Rose
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ASIN: 0684854783 |
Book Description
In this bold and innovative memoir, part travel narrative, part spiritual quest, prize-winning author Daniel Asa Rose describes the remarkable journey in which he and his two young sons retraced their relatives' escape from Antwerp during the Second World War and also embraced, with ample amounts of wit and irreverence, the Jewish heritage that had pained and mystified him.
In the wake of his divorce, Rose searches for something that will repair the damage done to his splintered family. He and the boys need to be connected to something larger than themselves; they need inoculation against evil. Rose wants to reclaim their roots and plant them deep; to resolve their dislocation so that they might all be, if not at peace, at least in context. But ultimately, the trip is about finding out why he wants to take the trip, and, as with all important journeys, this is achieved in ways the travelers could not have predicted.
As they wind through the Belgian and French countryside in search of the barn lofts and wine cellars where their relatives once hid, Rose presents razor-sharp reminiscences of the hiding places he himself used as a boy in the WASP town of Rowayton, Connecticut. The author, whose own Jewishness was largely invisible and conflicted during his childhood, beautifully conjures up his angry, impassioned struggle to find a sense of self. Through ingenious detective work and serendipitous encounters, he and the boys scout out the family hiding places, including a brothel frequented by Göring and an unknown synagogue in Paris that managed to stay open through the war, until memoir and modern-day quest converge in the shattering conclusion: father and sons are lost amid the faded swastikas of a desolate transit camp in southern France where horrors unfolded half a century before.
For all the searing pathos, however, Hiding Places is essentially a book of victory. The old Belgian aunts and uncles survived by their luck and their wits; they outfoxed Hitler. And throwing themselves into the quest, Rose and his sons triumph, too. In this luminous and large-hearted odyssey, Rose introduces the Holocaust and its lessons to a new generation and, in the process, heals his childhood wounds in a way that will resonate with all readers, Jew and non-Jew alike, who are interested in their own hidden places.
Customer Reviews:
The significance of the little girls on the cover..........2003-01-28
I was first drawn to this book by a haunting picture of two little girls on the book cover. I was impatient to learn their significance. I had to wait. In the opening of this story, the author relates his fear of the Not-sees (Nazi) as told to him throughout his youth by his mother who escaped Europe.
However, in an effort to come to grips with being Jewish and to learn the truth about what his family endured during World War II, an American divorced father and his two sons begin a quest to retrace the steps of an uncle who endured the Holocaust. Using a tattered journal's clues they searched for his hiding places and learned more than they expected about the war and its victims. Only after finding where and how the twins died did the author understand his great-uncles, other family members, and his mother. During the trip he also realizes what it means to be a father.
I could not appreciate the cover of this book until I learned the fate of the Jewish twin sisters and others who suffered.
Perfect for Father's Day............2001-06-04
An inspiring, thoughtful and funny book. A father is retracing his family's escape route fifty years later. While teaching his two sons history, family lore, geography and much about human courage and frailty, the author learns much about family bonds, love and loyalty from his sons. The boys add common sense to a voyage with a lot of bagage and helps the author resolve some difficult family issues. The book is serious and entertaining at the same time. You laugh and cry with the author and wish the book would not end. An obvious Father's Day gift -or for any sensitive person you may want to give some reading pleasure!
A journey of discovery for the reader as well as the writer.......2001-04-14
Daniel Rose grew up in Connecticut, in a lobster fishing town. He always felt different because of his Jewishness even though his family was assimilated. Later, after a fractured marriage, he wanted his young sons, aged 7 and 12 to really understand their heritage, especially in terms of the Holocaust, and so he took them to Europe to discover their roots. They looked up relatives who had survived the horror and still lived in Belgium, and from there they set out on a journey to retrace the actual events of the life one of their relatives, an ancient eccentric old man who gave them his diary as a roadmap.
In addition, in alternating chapters, we learn of Mr. Rose's Connecticut boyhood. Not only does he describe the events, but he's able to recapture every nuance of feeling that must have been difficult to dredge up from memory. He makes fun of his orthodox relatives, he battles the school bully, but most of all, he keeps coming back to the recurrent theme of the book --his hiding places.
Foremost though, is his relationship with his own sons, and the unique loving relationship between the three of them. Some of the things that they were exposed to on the trip were not pleasant, but they all came through it enriched by the experience. This was a difficult subject to write about, but somehow Mr. Rose managed to do it with humor. While I didn't laugh out loud, I found myself smiling throughout.
There's a lot of detail in the book, each one adding further insight into each of the characters. It's more than just description; the reader really feels the emotion. There's mystery here too as well as unsolved questions. And there sure is a lot to think about. Afterwards, I couldn't get the book out of my mind and I don't know if I ever will. I must thank Mr. Rose for writing it. Highly recommended.
