These accessibly written volumes examine the major periods of Jewish history around the world, from their distant origins in antiquity through the beginnings of the modern period and the emergence of secular culture, and further to the eighteenth century to the present day.
The first volume of a comprehensive history of the Jews draws on up to date research to recount the story of the Jews from their distant origins in antiquity through the beginnings of the modern period and the emergence of secular culture. Enhanced by images, limelight given to various historical mysteries, recommendations for how to learn more, as well other features, the book moves chapter by chapter through the major periods of Jewish history, balancing introductions for those unfamiliar with that history, with discussion of new approaches and recent discoveries that have reshaped understanding of the Jewish past.
The second volume of a comprehensive history of the Jews includes topics such as the impact on Jewish society of the Enlightenment as well as its Jewish equivalent, the Haskalah, religious innovations in eastern and central Europe, the processes of emancipation and Jewish acculturation, the modern economic history of the Jewish people, which includes their embourgeoisement in central and western Europe, and the growth of a giant Jewish proletariat in eastern Europe, the emergence of an antisemitic politics that sought to roll back Jewish gains and the variety of Jewish responses to those illiberal forces, especially in the form of vibrant Jewish political cultures, among them Zionism, socialism, and mass migration.
The book is useful not just for those interested in the Jews themselves but also for readers open to learning about global history from the vantage point of a people whose experiences attest both to the resilience of human culture and the impact of hate and violence.
John Efron is the Koret Professor of Jewish History at the University of California at Berkeley. He specializes in the cultural and social history of German Jewry. He is the author of German Jewry and the Allure of the Sephardic (2016) All Consuming: Germans, Jews, and the Meaning of Meat (2025).
Matthias B. Lehmann is Professor of Jewish History at the University of Cologne, where he directs the Martin Buber Institute for Jewish Studies. His publications include The Baron: Maurice de Hirsch and the Jewish Nineteenth Century (2022), Emissaries from the Holy Land (2014), and the coedited volume Jews and the Mediterranean (2020).
Steven Weitzman is a scholar of ancient Judaism and serves at the University of Pennsylvania as the Abraham M. Ellis Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literatures and as the Ella Darivoff Director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. His publications include The Origin of the Jews: the Quest for Roots in a Rootless Age (2017), awarded a National Jewish Book Award, and the soon to appear A History of Signs and Wonders: the Ten Plagues Then, Now and at the End of the World.
