A History of the Jews in the Modern World
by Howard M. Sachar
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Book Summary Information
Author: Howard M. SacharEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2006-09-12
ISBN: 1400030978
Number of pages: 848
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of A History of the Jews in the Modern World
Book Review: A Good Overview of Recent Jewish History; Correction(s) Needed
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a mini-encyclopedia of Jewish history beginning about the 17th century. Sachar's main emphasis is on the Jews of Europe. Owing to the large number of topics raised by the author, this review is necessarily limited to consideration of only a few of them.
Sachar presents a nuanced view of the Jewish experience in post-Reformation Europe: "These constructs must be judged in the context of their time, of course. If Jews possessed fewer rights than did their urban Christian neighbors, they also bore fewer obligations and enjoyed more privileges than did Europe's peasant masses."(p. 5).
A moderate amount of attention is devoted to the massive pogroms in 19th century Russia. Based on archival research, Sachar rejects the notion that the pogroms of 1881 had been instigated by the tsarist government (p. 199). However, Sachar believes that Tsar Nicholas II was in fact behind the 600 pogroms that took place in 1905 (p. 295). Sachar also recounts the experience of Mendel Beilis, who had been framed on an accusation of ritual murder (pp. 305-309). Beilis received a considerable amount of international support and was eventually acquitted.
After Poland was partitioned in the late 1700's, the erstwhile Polish Jews of eastern Poland became Russian Jews, as described by Sachar: "All attempts by Jews to participate in municipal government were effectively blocked by their Russian neighbors, on the grounds that the Jews engaged in "parasitical" "exploitative" activities among the surrounding peasants, especially through their control of the liquor trade. The latter charge actually was well founded. Accustomed in Poland to function as middlemen between aristocrats' estates and the countryside, Jews had become proficient in buying up and converting harvested grain and potato crops into mash, and mash into distilled spirits, which resisted the vicissitudes of the weather. The peasantry offered a sure and certain marker for liquor, and the Jews exploited it fully."(p. 54).
During the Russian rule of eastern and central Poland, a Jewish bourgeoisie developed in Congress Poland (pp. 70-71). In time, this pitted Poles against the mostly-Jewish industrialists. Of course, Jewish dominance of commerce also occurred at lower levels. Sachar describes the Polish-Jewish conflicts that became widely known soon after the resurrection of the Polish state: "In the 1920's, too, the government found ways to restrict Jewish economic activity. The rationale was Jewish overcrowding in commerce and the professions. Here, in fact, the statistics bore out the charge. By 1922, Jews comprised 52% of Poland's tradesmen and owned 48% of the nation's retail shops (although most of these were diminutive market stalls). A majority of attorneys in larger cities were Jews, and in medicine the Jewish presence ranked second only to the German."(p. 414). Sachar, however, doesn't put any of the foregoing statistics in context: Jews comprised only 10% of the Polish population.
Sachar elaborates on the role of Jews in Communism. On one hand, he cites Alexander Kerensky, who asserted that 99% of Russian Jews were anti-Bolshevik (p. 334). On the other hand, the very disproportionate number of Jews in Communism is striking. Bearing in mind the fact that Jews comprised a small percentage of the Russian population, one can appreciate Sachar's figures on Jewish Communism (the Zydokomuna). In December 1917, 5 of the 21 members of the Soviet Central Committee were Jews, prompting Sachar to remark: "Never before had so many Jews served in any European cabinet."(p. 327). Sachar believes that Jews were prominent in Soviet Communism no less so than they were in the Communist parties of western Europe. By the early 1920's, Jews in the Soviet Union accounted for 15-20% of delegates to party congresses (p. 330), and comprised an even higher percentage of party technocrats (including mid-level administrators).
Unfortunately, Sachar recycles an old canard from WWII-era Communist propaganda. He repeats the charge (p. 551) that Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski, the head of the Polish Underground Army (AK) and later leader of the Warsaw Uprising, gave an order for the killing of Jewish partisans because of their "banditry" and "Bolshevism." In fact, Bor-Komorowski never ordered the killing of Jews. He did order armed resistance against bands of bandits. This has been twisted, without any supporting evidence, into a supposed veiled order to kill fugitive Jews. Anyone who has actually lived in formerly-northeast Poland during the German occupation will attest to the fact that banditry, conducted by bands of Poles as well as Jews, was in fact a serious problem. As for partisan action, even non-Communist Jewish partisans eventually became subordinated to the Soviet Union. Owing to the fact that the Soviets progressively came out as enemies of the AK, the Jewish partisans and the AK were also drawn into enmity against each other.
Sachar discusses the reparations for the Holocaust paid out by West Germany (p. 630), including the fact that the reparations cover property losses of the Jews. Those individuals and organizations seeking compensation from Poland for WWII-era property losses are clearly asking the wrong nation for reparations.
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