Rating: 
Summary: Sefer gadol, a great book about ethical monotheism
Review: As a Catholic tragically aware of what he owes to the people of the Bible, I have been reading Jewish authors over the last twenty years, developing my own ghetto within my religious family and becoming extremely sensitive to gentile - not so gentle - oversimplifications concerning the Jews. Reading Paul Johnson was a permanent pleasure, if not bliss. From the standpoint of ethical monotheism, which he rightly so attributes to the Jews, he offers a thrilling travelogue across 4,000 years of human history, being honest enough to Christianity and Islam as Jewish sects which finally found a life of their own. Much before reaching his chapter on the Holocaust, his presentation on the seeds of antisemitism are extremely enlightening. This book is one of the best presents one can imagine for those who are prepared to suffer and rejoice with a people that cannot renounce to be God's elect.
Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive and thought provoking
Review: Paul Johnson writes a comprehensive and very well written account of the life of the Jews in the past 4000 years. I did not think that summarizing the history of the Jews in one volume is a feasible task, however, Johnson was able to do so, and does it beautifully. Johnson dedicates a well proportioned length to each era, recounting the history, and reflecting on the implications of the events of those eras. Recognizing the high relevance of the history of the Jews in the past four centuries to that of the present, Johnson dedicates a good portion of the book to them. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: A genuine achievement
Review: This is the finest single volume history of the Jews that I've ever read, and I've read a few. Johnson wrote this book after completing his History of Christianity, during which he realized how these two great religions are irretrievably intertwined, and how much of a theological debt Christianity owes the older faith. Once he got into the subject he also realized that Jewish history is really a world history. Refining it to a single volume -- without unfortunate deletions or superficiality -- is supremely hard, but Johnson does it.Johnson makes plain at the beginning what fascinates him about the Jews: the fact that numerous peoples have come and gone over the millenia but the Jews, arguably the most persecuted people in history, are still here. Why? (And how?) From these initial query Johnson leads you on a tour of Jewish history from the Bible through the 1980s, and his excitement is infectious. Johnson's position as an apparently religious, but not Jewish, commentator serves him well. It enables him to be an insightful, sympathetic observer, but also an objective one. This book is well worth your time, and the best thing Johnson's written so far.
Rating:
Summary: Simplicity
Review: Paul Johnson does the impossible, and he has done it twice. He makes history eminently readable and most enjoyable. Johnson's book on the story of Jews throughout the ages is told in a style, that I personally find satisfying. He has taken this story of five millenia and has made it flow, much like his book "Modern Times". Johnson does focus considerably on the history of the past few hundred years, but considering what is known and unknown it does not distract from his work. The book is not merely a focus on struggles, he speaks of Zionism but also speaks of philosophy, he speaks of great men but also of scroundrels. He shows all the ages of anti-semitism, but explains many links between the people who hate and the people they hate, you learn that only slight degrees separate all of us, or at least I did. As an aside it shows how racial theories are hogwash, proven also by the book "Hitler's Jewish Soldiers", everybody...anybody could be considered in one racial group or another, Johnson doesn't make this a point, but it is evidenced through the many and unfortunate diasporas of the Jewish people. Johnson is also not afraid to pull his punches. The people he writes about are portrayed as one may feel they should be, he tells of Heinrich Heine as he was, the same with Theodor Herzl, who were just mere mortals who did astonishing things, Heine thought he should be supported by his relatives while mocking them at the same time for their continuing practice of religion. I recommend this book highly, it will give you a lot interesting information that you may not have grasped before. It will provide an understanding and hopefully will wash away the stereotypes you may have had or more correctly misconceptions.
Rating:
Summary: A Tribute to the Children of Israel
Review: This review is dedicated to the Jewish Nation, reborn as a sovereign people, in the Land of Israel.
