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Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory
"Mr. Yerushalmi's previous writings... established him as one of the Jewish community's most important historians. His latest book should establish him as one of its most important critics. Zakhor is historical thinking of a very high order - mature speculation based on massive scholarship."
- New York Times Book Review
- New York Times Book Review
191 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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652 people want to read
About the author
Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi
30books6followersYosef Hayim Yerushalmi (May 20, 1932 � December 8, 2009) was the Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture and Society at Columbia University, a position he held from 1980 to 2008 (from wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
December 24, 2017
A colorfully written, subtle, and compelling examination of the tension between collective memory and modern history in the Jewish context. The book traces brief sketches on Jewish people's relationship to history and looks into the question of why Jews did not exert serious efforts to compose history in the period between the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the Spanish Expulsion in 1492.
Yerushalmi argues that collective memory serves a role that history cannot replace. He asserts that during the Middle Ages, Jews used their biblical worldview as a blueprint for making sense of the present and used ritual to encase important, and often traumatic, events into the memories of their communities.
In the last chapter, Yerushalmi raises interesting questions on the use of history in modern times and its hypertrophic tendency to collect facts for their own sake. Yerushalmi says that while history can provide us with facts and, as a historian himself, is a strong proponent that it continue to do so, collective memory provides a people with a meaningful interpretation of those facts as well as a sense of identity. He asks himself whether Jewish people will ever find a metahistorical myth that may approximate function of collective memory.
The last chapter is much more confessional and personal, with the author acknowledging his own positionality to the subject matter as a Jewish historian and the relative loneliness of those "fallen Jews" who have tasted the "forbidden fruit" of the historical lens. The irony of his own work contributing to the hypertrophic accumulations to the Jewish history corpus is not lost on the author. Still, faced with the choice of doing "too much" or "too little" historical research, he sides with doing "too much"; he writes "for my terror of forgetting is greater than my terror of having too much to remember. Let the accumulated facts about the past continue to multiply. Let the flood of books and monographs grow, even if they are only read by specialists. Let unread copies lie on the shelves of many libraries, so that if some are destroyed, others will remain..."
For him, failing to remember is ultimately an injustice to mankind. Yerushalmi concludes "is it possible that the antonym of "forgetting" is not "remembering", but injustice?"
Yerushalmi argues that collective memory serves a role that history cannot replace. He asserts that during the Middle Ages, Jews used their biblical worldview as a blueprint for making sense of the present and used ritual to encase important, and often traumatic, events into the memories of their communities.
In the last chapter, Yerushalmi raises interesting questions on the use of history in modern times and its hypertrophic tendency to collect facts for their own sake. Yerushalmi says that while history can provide us with facts and, as a historian himself, is a strong proponent that it continue to do so, collective memory provides a people with a meaningful interpretation of those facts as well as a sense of identity. He asks himself whether Jewish people will ever find a metahistorical myth that may approximate function of collective memory.
The last chapter is much more confessional and personal, with the author acknowledging his own positionality to the subject matter as a Jewish historian and the relative loneliness of those "fallen Jews" who have tasted the "forbidden fruit" of the historical lens. The irony of his own work contributing to the hypertrophic accumulations to the Jewish history corpus is not lost on the author. Still, faced with the choice of doing "too much" or "too little" historical research, he sides with doing "too much"; he writes "for my terror of forgetting is greater than my terror of having too much to remember. Let the accumulated facts about the past continue to multiply. Let the flood of books and monographs grow, even if they are only read by specialists. Let unread copies lie on the shelves of many libraries, so that if some are destroyed, others will remain..."
For him, failing to remember is ultimately an injustice to mankind. Yerushalmi concludes "is it possible that the antonym of "forgetting" is not "remembering", but injustice?"
May 25, 2015
the first book we were assigned in history class in my 2nd year (1st year stateside) in rabbinic school. One of most important books I have ever read. Required reading :) Brilliant.
September 14, 2007
Content (thesis): Jews have always actively engaged the past, but the ways of doing so have changed. After the time of Biblical historiography, through the rabbinical and medieval periods, it was not history but myth, interpretation, and liturgy that preserve the community's relationship to the past. It was memory, as opposed to history, that was the bond to the past, and those two are rather different beings. It was during the modern era and the Jewish community's secularization and assimilation, the leaving of the ghetto, that the discipline of history (Wissenschaft) replaced memory as the primary Jewish means of engaging the past.
Form (style): Wonderfully written. Fluid, easy to read. Thesis is clear and well-documented with evidence and counter-arguments (even if you don't agree with the thesis). I meant to just skim the book but ended up reading the whole thing!
