Jewish History and Education: A Review Essay

• Published in: Historically speaking Vol. 14; no. 5; pp. 42 - 43
• Main Author: Hoffman, Philip T
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.11.2013
• Subjects: 7th century; Agriculture; Centuries; Diaspora; Economic growth; Economic history; Education; Historians; Jewish people; Judaism; Literacy; Middle Ages; Population; Professions; Science; Social sciences; Women; United States > US; Eurasia; Europe
• ISSN: 1941-4188; 1944-6438; 1944-6438
• DOI: 10.1353/hsp.2013.0057

[...]why did the Jews spread out into cities across Eurasia and then the world from the 9th century on and why did they end up establishing a worldwide diaspora of urban communities? The model, which builds upon their review of the evidence and upon real and hypothetical examples, weighs the tensions that pulled at Jews in late antiquity and the Middle Ages as they decided whether to relocate, educate their sons, pick a new profession, or convert from Judaism to Christianity. J. H. Hexter made this point long ago and illustrated it by contrasting the history of two baseball seasons, with one-the 1951 National League race-demanding a dramatic narrative culminating with Bobby Thomson's walk off home run that won the New York Giants the pennant, and the other-the 1939 American League race-requiring not a narrative, but an analysis to explain why the New York Yankees were consistently better than every other team.2 Botticini and Eckstein's questions necessitate the same sort of analysis, and that means going through the evidence, seeing whether it fits the answers historians and social scientists have proposed, and then testing it against the insights from their model. Some talented historians are loath to bring past religion under the microscope of the social sciences, but as Philip Benedict has argued, this criticism seems misguided.3 Economics, of course, might seem particularly ill suited to the historical study of religion, but men and women in the past had to make do with limited means, and that constraint, which makes economics useful, marked their behavior, even when their religious convictions were profound.4 Applying economics does not imply disrespect for the Jews' religious beliefs; rather, it simply mean acknowledging that even the devout have to live in this world.