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Book Review
Methods/Theory
David N. Myers and David B. Ruderman, editors. The Jewish Past Revisited: Reflections on Modern Jewish Historians. (Studies in Jewish Culture and Society.) New Haven: Yale University Press. 1998. Pp. xi, 244. $27.50.
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The essays in this book grew out of a seminar held during the 19941995 academic year at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Judaic Studies that culminated in a conference on Jewish historiography in May 1995. As co-editor David N. Myers notes in his excellent summary introduction, the volume serves a number of important purposes. On the most obvious level, the essays focus on a number of twentieth-century historians who have been unfairly ignored in Jewish historiography. In choosing to include studies of such venerable British and American scholars as Cecil Roth, Israel Abrahams, and Elias Bickerman, Myers and co-editor David B. Ruderman wish both to defend their work from the often savage criticism by modern Jewish historians and to restore a certain balance between Diaspora and Israeli historical scholarship. In addition, the essays demonstrate the importance of contextualizing Jewish historical writing by illustrating the impact of important turning points, such as the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel, on the understanding of the Jewish past. |
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