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Rating: 
Summary: Deeply moving and inspiring memoir by a great historian.
Review: Jacob Katz (1904-1998) may well be the greatest historian of Judaism and the Jewish people of the twentieth century. In a series of pathbreaking studies, including TRADITION AND CRISIS, EXCLUSIVENESS AND TOLERANCE, OUT OF THE GHETTO, and FROM PREJUDICE TO DESTRUCTION, Katz reshaped the study of Jewish history from late medieval times through the horrors of the mid-twentieth century.It is a great shame that Katz's work, which is as valuable in terms of historical method as it is for its specialized content, is not better known to historians generally. In this, his last book (originally published in Hebrew in 1989 and translated into English in 1995), Katz reflects on his life and his development as an historian. Most of this book's twelve chapters focus on the odyssey of an intelligent, sensitive, and modest young man who seeks a place for himself, first within the sheltered Jewish community in Hungary where he was born; next in the turbulent and shifting Europe in which Jews tried to chart a course between their traditions of religious devotion and Talmudic study and the world of secular knowledge; then in the terrifying world of the impending Nazi domination of Germany and then of the European continent; and finally in the struggles to build a new nation in the land of Israel. Throughout, Katz writes with modesty and quiet humor and rare generosity. Gradually, his life as a scholar assumes a more and more central place in his life's story -- but Katz excels at showing the intertwining of his intellectual life with his biography. By the book's close, you know that you have been in the presence of "one of the rare and master spirits of the age." -- Richard B. Bernstein, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York Law School
Rating:
Summary: Deeply moving and inspiring memoir by a great historian.
Review: Jacob Katz (1904-1998) may well be the greatest historian of Judaism and the Jewish people of the twentieth century. In a series of pathbreaking studies, including TRADITION AND CRISIS, EXCLUSIVENESS AND TOLERANCE, OUT OF THE GHETTO, and FROM PREJUDICE TO DESTRUCTION, Katz reshaped the study of Jewish history from late medieval times through the horrors of the mid-twentieth century. It is a great shame that Katz's work, which is as valuable in terms of historical method as it is for its specialized content, is not better known to historians generally. In this, his last book (originally published in Hebrew in 1989 and translated into English in 1995), Katz reflects on his life and his development as an historian. Most of this book's twelve chapters focus on the odyssey of an intelligent, sensitive, and modest young man who seeks a place for himself, first within the sheltered Jewish community in Hungary where he was born; next in the turbulent and shifting Europe in which Jews tried to chart a course between their traditions of religious devotion and Talmudic study and the world of secular knowledge; then in the terrifying world of the impending Nazi domination of Germany and then of the European continent; and finally in the struggles to build a new nation in the land of Israel. Throughout, Katz writes with modesty and quiet humor and rare generosity. Gradually, his life as a scholar assumes a more and more central place in his life's story -- but Katz excels at showing the intertwining of his intellectual life with his biography. By the book's close, you know that you have been in the presence of "one of the rare and master spirits of the age." -- Richard B. Bernstein, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York Law School
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