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The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words, 1000 BCE - 1492 cover art

The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words, 1000 BCE - 1492

By: Simon Schama
Narrated by: Andrew Sachs, Saul Reichlin
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Summary

It is a story like no other: an epic of endurance against destruction, of creativity in oppression, joy amidst grief, the affirmation of life against the steepest of odds. It spans the millennia and the continents - from India to Andalusia and from the bazaars of Cairo to the streets of Oxford. It takes you to unimagined places: to a Jewish kingdom in the mountains of southern Arabia; a Syrian synagogue glowing with radiant wall paintings; the palm groves of the Jewish dead in the Roman catacombs. And its voices ring loud and clear, from the severities and ecstasies of the Bible writers to the love poems of wine bibbers in a garden in Muslim Spain.

And a great story unfolds. Not - as often imagined - of a culture apart, but of a Jewish world immersed in and imprinted by the peoples among whom they have dwelled, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, from the Arabs to the Christians. Which makes the story of the Jews everyone's story, too.

©2013 Simon Scama (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words, 1000 BCE - 1492

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Don't waste your money

First the Reading - always important to those of us who are addicted to audible.
It's a game of two halves.
When I saw that Simon Schama I thought that the reading would be better - but no. Andrew Sachs reads like a man who has been poked in the eye and hit on the head far too often. He has no characterisation and provides no rise and fall in his voice. He breaks sentances in the wrong places and generally sounds like a man merely reading words, but having no understanding of the topic.
Thankfully he only reads the first part and is followed by Saul Reichlin, who does a much better job. It's hard to know if he reads it well, or just better than Andrew Sachs.

Now for the content.
I listen to a lot of history on Audible. Mainly the Great Courses series, which are proper academics at the top of their subject. Some take the broad sweep and deal with the rise and fall of kingdoms, the movements of people and the causes of those great themes. Others deal with social history diving in for a close up of the daily life and minutiae of ordinary people.
Sadly Simon Schama does neither of these.
A big story needs a big picture, and there is no greater story than the story of the Jewish people. Triumphant, pivotal in many empires and influencing the whole of world history and human culture the Jewish people have never been safe, but have always survived. The way in which empires have risen and fallen around them, the rise of monotheism.
But this is a little book about little people. We are introduced to dozens, maybe hundreds of people who happen to have written a shopping list or a note to their son and whose note has happened to survive.
Schama leaps around the world and through time to confuse the listener.
It's like being at a party with a hundred strangers. You just get chatting to one you think is interesting when the host whips them away and you are left with the village bore.

If you enjoy listening to audio books, you will hate this reading.
If you enjoy history, of any kind, you will be frustrated by this book.

My advise - don't waste your money.

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34 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Part of the history of the Jews.

A very, very long book that really needs to be read in several sections. A good presentation of part of the history of the Jews with only three draw backs. The first is the length, which can be sorted out by reading in several chunks. Secondly the slightly deadpan way the book was read and finally it was very hard to keep track of who was who and where they were. I would suggest that it would provide a good read and just to go with the flow and don't try to keep track of the people who are being written about and just focus on the events.

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22 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

The story gets lost in the words

I confess I haven't finished this- though I promise you I've tried.

The style is too prolix and colloquial, it bogs down... it has no trouble 'finding the words' the trouble is it finds too many of them.

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14 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating

Scholarly yet accessible account of early Jewish history. I'm Impatiently waiting for the next instalment.

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11 people found this helpful

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A beautifully told story to make you weep

Had I been reading this book I am not sure I could have finished it. The narrators are wonderful the content compulsive but so often tragic almost beyond belief. A story that deserves to be told with so many reminders of more recent times

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8 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

No idea what’s going on, great for insomniacs.

Impossible to follow whatever the narrator is saying. Probably not helped by the fact that I honestly kept falling asleep (in the middle of the day!). I gave it a couple of hours before giving up and deciding to return it.

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6 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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An informative engaging read

A very interesting subject tackled in an engaging and entartainig way. The second part read better than first but it may be the question of taste.I recommend highly for all interested in history as well as Jewish history in particular.

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5 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Seemed rambling and hard to follow

I don't finish it. Seemed rambling and hard to follow so I returned the book. Will keep looking for a good audio book about Jewish history!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

An illuminating & eloquent history of the Jews.

Well written and well read. From Yeshivot, Rabbinical college, I never got the full picture nor did I get the time line. This book has elucidated many things I never understood. I’m also aware now that if we don’t watch our politics in Israel we can face expulsion like we did 2,000 years ago.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

The creation of Judaism despite persecution

In case you were wondering why 1492 it's the Jewish Expulsion from Spain after persecution by the Spanish Inquisition. Persecution is a key theme in the book, from the, not necessarily historically supported, Exodus to the Roman destruction or the Temple, this book covers the creation of the Torah and Talmud whilst the community is forbidden, exiled and executed throughout the world.

I didn't realise before reading how recent the creation of the Mishnah, Mishnah Torah and Talmud were which does rob some of the inscrutable mystery.

The author can occasionally get lost in the weeds with details of how much someone's dowry was on a long tangent describing female rights. I didn't enjoy the section on poetry or art and the history can really jump around to make you think that events decades apart were really close together.

Very expansive in certain scopes but does assume some familiarity with Judaism.

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2 people found this helpful