| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Comparative/World

Elliott Horowitz. Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence. (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World.) Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 2006. Pp. xiv, 340. $35.00.
There are at least two kinds of scholarly works in the study of Jewish history. The first functions within the boundaries of an accepted scholarly thesis (part of a "school"), examining a dimension of history or literature in order to deepen its thesis or, as in many cases, to challenge some of its assumptions while remaining generally true to its basic tenets. Then there are studies that one may call iconoclastic, rubbing against scholarly (and often popular) opinion as a way of challenging how historians have constructed the past. Of course, the former often begin as the latter. Sometimes a book appears that seems to elicit a kind of cognitive dissonance among peers, as if to say "this simply cannot be true" even given the detailed evidence and argumentation to the contrary. This is often because of the audacity of the thesis and the way it challenges how we understand the present. Elliott Horowitz has written one of those books. Horowitz's study of the history of Jewish violence extends from late antiquity to modernity, culminating (and beginning) with the Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein's murder of twenty-nine Muslims in a Hebron mosque in 1994. Many may find it hard, and painful, to accept Horowitz's thesis that the biblical Book of Esther, the festival of Purim, and the genocidal biblical commandment to destroy Amalek cultivated a violent consciousness among Jews. One could argue that this is a book of historiography as much as it is a book of history and, in fact, I think its contribution will be largely historiographic in nature.	1
The book is divided into three parts. The first part examines the reception of the Book of Esther and the genocidal commandment to destroy Amalek in Christian anti-Jewish/antisemitic literature and in Jewish literature. By the Middle Ages, Jews believed they had three enemies. The first was Christendom viewed as a reflection of Edom and ultimately Esau, the spurned brother of the biblical Jacob (pp. 125–129). The second was Islam viewed as an extension of Ishmael, the brother of Isaac (Genesis 21). The third was the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8–26), a murderous tribe that the Israelites encountered in their desert wanderings. Scripture has a rather harsh and uncompromising commandment to destroy the Amalekites—men, women, children, and livestock—with no mercy or compassion (Exodus 17:15; Deuteronomy 25:17–19; I Samuel 15:3). This is most prominently displayed in the First Book of Samuel (I Samuel 15: 2, 3, 8f.) when King Saul captures the King of Agag (a descendent of Amalek). Rather than kill him Saul captures him and the Israelite people spare the best of Agag's flocks rather than destroy them as is required. The prophet Samuel rebukes Saul, strips him of his royal crown, takes a sword and mercilessly kills the jailed Agag (I Samuel 15:34).	2
The rabbis had a cautious inclination about this problematic commandment yet seemed to have a sustained attachment to it. They simultaneously suppress Amalek and let him grow. In their reading of the story of Purim—a story of Jewish peril and ultimate salvation from the hands of the wicked Haman who plots to kill them in the city of Shushan in Persia at the end of the first exile—the rabbis stress linking Haman (who is called an Agagite) to Amalek, thus making the command of genocide a part of Jewish ritual and liturgical life and arguably the centerpiece of the Purim celebration. For the rabbis, Purim gives Jews occasion to fulfill the commandment to destroy Amalek by publicly hearing the biblical words "remember to forget" Amalek, the perennial enemy of the Jews. The rabbis include the biblical passages about Amalek in the public Torah readings on Purim and thus Amalek and the genocidal command to destroy him remains deeply embedded in Jewish consciousness.	. . .

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