In this work Johnson undertakes a comprehensive study of the Jewish people (from the route word Yehudi, meaning people of Yehudah (Judea), popularly referred to today as the West Bank, the ancient cradle of the Jewish people. He begins the book by referring to the town of Hebron, where the founder of the Hebrew Nation is buried with his wife Sarah. Johnson refers to the previous occupiers of Hebron, such as the Canaanites, Edomites, Hellenes, Romans, Byzantines and Ottomans, which have all disappeared from this land, and compares this to the fact that the Jews are still there. Indeed there is a flourishing Jewish community in Hebron. Reading this (the book was written in 1987), one is struck by the tragic irony, and a sense of extreme injustice, that so much of the world establishment, is demonizing the Jewish community of Hebron (75% of which are women and children), as well as all other Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, for the crime of living in their ancient homeland. This despite the fact that the Jews where living in the area, over 2 400 years before the first Arabs arrived.
Johnson presents conclusive and indisputable evidence from ancient documentation, archaeology and other sciences, that there has been a constant Jewish presence in the Land of Israel, for 3 900 years. Johnson is writing as a British Catholic historian, with no brief for the Zionist cause, but is fair-minded unlike the Palestinianist Goebbels'ses such as Noam Chomsky. Edward Said, and Norman Finkelstein, who subvert history to deny the Jews the write to live in the ancient homeland. Johnson details the contributions of the Jews to the world and the Jewish people, and the experiences of and persecutions of the Jews in 7 parts. Against this backdrop we read of the experiences of those great Jews who have made incredible contributions to the world such as Moses, King David, King Solomon, Elijah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Rabbi Akiva, Maimonides, Judah haLevi, Manasseh ben Israel, Baal Shem Tov, the Vilna Gaon, the Rothschilds, Disraeli, Samson Raphael Hirsch, Emma Lazarus, Luzatto and Sir Moses Montefiore, as well as the founders of the modern Zionist movement, the ingathering of the Jews to their ancient homeland: Rabbi Zevi Hirsch Kalischer , Rabbi Judah Alkalai , Moses Hess , Leon Pinsker , Theodore Herzl , Chaim Weizmann , Vladimir Jabotinsky , David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin. We also learn of the damage done to Jews and the world by the charlatans and anti-Jewish Jews like Pablo of Burgos, Shabattai Zevi, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxembourg, and Isaac Babel. He points out how Jewish Communists
Always renounced their Judaism, which indeed shows how ridiculous it is for some anti-Semites of the right to blame the Jewish people as whole for Communist destruction and terror.
Karl Marx was one of the greatest self-hating Jews in history, whose works are filled with the most vicious and blatant anti-Semitism.
It is not therefore surprising that he spawned one of the cruellest, most destructive and murderous ideologies ever.
Communism has been responsible for over 100 million deaths and the destruction of countless lives.
Today the Marxist world has adopted the
vilification and planned destruction of Israel, as their primary cause, to add to their long list of cruelties (With G-D's help we will not let them succeed).
Especially on university campuses around the world the disciples of Marx (many of them 'Jewish') are engaging in this cruel campaign against Israel. Johnson details the persecution of the Jews in Europe, and also talks of their brutal persecution by Moslems in the Middle East, and we see that the idea that the Arabists have inculcated in the minds of many, that Jews where well treated under Moslem rule, is a grotesque untruth. Unfortunately European historians on Jewish history, both Jew and Gentile, have tended to paint the story of the Jews in Arab countries as an idyllic existence, while in fact they lived under conditions of extreme inequality and persecution, often being subjected to massive and vicious pogroms by their Arab neighbours and overlords, sometimes greater and more genocidal, than the pogroms of Europe, with the obvious exception of Hitler's holocaust. The book does however have some flaws. Unfortunately, in the chapter about how the Jewish self-determination was crushed, after the destruction by the Romans of the Temple and Jerusalem, he does not recount how the Roman Emperor Hadrian named Israel 'Palestine' in order to cut us off from our land and heritage.
Now those cruel ones who again wish to cut us off from our land and heritage, once again refer to Israel as 'Palestine'.