Form (style): Wonderfully written. Fluid, easy to read. Thesis is clear and well-documented with evidence and counter-arguments (even if you don't agree with the thesis). I meant to just skim the book but ended up reading the whole thing!
November 30, 2021
Zakhor by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi
A unique meditation on the role memory, forgetting and history plays in the life of the Jewish people. From the Torah to the Spanish Inquisition and the assimilation of German Jews, Yerushalmi illustrates how the Jewish people celebrate their own story and the tragedies that befell them.
His broad interest even entails a brief summary of a strange short story (Funes, the Memorist) written by the great Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges.
A brief book with a lasting memory of its own.
A unique meditation on the role memory, forgetting and history plays in the life of the Jewish people. From the Torah to the Spanish Inquisition and the assimilation of German Jews, Yerushalmi illustrates how the Jewish people celebrate their own story and the tragedies that befell them.
His broad interest even entails a brief summary of a strange short story (Funes, the Memorist) written by the great Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges.
A brief book with a lasting memory of its own.
November 9, 2020
Jewish, Protestant, whoever you are - - - you need to read this book. Rich and powerful.
November 11, 2024
A really important, interesting, and thought-provoking little book. I loved this so much and it gave me an understanding that will always stay with me and be very useful. It starts by tracing the Jewish approach to historiography before modern times, and then spends the last chapter exploring the tensions between Jewish history and Jewish memory in modern Jewish historiography. I'm left with so much to think about, especially relating to our obsession with continuity, the mythical pasts we create to support that obsession, and our difficulties with accepting loss and rupture. I'm glad I read this with Chanukah coming up because I'm always wrestling with the tensions between group memory, history, and our reconstructed mythical history around this time. Also can shed light on the situation of historiography in Orthodox and especially modox circles & the orientialism present in our conceptions of our history. Love!
June 2, 2024
The first time I read Yerushalmi's slender volume was in college and I was immediately taken with it. Coming back and re-reading it, Yerushalmi's portrait of a people who fervently resisted history is still so clear. Anyone who doubts historiography as a legitimate tool to understanding the formation of the Jewish people today should without a doubt read this book. All Jewish social, religious, and political movements, such as they are, seem to stem from our relationship to how we remember our past.
October 31, 2022
"I'm trying to remember to forget" - Bob Dylan
February 22, 2023
literally life changing
January 7, 2022
One of the most intellectually generative books I have ever read.
April 12, 2020
I finally got around to reading this classic book about Jewish historiography. A lot of my work as a translator and editor in the past decades has been in Jewish history. Among the Israeli historians and scholars I have worked with are Yosef Kaplan, Imanuel Etkes, Yisrael Bartal, Noam Zadoff, Pawel Maciejko, Shmuel Feiner, and Rachel Elior - all of whom have done important work on Jewish history both within the context of the Jews and within the context of general history.
The late professor Yerushalmi gave a series of lectures at the University of Washington, which were later published as "Zachor," a widely read and influential reflection on the relation between a group's collective memory, which is preserved in many ways, and the academic study of history.
For example: today the Jews, especially those of us who live in Israel, want to believe that the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judea were as mighty as the Bible says they were, whereas archaeologists and ancient historians are finding out that they weren't as impressive as all that. Are believing Jews going to be affected by historical truth? Probably no more than they are influenced by scientific accounts of the creation of the universe.
However, viewing Judaism (and other religions, for that matter) as something historical rather than as something immutable God-given can't help but influence thinking people.
I can't recommend this book too highly.
The late professor Yerushalmi gave a series of lectures at the University of Washington, which were later published as "Zachor," a widely read and influential reflection on the relation between a group's collective memory, which is preserved in many ways, and the academic study of history.
For example: today the Jews, especially those of us who live in Israel, want to believe that the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judea were as mighty as the Bible says they were, whereas archaeologists and ancient historians are finding out that they weren't as impressive as all that. Are believing Jews going to be affected by historical truth? Probably no more than they are influenced by scientific accounts of the creation of the universe.
However, viewing Judaism (and other religions, for that matter) as something historical rather than as something immutable God-given can't help but influence thinking people.
I can't recommend this book too highly.
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February 9, 2013A history on the historiography of Jews. Yerushalmi points out that Jews tended to dismiss history and neglect to record it until about the eighteenth/nineteenth century. It's interesting insight and history, especially for Jewish historians (to whom the lecture is directed).
