The Course of Modern Jewish History

Rating:
Summary: Scholarship doesn't get much better than this
Review: Howard Sachar is about as good an historian as you could hope for. His books are detailed, clear, and generally free of bias. "Course of Modern Jewish History" is no exception.

This book follows the history of Jews throughout the world from the 18th century until today. It does so in a generally chronological order, although at times it breaks this standard to move country by country during a specific period. Each chapter ends with a "conclusion" which usually lasts anywhere from a paragraph to a page or two. This section can generally be skipped (unless you are cramming for a exam and don't want to actually be bothered with reading the chapter).

Because it is a survey text, it never goes into quite as much detail as I would like. The section on the Holocaust felt particularly rushed. Despite its prodigious length (it is nearly 900 pages), I wouldn't have complained if it were even another 100 pages longer.

Despite these shortcomings, it is a tremendous first step in the examination of modern Jewish history, and it could even serve as the final step for many.

Rating:
Summary: Impressive, but not faultless...
Review: OK, look, this is a very impressive volume. Clearly written and quite a nice over-view.
But I have to say the sections on Jewish resistance during the Holocaust were pathetic. The author briefly mentions The Warsaw ghetto uprising, and a few words about Hannah Senesh, but that's about it. He doesn't even mention the uprisinsg at Treblinka and Sobibor, the fighters of Vilna or Lodz, or the amazing and daring feats of a Jewish patisans in the woods throughout Europe. He also fails to mention that the strongest and best fighters tended to be Bundists, not Zionists.
Oh well, hard to write such a sweeping history and cover everything. But to say the Jews went to their deaths like "sheep" (p.541) and not even adequately recount their heroism and resistance is irresponsible and greatly disappointing.

Rating:
Summary: Biased and Simple-Minded
Review: Sachar's book is often found on college reading lists for history classes relating to European Jewry (often upper-level). This is very unforunate, as it is quite bigotted and simple-minded. Recommended only for Americans who seek black and white answers to the complex problems of human interaction.

Rating:
Summary: Biased and Simple-Minded
Review: Sachar's book is often found on college reading lists for history classes relating to European Jewry (often upper-level). This is very unforunate, as it is quite bigotted and simple-minded. Recommended only for Americans who seek black and white answers to the complex problems of human interaction.

Rating:
Summary: Impressive, but not faultless...
Review: This work is a must for all persons interested in the dialectical evolution of the Jewish people. The language is simple and Sachar is wonderfully articulate and easy to read. Sachar covers a wide breadth of subtopics and countries in the social and geopolitical history of the Jewish people. While some of the criticisms in the earlier reviews may be true re: factual inconsistencies; the book nevertheless is an excellent introduction to neophytes or to those with an interest in Jewish history. In this writer's view, the earlier criticisms are commonly found in most historical books that contain as wide a scope as Sachar's.

Rating:
Summary: Clearly written and an excellent fundamental text
Review: This work is a must for all persons interested in the dialectical evolution of the Jewish people. The language is simple and Sachar is wonderfully articulate and easy to read. Sachar covers a wide breadth of subtopics and countries in the social and geopolitical history of the Jewish people. While some of the criticisms in the earlier reviews may be true re: factual inconsistencies; the book nevertheless is an excellent introduction to neophytes or to those with an interest in Jewish history. In this writer's view, the earlier criticisms are commonly found in most historical books that contain as wide a scope as Sachar's.

Rating:
Summary: This is a highly biased book.
Review: While it is quite normal for authors of Jewish History to take sides, unfortunately in this book the author gives such a distorted view that it is in many cases misleading. While I am not an expert on all facets of Jewish History, from the parts that I know I was able to find a number of basic factual errors. For example, the author states that Zyklon B gas was used throughout the Holocaust at all of the camps. In Treblinka, the Germans used carbon monoxide exhaust from tank engines. Of course this is a minor mistake, but it is an example of the author making mistakes even when he didn't have any political reasons to. A more major error is that the author portrays the Vilna Gaon as a proto-Maskil. While it is true that the Vilna Gaon said that if one isn't proficient in certain areas of science one can't fully understand Torah. Still, the Vilna's Gaon had many students, and they founded Yeshivot. Perhaps the author is uncomfortable mentioning this because these Yeshivot were one of the main reason that Haskala was unsucessful in Russia before 1860.
My main two difficulties with the book are that there is a glaring lack of basic critical information and that the author simply doesn't bother mentioning people or institutions that he doesn't like. Hungarian Jewry is almost not mentioned in the book and is ignored comparitively.
There are so many mis-representations in the book that it is sad. For example, Rabbi SR Hirsch and Dr. Zecharya Frankel are breifly portrayed as being idealogically close to each other. They both would either be insulted or amused to see this because in fact they were bitter opponents.
The main thrust of the book is to show the secularization of the Jews in Europe. But the book doesn't even bring any statistical evidence even in terms of German Jewry which should have been relatively easy ( i.e. comparing the membership in the IRG, Hirsh's synagogue, with membership in the Reform Temple in Frankfort at the same time ), and of course doesn't even bother with Polish/Russian Jewry.
The author simply ignores people or movements that he doesn't like. Vladimir ( Zev ) Jabotinsky, the leaded of the revisionist Zionists, isn't even mentioned. The fact that the Bund won the elections in the mid 30's is also not mentioned. Agudath Israel, the orthodox union, is only mentioned as an Israeli political party, as if they magically appeared on the scene. In fact they were one of the main contendors in the inter-Jewish battles between WW I and WW II. The K'hila in Lodz was controlled by the Aguda for a number of years.