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Critical Documents of Jewish History: A Sourcebook
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- GenresJudaism
373 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1995
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December 28, 2025
A VERY USEFUL COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTS
Rabbi Ronald H. Isaacs is (since 2015) the Rabbi of Beth Judah Temple; he is also the rabbi Emeritus of Temple Sholom in Jew Jersey, where he served for 40 years. Rabbi Kerry M. Olitsky is the former Executive Director of ‘Big Tent Judaism,’ and former director of the School of Edudaton at Hebrew Union College.
They wrote in the Introduction to this 1995 collection, “The selections made in this volume are not by any means intended to be exhaustive. There is plenty of other material that could almost as easily have found its way into this collection… Nevertheless, we chose the documents in this volume over hundreds of other possible selections because we believe that these documents in particular (and the people who felt their impact) helped to shape the development of Jewish history as we know it. As a result, in one way or another, they are formative with respect both to the Jewish community in which we live and to our lives as active participants in it…
“As educators, we believe it is crucial for students of all ages to be able to read source documents… so that they can draw their own conclusions from them. Unfortunately, due to the length of some of the documents… we were forced to abbreviate slightly in certain places… Included are documents that chronicle the history of the Jewish people… we have incorporated documents that we believe are foundational to the four major Jewish movements in North America. The third major category of documents refers to Israel, with regard to which we too often rely on the interpretation of others… Thus, it is our hope that the documents regarding Israel will provide the reader with readily accessible material from which to form his or her own opinion about our homeland.”
They divide the documents into the following categories: [I] American Jewish History; [II] World Jewish History (including the infamous 1492 Edict mandating the expulsion of the Jews from Spain); [III] Reform Judaism; [IV] Conservative Judaism; [V] Reconstructionism; [VI] Philosophy/Theology; [VII] Israel (including the Balfour Declaration, the 1939 White Paper, the 1978 Camp David Peace Agreement, etc.) [VII] Orthodox Judaism.
Each document has a brief (about one paragraph) introduction.
This collection will be of GREAT interest to those seriously studying Jewish history.
Rabbi Ronald H. Isaacs is (since 2015) the Rabbi of Beth Judah Temple; he is also the rabbi Emeritus of Temple Sholom in Jew Jersey, where he served for 40 years. Rabbi Kerry M. Olitsky is the former Executive Director of ‘Big Tent Judaism,’ and former director of the School of Edudaton at Hebrew Union College.
They wrote in the Introduction to this 1995 collection, “The selections made in this volume are not by any means intended to be exhaustive. There is plenty of other material that could almost as easily have found its way into this collection… Nevertheless, we chose the documents in this volume over hundreds of other possible selections because we believe that these documents in particular (and the people who felt their impact) helped to shape the development of Jewish history as we know it. As a result, in one way or another, they are formative with respect both to the Jewish community in which we live and to our lives as active participants in it…
“As educators, we believe it is crucial for students of all ages to be able to read source documents… so that they can draw their own conclusions from them. Unfortunately, due to the length of some of the documents… we were forced to abbreviate slightly in certain places… Included are documents that chronicle the history of the Jewish people… we have incorporated documents that we believe are foundational to the four major Jewish movements in North America. The third major category of documents refers to Israel, with regard to which we too often rely on the interpretation of others… Thus, it is our hope that the documents regarding Israel will provide the reader with readily accessible material from which to form his or her own opinion about our homeland.”
They divide the documents into the following categories: [I] American Jewish History; [II] World Jewish History (including the infamous 1492 Edict mandating the expulsion of the Jews from Spain); [III] Reform Judaism; [IV] Conservative Judaism; [V] Reconstructionism; [VI] Philosophy/Theology; [VII] Israel (including the Balfour Declaration, the 1939 White Paper, the 1978 Camp David Peace Agreement, etc.) [VII] Orthodox Judaism.
Each document has a brief (about one paragraph) introduction.
This collection will be of GREAT interest to those seriously studying Jewish history.
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