Book Review Article: Who Are the Jews?

Abstract

Who Are the Jews? A Book Review Who Are The Jews? Volume I-Soul of the Israelites Volume II-A Nation of Philosophers Seymour W. Itzkqff Paideia Publishers, Box 343, Ashfield, MA 01330, 2004/2005 The above two volumes by Seymour W. Itzkoff, Emeritus Professor, Smith College, are part of a three-volume series on the religious, ethnic, and historical meaning of Judaism and its carriers, the Jewish people. The third volume is expected in two or three years, but in view of the challenging synthesis he has achieved in his first two volumes, and the wealth of documented information they contain, it seems appropriate to review these without waiting for the third. Soul of the Israelites spans the time from c. 1250 BCE to 582 BCE. A short introductory chapter outlines the post-Pleistocene Ice-Age migratory patterns of humans in the Middle East, and most notably the Anatolians, Hamites and Semites. The volume concludes with an analysis of the impact of the destruction of the Jewish First Temple, the Babylonian/Chaldean capture of Jerusalem and the transport of thejudean elite to Mesopotamia. A Nation of Philosophers considers the transformation of Judaism by the need for reinterpretation of the by-then (c.539 BCE) ancient writings, and by the attraction of and the struggle with Hellenism, and then with Rome. The concluding chapters concentrate on the transition from the Pharisaic contention to the creation of Talmudic Judaism under the Rabbis, the ultimate political alienation of the Jews, and finally the desperate and intense cultivation of cultural and ethnic endogamy by the Diaspora Jews as aliens in the countries in which they now lived. Itzkoff traces this hidden yet dynamic period to c.1200 CE. Much of both volumes is devoted to the explanation, through recent biblical and historical scholarship, of the tangible shifts and turns of emphasis within Judaism. But there is also an important ethnic component to Itzkoff s presentation of Judaism's origins and evolution that is not so widely known to readers who have not studied the anthropological origins of the ancient Jewish community. The ethnic and historical relationship of the Jews to the events of their origin adds much that is relevant to how that world of yesterday has shaped our understanding of the presentday world. The dilemmas of ethnic controversy are not unknown to us. Clarifying the historical evolution of the Jewish peoples helps us understand more clearly the nature of ethnicity and the history of the Middle East and even of Europe. Because these two volumes deal with the early origins of the Jewish nation, the author does not here become involved in more recent questions, such as the disparate demographic and cultural histories of the Sephardic and Ashkenazi branches. We will have to await the third and final volume to find out what Itzkoff has to say about Jewish history over the past eight centuries. Soul of the Israelites Itzkoff believes that the Hamites and Semites were a Caucasoid people whose common ancestors had acquired their distinctive racial characteristics during the Paleolithic, probably in more northern parts of Western Eurasia, but who in the course of time had expanded southwards, where they would have found life easier, especially at the edge of benign river valleys. This is also the sense of Genesis, as wanderers eternally seeking a new land of milk and honey, the people of Abraham eventually moved into the region of Ur, the ancient Sumerian city, then into Haran, a Hurrian/Mitanni city in northern Mesopotamia, before finally seizing the land of Canaan. Who were the Hurrians? Itzkoff regards them as IndoEuropean, and often speaks of the Hurrians, Hittites, and Mitanni as Indo-Europeans, but in this he may be questioned. Most scholars believe that the majority population of these states were a pre-Indo-European people of Anatolian origin, who were dominated by a small Indo-European ruling class. …