Not just another Holocaust story.......2001-01-23
Hiding Places by Daniel Asa Rose is many stories in one. It's the story of a young boy growing up and how he perceives his differences and ways he tries to blend in or hide. It's the story of a father and two sons trying to forge a relationship with each other after divorce, and it's about one family's experience of hiding to survive the horrors of the Holocaust.
The book is honest and forthright. Daniel Asa Rose has opened up a window into his feelings about growing up Jewish in a predominantly WASP Connecticut town. This reader was able to relate, not so much to the hiding borne out of cultural and religious differences, but to the hiding that kids do because they feel that no one else has the same thoughts. Daniel Asa Rose gives a voice to those childhood thoughts that most of us have kept silent.
The author reveals himself to be a caring father, one who misses his sons greatly after his divorce and seeks to find a way to create a whole family out of the three of them. He doesn't spend much time talking about how painful the divorce itself was to him, but this shows through in the writing. This is not something seen from a male perspective too often. There are sure to be other fathers out there who will resonate with this aspect of the book.
Lastly, Daniel Asa Rose creates a portrait of his relative, J.P. Morgan (not THE J.P. Morgan) and his particular experience of survival during the Holocaust. At times, it is painful to read, but because it is the story of a singular person, it takes on greater significance than observing the Holocaust as a whole. J.P.'s survival and the tracking of his hiding places by Rose and his sons is nothing short of miraculous. But wouldn't most of those who survived the Holocaust describe their experience as such?
It's tempting to condemn this father for exposing his sons to the horrors of the Holocaust at the tender ages of seven and twelve. Without debating the issue too much, the final verdict is really up to his sons, Alex and Marshall--after all, it's a family thing.
A warm and compelling narrative that brings memory to life.......2000-11-12
This book touches the reader on many levels, and you may be drawn in to the writer's childhood experience as an outsider striving to find ways to fit in, while marveling at his opportunity to retrace an ancestor's flight from terror, and transfixed by the relationships that are recalled (and are still forming) in this book.
For many of us, the holocaust is more fully appreciated in personal terms than in the abstract. This book doesn't just fetch the truth from the past, it carries memory forward. For a generation twice removed, and more fully assimiliated, Hiding Places is both an intriguing real life story and an inspiring lesson in how the past still echoes.
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- A Great Man Whose Strenghth Showed in a Time of Crisis
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A Hero and the Holocaust: The Story of Janusz and His Children
David A. Adler
Manufacturer: Holiday House
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Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust
ASIN: 0823415481 |
Book Description
Janusz Korczak was an author, radio personality, teacher, and doctor. But above all else he was a hero. As the beloved director of a Jewish orphanage in Warsaw, Poland, during the years of the Nazi Party's rise to power, he cared for hundreds of children. They loved him as a father and affectionately called him their "Old Doctor." Korczak could not save his children, but even in the darkest days of the Warsaw ghetto, he strove to protect them. Fianlly, forced to lead his orphans from the ghetto to the Treblinka death camp, Korczak remained with them to the end. This moving account of Janusz Korczak's life provides a powerful introduction to the tragedies of the Holocaust, but also highlights a remarkable story of courage in its midst.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Man Whose Strenghth Showed in a Time of Crisis.......2004-10-21
This is a phenomenal book! Janusz Korczak, a writer, physician, and the ultimate child advocate, was also a great soul; indeed, if he had been born a Catholic he would be made a saint. He was a mixture of Dr. Benjamin Spock, Florence Nightingale, Patch Adams, and Mahatma Gandhi--rolled into one!
Choosing to stay with the orphans in the Jewish orphanage he directed, he protected the children through their forced move into the Warsaw Ghetto, and then to the death camp Treblinka. His diary is quoted throughout and we see a man who was very much afraid but who conquered his fears so that he could serve the tiny humanity in the person of the children in his care. Indeed, at one point he could have saved his own life if he had abandoned the children, but he refused to do so. The book ends with a quote from his diary which gives us true insight into his character: "I never wish anyone ill. I cannot. I don't know how it is done."
His life should have been one of happiness and fulfillment, of just deserved rewards for his goodness to others; however, like so many others, the Nazis terminated this great man far too soon. The illustrations are marvelous! They are rather like well done photographs.
Book Description
Taking Risks: Jewish Youth in the Soviet Partisans and His Unlikely Life in California
The night the SS rounded up the Jews of his ghetto, 18-year-old Yosel Epelbaum crawled on his hands and knees to a nearby forest soon to be engulfed by winter. There he joined a band of pro-Soviet partisans who resisted the Nazis and saved hundreds of civilians. After the war, he smuggled contraband from one end of Europe to the other. Then, without money or a formal education and knowing no English, he immigrated to San Francisco. Within a decade, Yosef—now known as Joe Pell—was on his way to becoming one of Northern California's leading real estate developers.
Customer Reviews:
Life of a man who risked his abilities, and won........2007-04-29
Best of the WWII memiors I've read; perhaps because of the great talent of the ghost writer, but certainly due to the greater story of Pell's life and what he made of it. Exciting and informative, a book that finishes fast and ends too soon.
