Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: In a paper entitled, “Newer Emphases in Jewish History,” published in 1963, Salo Baron wrote: “All my life I have been struggling against the hitherto dominant “lachrymose conception of Jewish history” … because I have felt that an overemphasis on Jewish sufferings distorted the total picture of the Jewish historic evolution….” Indeed, if one was to choose a single idea that encapsulated the legacy of Baron, perhaps the pre-eminent Jewish historian of the twentieth century, it would probably be this: Jewish history is not to be seen simply as a series of persecutions, which determined its nature and its course, but rather as a process of ongoing engagement between the Jews and their surroundings.
Author: Adam Teller
Institution: Brown University
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2169567905