The writing is a bit difficult; you have to concentrate on what he's saying. Ironically, Yerushalmi writes "The divorce of history from literature has been as calamitous for Jewish as for general historical writing, not only because it widens the breach between the historian and the layman, but because it affects the very image of the past that results." To me, Yerushalmi himself committed this crime. The book isn't literature by any stretch. Perhaps we can say many historian who came after him did make history much more akin to "literature".
The writing is a bit difficult; you have to concentrate on what he's saying. Ironically, Yerushalmi writes "The divorce of history from literature has been as calamitous for Jewish as for general historical writing, not only because it widens the breach between the historian and the layman, but because it affects the very image of the past that results." To me, Yerushalmi himself committed this crime. The book isn't literature by any stretch. Perhaps we can say many historian who came after him did make history much more akin to "literature".
March 15, 2013
Yerushalmi is an author who really makes you think and reflect.
Harold Bloom's introductory essay is also outstanding. I have been so impressed with this book that I immediately went on to read another of his books.
Harold Bloom's introductory essay is also outstanding. I have been so impressed with this book that I immediately went on to read another of his books.
April 20, 2013
Ahhh!! What a beautiful book. I wish I had read it when I was studyin history at the University. So much time I could have gained...
November 11, 2020
Intéressant pour la distinction entre histoire et mémoire, ainsi que pour la remarque que l'histoire s'écrit surtout en temps de crise
February 16, 2021
The short series of essays packs a powerful intellectual punch. The Author points distinguishes between history and memory. History as invented by the Greeks is the curiosity to know what happened where memory is the the emotional content to draw close the past. “If Herodotus was the father of history the father of meaning in history were the Jews.� 8 In history the Jews crossed the Red Sea once (or didn’t at all). In memory the meaning of that event is transmitted with every recollection.
Yerushalmi point to the astounding fact that almost 15 centuries passed between Josephus the next jew who will call himself an historian. Throughout late antiquity and until the expulsion from Spain, Jewish theology, philosophy, poetry, literature, and liturgy flourished, but not history in the Greek sense. “perhaps [the Rabbis] already knew of the history of what they needed to know. Perhaps they were even wary of it. For the rabbis the Bible was not only a repository of past history, but he revealed pattern of the world of all of history and they had learned their scriptures well.� 21 Thus, the Rabbis focused on how current events were given context by their shared memory retained in the scripture. As opposed to chronicling events of their lives or recent past. Only the expulsion from Spain an event of near total destruction - warranted recording. Even then those histories did not produce a renewal of jewish history.
Only after Jews became emancipated did their penchant for history return - freed from having to live within a closed system. Thus, the Wissenschaft des Judenthums� movement - tried to recreate the jewish past and Jewish identity in the history not faith. Thus, representing “a sharp break� with jewish continuity.
Yerushalmi indicates that the two maybe irreconcilable : “To the degree that this history is modern and demands to be taken seriously, it must at least functionally repudiate premises they were basic to all Jewish conceptions of history in the past. In fact, it must stand in sharp opposition to it on subject matter, “not on this for that detail, but concerning the vital core: the belief that divine providence is not only an ultimate but in active causal force in Jewish history and the related believe in the uniqueness of Jewish history itself.� 89 Perhaps this dichotomy has caused modern Jews to have an ambivalent attitude toward history (a claim of Yerushalmi’s that I don’t think I agree with). It is the holocaust, the modern parallel to the expulsion from Spain, that has captured Jews historical imagination.
If Jewish history is to succeed it will need to be more selective in adding meaning. Yerushalmi uses the great Borges short story “Funes the Memorious" to liken contemporary history with the accumulation of all facts without the ability to forget.
Yerushalmi point to the astounding fact that almost 15 centuries passed between Josephus the next jew who will call himself an historian. Throughout late antiquity and until the expulsion from Spain, Jewish theology, philosophy, poetry, literature, and liturgy flourished, but not history in the Greek sense. “perhaps [the Rabbis] already knew of the history of what they needed to know. Perhaps they were even wary of it. For the rabbis the Bible was not only a repository of past history, but he revealed pattern of the world of all of history and they had learned their scriptures well.� 21 Thus, the Rabbis focused on how current events were given context by their shared memory retained in the scripture. As opposed to chronicling events of their lives or recent past. Only the expulsion from Spain an event of near total destruction - warranted recording. Even then those histories did not produce a renewal of jewish history.
Only after Jews became emancipated did their penchant for history return - freed from having to live within a closed system. Thus, the Wissenschaft des Judenthums� movement - tried to recreate the jewish past and Jewish identity in the history not faith. Thus, representing “a sharp break� with jewish continuity.