The spirit of the Roman Empire lives on in the UN, university campuses and leftist academics around the world, the Arabs, China, the EU and Third World governments etc-all of whom wish to obliterate the name of Israel, and so refer to Eretz Yisrael as the hideous abomination-'Palestine'.
In the name of 'Palestine' Jewish men, women and children are being murdered, as so many times before in history.
While the term 'Palestinian' and 'Palestine' has only been used exclusively to refer to the Arabs who claim ownership of the Land of Israel-after 1967, it is unfortunate that the name had been used by historians so often as the name 'Palestine' is a colonial creation, and to use it to refer to Israel prior to the naming of this land as 'Palestine' is simply superfluous-it should never be recognized as a legitimate name for Israel and Judea, at any time.
Rating: 
Summary: PJ knows what he's talking about. And maybe two others.
Review: If you already have an extensive knowlege of Jewish history, the location of ancient cities and tribes, and of world history and empires, than you'll love this book. If not, you'll be lost quite often. Paulie tends to assume you know things like what the "Second Commonwealth" is. If you do, I'm impressed. He hints about an exile, then moves on, then, five pages later, starts referring to the "Exile" without actually talking about it. He mentions a character who "was quite fascinating" then tells you nothing about him. By page 150 I'd felt like throwing the book out the window 10 times. At 151 I did.
Rating:
Summary: Great writing, erudite history
Review: This is a masterful tour through the history of civilization. The first civilized societies began to emerge about 6,000 years ago, and Jewish history goes back 4,000 years. This books sweeps you away on a ride through 2/3 of civilized history! Other reviewers referred to Johnson's depth and breath. I loved the amazing combination of the flow of history and brief 'human interest' stories. The two fit together amazingly well, personal stories do not slow down the general sweep of the book. I also liked the fact that Johnson is not Jewish and while very sympathetic to Jews has more of an objective outsider attitude, pointing out flaws as well as achievements. I keep recommendingthis book to my friends.
Rating: 
Summary: Sad but true
Review: I really learned a lot, but honestly never finished the second half. The burden of reading about the awful cruelties they have suffered for 4,000 years was too much for me. It remains on my shelf unread. I'll stick with fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Better than nothing, but not much
Review: Johnson has written a second-rate book on Jewish history. For a good popular history get "Jews, God and History" or for a good scholarly treatment go to a good university library and check out Jones' multi-volume "History of the Jews". If you are interested in Jewish ethics read a good summary of Maimonides' Michneh Torah and really read, say half a dozen times, book five of the Bible in whatever translation you prefer. Then, if you are still interested, read Hermann Cohen's great book "Religion of Reason: Out of the Origins (or Sources) of Judaism". When I read Johnson's book everything seemed either incorrect or something I already knew. Most treatments of Jewish ethical monotheism are just so much nonsense, as is every treatment I have ever heard of concerning anti-semitism: They are all written out of hatred for Jews or love or affection for Jews. A worthwhile treatment would read like an organic chemistry text. Benzene is interesting, but no-one seems either to hate or love it. The most totally silly is Sartre's "The Anti-Semite". It is not really loving or mean-spirited, just rediculous.
Rating:
Summary: Readable, exciting history
Review: Paul Johnson puts his heart in the subject; his admiration and wonder at a people whose history spans four millennia and who survived persecution and destruction throughout history comes through every page. I enjoyed the opening chapters, comparing the archaeological information about Egyptian and Sumerian history to Jewish history and the outline of how the Hebrew people evolved. Equally interesting was the section on European history, where Johnson sets the background for the troubled times from Chmielnicki's Pogrom to the Holocaust and the persecution in the Soviet Union. The use of the noblemen of Jews to conduct tax collection and other financial transactions set the Jews on a deadly path; the overtaxed peasantry had contact with the Jews, who earned their ire for their plight, and they responded to the alien people in their midst with predictable violence. This is a very wonderful history and worth reading if you are interested in Jewish history, whether you are Jewish or not.
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