History of the Jews: A Captivating Guide to Jewish History, Starting from the Ancient Israelites through Roman Rule to World War 2 by Captivating History

History of the Jews: A Captivating Guide to Jewish History, Starting from the Ancient Israelites through Roman Rule to World War 2 Reviews

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  Siddhardh Sai

  Very interesting book, a must read book. Covers entire history in very short span of time
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  Erik Sapp

  I had hoped this book would be a fact-based history of the Jews. There is history, but there are also multiple inaccurate accounts pulled from the Bible and not historical record.
  1) The author says Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. Biblical scholars believe they were written during the Babylonian Captivity - centuries after Moses would have lived.
  2) The author says the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. The Egyptians were meticulous record keepers and no such record exists.
  3) The author says the “three wise men” visited Herod. Again, no historical record of this exists. There is also no record of Herod murdering baby boys (an account the Romans would have been sure to document).
  
  The good news is that once the author gets past Biblical times, he starts sticking to actual history. My only major complaint is that he spends a lot of time explaining the beginnings of Christianity and Islam. Yes, both religions trace their roots to Judaism, but that isn't relevant in a book about the history of the Jews.
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  Waleed

  A Good book overall and short. I'm giving it 2 stars due to two glaring issues.
  
  (1) The author himself is a zionist and approaches Palestine-Israel from a zionist perspective. He propagates the lie that Palestinians chose to leave rather than be exiled. His argument is, "Well, Israel said they left on their own while Palestinians say that they were ethnically cleansed, who's to say who was right." Yes, I'm sure over a million Palestinians just decided to leave their homes for no reason, Israel can't be lying.
  
  The author also doesn't go into detail regarding the Jewish militias that terrorized the Palestinians or the fact that Israel is a modern-day apartheid state. No mention of any of this. Just zionist propaganda about the "Jewish homeland" while ignoring the millions of Palestinians who are still being ethnically cleansed.
  
  (2) The author seems to have a strong bigotry against Muslims and Arabs. He portrays them much less favorably than he does any other group. When portraying Christianity, he discusses it from the perspective of Christians, but when discussing Islam, he adds his own opinion to it.
  
  e.g. "Christians believe Jesus is the son of god." But for Muslims, he'll say something like, "Muslims took their religion from Judaism." Rather than taking about Islamic beliefs from an Islamic perspective.
  
  Of course, as mentioned before, the author seems to be an avowed Zionists, and Zionism is usually coupled with racism.
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  Janalyn Prude

  Oh wonderful read!
  
  In the history of the Jews were taken back to Moses being set up on the canal and found by the pharaohs daughter. All the way to the Jews being legit a fine and Jewish independence. It is told through a series of happenings in Jewish yesterday. I absolutely love this book and as always have learned much from the captivating history book. I highly recommend this if you love to know the history of people in general or you just loved you with your street this is a great book for your collection.
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  Clair E Erdman

  I read this book because I wanted to learn more about the middle east and the history of religious conflict between different societies. This book gave me a comprehensive look at the middle east, but also the rest of the world where Jews influenced society. Maybe because I am not as familiar with the ancient world as more modern times, I usually lose interest fairly quickly when reading about times before the 1800s. However, I enjoyed reading about Jews in the middle ages and prior times in this book.
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  Michael Wells

  Jewish history
  
  This book covers do you watch history from the beginning in the garden of Eden to the year of 2000. The book uses many references to the Bible and references to other authors. This is not an in-depth look at Jewish history but rather an abbreviated story of the Jewish people and their history. The book was interesting but I wish it felt more in depth. I recommend this book for those who are interested in Jewish history
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  Juan Manuel

  Estímulante encontrar algún dato histórico inesperado o algún comentario significativo en un libro de divulgación general. En este sentido, resulta fascinante descubrir que las dos ramas dominantes de la religión judía tuvieron momentos estelares en la península ibérica bajo el dominio árabe: el racionalismo de Maimónides y el misticismo esotérico del Zohar.
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  Anil Swarup

  Truly remarkable the way in which centuries old history of the Jews gets narrated in the book. To the uninitiated there are some revelations as well regarding the exodus a few millenniums ago and resettlement of the Jews during the last century.
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  Michael Eads

  This is a short history of the Jews. Very good for an overview. for those that have not followed history this is a good starting point.
  
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  Sarah

  This book helped put all the pieces together
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  William O. Robertson

  Insightful read on Jewish history and how many of its tenets laid the foundation for Islam and Christianity.
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  Nasim Bin Jasim

  What a book ! It is the finest book to me about Jewish history . Worthy reading .
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  Edward Weiner

  Easy to read. Mostly accurate. Little substance. Learned nothing.