. . the choosing people rather than the chosen." Chaim Bermant caters neither to sentimentality nor facile prejudice in this striking portrait of a culture that has always resisted easy understanding. His candid examination of the personal and social history of the Jews through the ages does not overlook their human foibles nor underestimate their uniqueness. The Jews is enlightening and amusing, liberally sprinkled with anecdotes about the many out standing and prominent ]ews who seem to epitomize the cliches so many believe. Half truths and myths are separated from their true nature and reality with disarming directness in an adroit blend of history, sociology and philosophy. Here are the Rothschilds, the Warner brothers, Karl Marx, Jonas Salk, Chaim Weizmann, Sandy Konfax, julius Rosenwald, Modigliani alive as individuals, part of the jewish people. Their classic struggle to survive centuries of oppression has lent a poignant urgency to their search for an identity, a drive that is deep and abiding in the human experience.
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