Yerushalmi indicates that the two maybe irreconcilable : “To the degree that this history is modern and demands to be taken seriously, it must at least functionally repudiate premises they were basic to all Jewish conceptions of history in the past. In fact, it must stand in sharp opposition to it on subject matter, “not on this for that detail, but concerning the vital core: the belief that divine providence is not only an ultimate but in active causal force in Jewish history and the related believe in the uniqueness of Jewish history itself.� 89 Perhaps this dichotomy has caused modern Jews to have an ambivalent attitude toward history (a claim of Yerushalmi’s that I don’t think I agree with). It is the holocaust, the modern parallel to the expulsion from Spain, that has captured Jews historical imagination.
If Jewish history is to succeed it will need to be more selective in adding meaning. Yerushalmi uses the great Borges short story “Funes the Memorious" to liken contemporary history with the accumulation of all facts without the ability to forget.
September 21, 2020
Long interested in the history of my people and recently fascinated by the meaning of memory, I was delighted several years ago to find this beautiful book in a used bookstore. I quickly bought it, but it got buried under other books and neglected because of other tasks.
Rediscovering it as I am packing and preparing to move, I started reading. How rare, how delightful, to discover a work of serious scholarship that holds our attention from the first page to the last! Indeed, this is one of those few nonfiction books where the conclusion is not hastily added on, but carefully constructed to reinforce the scholar’s argument and to leave the reader thinking.
Not until I read this book was I aware of how recent in Jewish history is Jewish history. We didn’t tell the story of our people’s migrations over time. We told the story of our ancestors from Abraham to Moses, with a great focus on the latter. There were, Yerushalmi tells us, almost no Jewish historians until just after the Spanish Inquisition. And even then, they fit our ancestors� persecution in and expulsion from Spain into a larger narrative.
“As a professional Jewish historian,� Yerushalmi writes, “I am a new creature in Jewish history�:
And the “modern Jewish historian is himself “a product of rupture. Once aware of this, he is not only bound to accept it; he is liberated to use it.�
There is much to commend in this short book. It helped me see something that should have been readily apparent. Through our yearly repetition of the Torah, one portion each week, and our retelling of the Exodus story at Passover, for centuries, our memory as a people was a powerful mythic narrative of revelation and liberation, and the giving, interpretation, and enforcement of Mosaic law.
Only later in history did historians ask us to remember more than the Bible and ancient history. Only then did the idea of a Jewish history, independent of but beginning with the biblical narrative, arise.
To better understand how this happened, read this book. I highly recommend it.
Rediscovering it as I am packing and preparing to move, I started reading. How rare, how delightful, to discover a work of serious scholarship that holds our attention from the first page to the last! Indeed, this is one of those few nonfiction books where the conclusion is not hastily added on, but carefully constructed to reinforce the scholar’s argument and to leave the reader thinking.
Not until I read this book was I aware of how recent in Jewish history is Jewish history. We didn’t tell the story of our people’s migrations over time. We told the story of our ancestors from Abraham to Moses, with a great focus on the latter. There were, Yerushalmi tells us, almost no Jewish historians until just after the Spanish Inquisition. And even then, they fit our ancestors� persecution in and expulsion from Spain into a larger narrative.
“As a professional Jewish historian,� Yerushalmi writes, “I am a new creature in Jewish history�:
“More than that, it is the very nature of what and how I study, how I teach and what I write, that represents a radically new venture. I live within the ironic awareness that the very mode in which I delve into the Jewish past represents a decisive break with that past.Traditional Jews, by contrast, “seek, not the historicity of the past, but its eternal contemporaneity.� We are forever Pharaoh’s slaves, freed by Moses acting as God’s agent.
And the “modern Jewish historian is himself “a product of rupture. Once aware of this, he is not only bound to accept it; he is liberated to use it.�
There is much to commend in this short book. It helped me see something that should have been readily apparent. Through our yearly repetition of the Torah, one portion each week, and our retelling of the Exodus story at Passover, for centuries, our memory as a people was a powerful mythic narrative of revelation and liberation, and the giving, interpretation, and enforcement of Mosaic law.
Only later in history did historians ask us to remember more than the Bible and ancient history. Only then did the idea of a Jewish history, independent of but beginning with the biblical narrative, arise.
To better understand how this happened, read this book. I highly recommend it.
