From Publishers Weekly
From the vast textual and pictorial resources of the Jewish past, Cantor has culled 150 selections that offer a "kaleidoscopic view of Jewish behavior and consciousness through multiple times and places." He defines 10 patterns of behavior and divides the book accordingly: ambivalence and marginality; growing up among Jews; maturing and dying; intoxication with divine power; victims and martyrs; hoping and coping; Jewish women; striking back against adversity; Jewish individuals who have become "icons"; and alternative dimensions of Jewish culture and society. His choice of excerpts from short stories, essays, novels, biographies and memoirs shows the imagination and range of Jewish writing, as Cantor balances the wisdom of rabbis and Jewish leaders with the voices of ordinary people and the insights of writers and rebels from Sholem Aleichem to Jack Benny. Cantor (History/New York University) organizes his opus by topic and category rather than chronology. This structure becomes disconcerting when selections about the Holocaust precede those about the Spanish Expulsion of 1492 and the mass suicide of Jews at Masada in A.D. 73. He passes the litmus test of inclusiveness, featuring works by two often-overlooked groups?women and Sephardic Jews. Although the tone of the historical overview and introductory notes in this unconventional anthology is slightly patronizing and professorial, the gems contained in this collection are well worth the effort it takes to mine them. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Through 150 selections of short stories, essays, novel excerpts, portions of biographies, and segments of memoirs, The Jewish Experience offers a kaleidoscopic view of Jewish behavior and consciousness. Cantor, a scholar and historian, divides the book into 10 sections, each devoted to a specific theme: living on the edge, growing up, maturing and dying, divine intoxication, victims and martyrs, hoping and coping, women, striking back, icons, and alternative intimations. Each section begins with a brief thematic introduction by Cantor. Excerpts from most of the influential Jewish writers are gathered, including Jerome Weidman (I Can Get It for You Wholesale), Henry Roth (Call It Sleep), Sholem Aleichem, I. L. Peretz, Mordecai Richler (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz), Philip Roth (Goodbye, Columbus), Bernard Malamud (The Assistant), Primo Levi (Survival in Auschwitz), Aharon Appelfeld (Badenheim), Irving Howe (The World of Our Fathers), Franz Kafka, and Amos Oz. Cantor has put together an encyclopedic work certain to rank among the modern classics in Jewish anthological writings. George Cohen


Midwest Book Review
Over 3,000 years of Jewish history and experience are packed into an account which mingles essays, biographical sketches, memoirs and other first-person accounts. Chapters are divided by themes in Jewish culture and present exciting concepts.


From the Publisher
Over 3,000 years of Jewish culture, history and thought are brought to life in The Jewish Experience. Containing selections from more than 100 written texts as well as more than 50 illustrations, it includes short stories, essays, novels, biographies, memoirs, and other first-person accounts. In addition, the book includes Professor Cantor's insightful commentary that puts the selections into context. As such, it assembles expressions and descriptions of Jewish feeling and reason, hope and despair, expectation and disappointment, ambition and love throughout history and throughout the world.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Over 3,000 years of Jewish culture, history and thought are brought to life in Norman F. Cantor's The Jewish Experience. Containing selections from more than 100 written texts as well as more than 50 illustrations - this extraordinary collection includes short stories, essays, novels, biographies, memoirs and other first-person accounts. In addition, the book includes Professor Cantor's insightful commentary that puts the selections into context. As such, it assembles expressions and descriptions of Jewish feeling and reason, hope and despair, expectation and disappointment, and ambition and love throughout history and throughout the world. Here you will find both the familiar and the obscure - everything from Maimonides on the difference between Judaism and Christianity to Philip Roth on sex and money in Newark, from Franz Kafka on the coming of the Messiah to Letty Cotten Pogrebin on the Hollywood image of the American Jewish Woman, and from Primo Levi on Auschwitz to Irving Howe on New York's Lower East Side. In short, The Jewish Experience is a unique evocation of Jewish voices expressing Jewish concerns, beliefs and ideas from the Patriarchs to today.

FROM THE CRITICS

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