The Story of the Jews, Volume 2

May 15, 2014
The second volume in a two-volume tie-in to a PBS and BBC series airing this spring ("The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words, 1000 BC-1492 AD" just appeared in March), this work opens with the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, then ranges from Spinoza to Hollywood to the Holocaust in a sweeping history of Jewish life and culture.

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September 1, 2017
The second volume of the award-winning author and documentary producer's history of the Jews.The narrative moves via elegant minibiographies as Jews expelled from Spain and elsewhere struggled with dispersion and assimilation. Schama (History and Art History/Columbia Univ.; The Face of Britain: The Nation Through Its Portraits, 2015, etc.) pursues the uneasy story of the Jews' dispersion across the globe after 1492, occasionally finding a haven, such as in Amsterdam or even China, but frequently suffering persistent persecution. In his engaging, stylistic prose, the author proceeds chronologically and delves into fascinating personal stories that reveal the Jewish experience beyond its significant religious figures--e.g., that of the "little warrior prince" David Ha-Reuveni, the "ambassador from the dominion of the Lost Tribes" of Israel who "fetched up in Venice" in 1523 and convinced many Jewish notables of Italy, who were traumatized by the expulsions from Spain and Portugal, that he "was the bearer of something ancient, immemorial, thrown, by God's design, into modern time." Facing forced conversions, the Jews of Spain and Portugal headed to the safety of Ferrara in the Po Valley or farther into the Ottoman realm of Suleyman the Magnificent, where they could practice their faith and livelihoods with some dignity. Two "New Christian" sisters, who happened to be among the richest women of Europe, Beatriz de Luna, the widow of a spice king, and Brianda, moved from Lisbon and resettled comfortably in Antwerp only to become embroiled in the perilous machinations of "cultural pluralists." Other characters Schama vivifies throughout this wide-ranging book include Leone de Sommi Portaleone, the "first unapologetically Jewish showman" of Mantua; the rich immigrant Jews of Galata; cabalist teachers in Safed, Palestine; Jews thriving in the liberal Dutch Republic, some of whom were painted by Rembrandt; and the "citizen Jews" of revolutionary France. While the princes of Europe excoriated the Jews, they also needed them, especially to underwrite their military exploits and luxurious tastes. The modernity of the 19th century would bring both pogroms and Leon Pinsker's clarion call of "Auto-Emancipation." A fluid history lesson from an always engaging guide.

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Starred review from September 25, 2017
The second volume of Schama’s accessible epic history survey follows the successful model of the first, Finding the Words, 1000 BC–1492. While well-known figures, such as Baruch Spinoza, Alfred Dreyfus, and Theodor Herzl, appear in the narrative, much of the story is recounted through the experiences of more obscure people, such as David Ha-Reuveni, a self-proclaimed warrior prince of the 16th century, and 18th-century British boxer Daniel Mendoza. Despite the book’s ambitious scope, Schama keeps the reader rooted in the lives of the individuals whose choices brought Jewry from the trauma of their expulsion from Spain to the dawn of Zionism. He does so by adopting a novelist’s storytelling approach. “It was when the rabbi carried the Torah scrolls into the women’s section of the Frankfurt shul that the congregation knew something dramatic was in the offing,” Schama writes. He also presents unique details to bolster the narrative, for instance noting the crucial role of Antwerp New Christians—who were suspected of still practicing Judaism—in the burgeoning 16th-century spice trade. Similarly, New Christians financially buttressed the Portuguese maritime empire, exemplifying how “the misfortune of dispersion was turned into a trading opportunity.” Schama closes by focusing on the Dreyfus Affair and the origins of Zionism, dramatically setting the stage for 20th-century developments.

Starred review from October 1, 2017
The second volume of Schama's cultural history of the Jewish people, following The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words, 1000 BC1492 AD (2014), extends from the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492 to the stirrings of modern Zionism at the dawn of the twentieth century. Given the repeated exiles and wanderings of the Jews over the previous centuries, a strictly narrative history wasn't feasible. Instead, Schama has written a rich, fascinating survey of the various Jewish civilizations as they evolved while living among gentiles in five continents. As he traverses oceans and vast regions, Schama provides portraits of great Jewish political, artistic, cultural, and religious figures, but he also introduces relatively obscure persons and groups, including self-proclaimed prophets, pseudomessiahs, and putative remnants of the Ten Lost Tribes. Jews here are seen as both part of and apart from the larger societies that sometimes used and sometimes abused them. This is a wonderful chronicle spanning centuries in the development of an enduring people.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)