May 23, 2024
What a great book this is, packing so much scholarly information into a small space, & so smoothly & enjoyably. Yerushalmi's subject is one that brings into sharp focus some vague thoughts I've had for as long as I can remember regarding what irks me about my people the Jews. To think that for thousands of years there was no historical record written by a Jew! Maimonides even went so far as to say that the study of history was "a waste of time" !! Of all the haughty attitudes displayed by my people that really rub me the wrong way, this one takes the cake. That for so many centuries the only history deemed worth studying was the biblical variety written in the Torah & how it applies to our eventual redemption - it simply boggles the mind. Not only that, but when finally Jews did get around to writing about history the disappointing result was as fragmented & flawed as the religion's practice had become over those long years. Sparked by a series of lectures given by the author, Yerushalmi's monumental achievement is endlessly fascinating, impeccably organized, almost casually presented, & can be digested by just about anyone.
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December 13, 2024Jews martyring other Jews in Rhineland; offspring, spouses. (By raw numbers - Jews responsible for a large number of DEATHS of jews, however interpreted; how could this fact NOT leave impressions then precipitating Yuvals insights on ritual murder, blood libels, etc?) p.38
Rabbinical traditional view entailed essentially-Ahistorical FAKE memory, weaving ALL suffering together *as punishment from God*, result of THEIR failure to maintain covenant, etc. (collective psychological origins in adopting rabbis as their authorities?...who DID this to them, collectively; nationalist/Bundist/Zionist reorientation amid Emancipation, 'secularization' - WHILE remaining separate; comes the 'lachrymose' view a sort of secular recognition of deeper cause, not just suffering because of others). p.44-52.
Rabbinical traditional view entailed essentially-Ahistorical FAKE memory, weaving ALL suffering together *as punishment from God*, result of THEIR failure to maintain covenant, etc. (collective psychological origins in adopting rabbis as their authorities?...who DID this to them, collectively; nationalist/Bundist/Zionist reorientation amid Emancipation, 'secularization' - WHILE remaining separate; comes the 'lachrymose' view a sort of secular recognition of deeper cause, not just suffering because of others). p.44-52.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 23, 2023
I bought this because I am interested in the reliability (or unreliability) of historical memory. The author covers this in a thought-provoking, interesting manner, but what is equally interesting is his discussion of the lack of Jewish history. Relying on myth or religion to sustain them, the aversion to history servews a purpose. The lack of Jewish historians in the ancient world means others told their stories. Jewish historians apparently didn't emerge until the Spanish took Grenada and expelled them from the country. The discussion of how myth replaced history is fascinating.
March 15, 2018
Beautifully written and highly quotable, in the way that books by R. Abraham Joshua Heschel generally are. This one comes from the same genre-of-sorts, lectures and notes that have been compiled into book form. It's at times a bit cumbersome to read, but if you read it out loud it actually works. A book on tape version is potentially a great match for this issue. All that said, the entire content could have been reduced to about one chapter. A necessity for anyone studying Jewish history.
October 25, 2020
It's not an easy thing to explain why memory vs. history is an important distinction, particularly for an entire people. But it IS critical, and it IS crucial to understand why the Jewish people have such a complicated relationship with history, and how that has flipped on its head the last 70 years to be a difficulty engaging with memory.
But I get it now. And I have to read this again so I understand it better.
But I get it now. And I have to read this again so I understand it better.
November 4, 2022
I read this book based on a footnote given by a Bible Study class. I wanted to understand the importance of remembering. The New testament written mostly by Jews. I wanted to understand what is meant by remembrance and the author tried to explain how Jews remember things. I gained a better knowledge of how Jews used this word and how we use it in Liturgy today.
August 20, 2021
A book about remembering - remembering history, remembering tradition - and how that influences our views in the present. I suppose this book was written with a Jewish audience in mind but I, as a Christian, found it particularly enlightening for my own experience. A very good book.
June 29, 2022
Несколько эссе об отношениях коллективной памяти с историографией, на примере еврейства (главным образом) в период между формированием Ветхого завета и поворотом к современному историописанию к начале XIX в., шире - об отношениях запоминания и забывания в жизни человечества.
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August 4, 2022“The Holocaust has already engendered more historical research than any single event in Jewish history, but I have no doubt whatever that its image is being shaped, not at the historian’s anvil, but in the novelist’s crucible." ... good stuff Yosef
January 31, 2022
I’m not sure what I just read? It felt very abstract, not truly a history as much as a hand-wavy spiel?
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December 28, 2022Favorite Quote: “Is it possible that the antonym of ‘forgetting� is not ‘remembering� but *justice*?� � Reflections on Forgetting, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, 1987
January 8, 2023
This needs to be a reread.
August 15, 2023
Worth it for the postrctip on the role of memory in any religion
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