Taking Risks.......2005-08-02
I read this just after having finished The Kite Runner, which is an extraordinary novel about survival in an imploding society, based on the experiences of the writer. Taking Risks is not a novel. It the true story of one man's survival in impossible conditions. It is modest, extremely frank and utterly gripping.
So much has been written about the Holocaust experience yet this account feels entirely fresh. Towards the end of the book, Mr Pell says he regrets not getting more formal education. But I suspect the almost unnervingly straightforward manner in which the story is told owes much to the author's gift for observation and natural intuition - the intuition that helped him survive in war-ravaged Poland and Germany and excell in his adopted country of America.
Pell, a teenager at the time of the Nazi invasion of Poland evades capture and finds himself in forest, where he joins with other fugitives from the occupation forces. His account of life among the itinerant band of partisans he joins serves as a fascinating insight into how people organise themselves when society has completely broken down. The skills he has developed growing up in a rural community, qualify him very well for the challenges of survival that he faces (far better than the educated urban folk who are also on the run). Through his natural good judgement and his finely developed instincts about human nature he appears to thrive in this fractured world. He doesn't dwell on the tragedy that he has to live with - the loss of all his family - but the sense of his own good fortune is always tempered by that memory. And in a quiet way this resonates throughout the account.
Anyone seeking reassurance about the human spirit and its capacity for survival will find it here. Pell experiences unimaginable horror, yet out of it he builds a successful and fulfilling life. His modesty is present all the way through, and it is to his co-author Fred Rosenbaum's great credit that he persuaded Pell to tell his story. We are all the richer for it.
One incredible book.......2005-02-15
What sets this book apart from all others is that here is a true story of a man who witnessed the holocaust and fought with the underground. In vivid clarity, the author tells his story giving you not only the facts but the thoughts, the emotions and the graphic details that make this a book that cannot be read in spurts - it must be read in one sitting. And it is a story that you'll never, ever forget.
Book Description
In this beautifully realized study, Peter Schäfer investigates the origins of a female manifestation of God in Jewish mysticism. The search itself is a fascinating exploration of the idea of a feminine divinity. And Schäfer's surprising but persuasive conclusions yield deeper understanding of the complex but frequently intimate relationship between Christianity and Judaism--and of the development of religious concepts more generally.
Toward the end of the twelfth century, a small book titled the Bahir (Light) appeared in Provence. The first document of Judaism's emerging kabbalistic movement, it introduced a completely new view of God, one that included a divine potency that was essentially female. This female divinity was portrayed both as a mediator between Jews and God and as part of the Godhead itself. Examining Judaic history from the biblical Wisdom tradition to the Middle Ages, Schäfer finds some precedents for the Kabbalah's feminine divinity. But he cannot account for her forceful appearance in twelfth-century southern France without reference to the immediate Christian environment, particularly the flourishing veneration of the Virgin Mary. Indeed, twelfth-century Jews and Christians were simultaneously rediscovering the feminine as an aspect of the Godhead after having abandoned it in favor of either an abstract, disembodied God or an exclusively male one.
In proposing that the medieval cult of Mary--rather than eastern Gnosticism--is the appropriate framework for understanding the feminine elements in Jewish mysticism, Mirror of His Beauty represents a sea change in Kabbalah and Jewish-Christian cultural studies. It shifts our attention from the Byzantine East to the Latin Christian West. And in contrast to histories that treat the development of Judaism and Christianity in isolation, it leads us to a fuller understanding of Jews and Christians living in proximity, aware of each other.
Customer Reviews:
Surprisingly Antiseptic.......2005-01-28
I can't say that I disliked this book. It provides a compendium and a tabulation of a wealth of material regarding the history of the Divine Feminine in the Christian and Jewish traditions, starting with the wisdom literature in the bible and going through the later Middle Ages. Along the way it reviews the thoughts of Philo and the Kabbalah in this area, and provides some data on the phenomenon of Mariology in Western Medieval Christianity.
On the whole, though, I found the book to be long on data and short on insight. One gets the feeling that Professor Schafer fears to offend his Jewish and Christian readers by pursuing the possibility that they actually may have had an effect on each other's religious thought.
Also, despite the subtitle of this book, there is virtually nothing about the Islamic contribution to this phenomenon, an omission that I suspect may be crucial. The figure of the Divine Feminine is very important in much Islamic mystical literature from the Middle Ages, and not least of all in Spain, where it would have had considerable influence certainly on Jewish circles, and very likely on Christian ones as well.
In short, if you're looking for a thumbnail sketch of the Feminine Images of God in pre-modern western thought, this book is fine, but you will not walk away with any in-depth understanding of the subject.
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Nor the Moon by Night
Devora Gliksman
Manufacturer: Feldheim Publishers
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ASIN: 0873067673 |
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Max Weber and the Jewish Question: A Study of the Social Outlike of His Sociology
Gary A. Abraham
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
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ASIN: 0252018419 |
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