A monumental and magisterial work. This decade-in-the-making magnum
opus certainly confirms the German poet and philosopher Heinrich
Heine's paradoxical remark that the Jews are just like everyone
else - except more so. More importantly, as books on the history of
the Jews in the 20th century proliferate at an astonishing pace, A
People Apart offers the necessary historical perspective without
which one cannot hope to understand either the Holocaust or the
creation of the State of Israel. Far from supporting the idea that
Jews were passive victims of the religious intolerance and hatred
of their gentile neighbors, Vital argues convincingly that to some
extent European Jews were makers of their own destiny. Of course,
they were participants in an intricate ballet choreographed by
larger political powers, a people without land in a society that
made land sacred. Equally convincing is Vital's contention that the
Jews evolved their own internal politics, divided between those who
felt that it was best for Jews to continue practicing their
subservient and quietist role in European society and those who
advocated a more active, assertive voice in public affairs. A
former editor and reporter for the Jerusalem Post, an Israeli
government official (1956-65), and subsequently a professor of
diplomacy in Israel and the US, the author makes no apologies for
directing his gaze to "what is harshest, ugliest, and most
dangerous in human conduct." The research is exhaustive: besides
archives in the usual places (Germany, Poland, Russia, France,
Britain, Israel), Vital consulted material in Scotland and as far
away as India. In doing so, he has given us insight into why and
how the modern era, which opened with the French Revolution and
which created such high hopes for the Jews, ended in 1939 with
Enlightenment ideals forever destroyed for Christians and Jews
alike by the outbreak of the Second World War and the Holocaust.
Destined to be the definitive study of our time. (Kirkus Reviews)
The twentieth century has seen both the greatest triumph of Jewish history and its greatest tragedy: the birth of the nation of Israel, and the state-sponsored genocide of the Holocaust. A People Apart is the first study to examine the role played by the Jews themselves, across the whole of Europe, during the century and a half leading up to these events.
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