The Story of the Jews: Finding the words 1000
BCE-1492 CE
Simon Schama
Bodley Head £25
(978-1-847-92132-1)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50 (Use code
CT205 )
IN HIS foreword, Simon Schama describes the story of the Jews as
"one of the world's great wonders". What follows more than lives up
to his claim - although, unlike the accompanying television
programmes, this volume reaches only 1492 CE.
Schama's genius is to bring events and people he describes
vividly to life, so that the reader becomes the spectator. But this
story is not for the squeamish. Jewish history is survival against
the odds, and the odds make sickening reading. This is a book not
just for Jews, but Gentiles, too, especially Christians, who have
been responsible for so much Jewish bloodshed. Crimes against Jews
in England are usually omitted from our history lessons.
A central problem for Judaism throughout its history is how to
remain Jewish in a Gentile world. Schama begins his story with the
flourishing Jewish community at Elephantine, with its temple and
irregular lifestyle. In contrast, in Jerusalem Nehemiah and Ezra
delineated a Jewish exclusivism on what had been a freer society.
The same issues resurface in the Talmud, and continue to divide
Judaism.
Turning to the last period of Jewish nationhood under the
Hasmoneans, Schama raises another issue relevant today: what is the
proper relationship between power and piety? And does the former
damage the latter? This is a problem that, until modern times, Jews
have rarely had to face, more often being the victims of others'
authority.
As Schama puts it, the destruction of the temple by Titus marked
the point when "Jewish time stops," although Judaism would endure
through the synagogues of the Diaspora. While the apocryphal
writings found at Qumran gave hope that, ultimately, victory was
assured, Josephus's account of the mass suicide at Masada provided
a template for subsequent generations that faced similar
annihilation. But Schama asserts that there was no Jewish "dark
age". While synagogue art in mural and mosaic flourished, the
Mishnah (and later the Talmud) provided the necessary guidance for
everyday life.
With the exception of Arabia, Schama points out that the Jews
had a much better existence under Islam, as is reflected in the
Cairo Geniza. In Christian Europe, from the first Crusade onwards,
Jews were seen as the most despicable of all races, and faced a
plethora of obscene charges, often resulting in Jews' facing a
choice between conversion and annihilation.
Part of the Jewish problem was that they acted as bankers for
the Gentiles, who found that a convenient way of wiping off their
loans was to expel or kill the lenders, and, in addition, enrich
themselves from their property.
Schama highlights the importance of the extraordinary Moses
Maimonides. Faced with death or conversion, the doctor/theologian
argued that saving life was the higher obligation. Further, he held
that reason and faith were not contradictory. The importance of his
Mishnah Torah and Guide to the Perplexed for the
rejuvenation of Judaism cannot be exaggerated.
The remainder of Schama's story is of increasing persecution,
culminating in the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and then from
Portugal. It is a sorry tale, in which those already exiled become
exiled again.
It was during the exile in Babylon, however, that a theologian
borrowed an eight-day creation account, and, squashing two events
into days three and six, made the sabbath the climax of creation.
As the only people in the world who kept the sabbath were the Jews,
he thereby asserted that they were fixed in God's scheme of things;
provided they had sufficient faith, nothing and no one could
obliterate them. Nothing and nobody has - as Schama's eagerly
awaited second volume will undoubtedly affirm.
Canon Anthony Phillips is a former headmaster of The King's
School, Canterbury.