Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World)
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Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World)
Historical accounts of Jewish violence--particularly against Christians--have long been explosive material. Some historians have distorted these records for anti-Semitic purposes. Others have discounted, dismissed, or simply ignored the evidence, often for apologetic purposes.
In Reckless Rites, Elliott Horowitz takes a new and forthright look at both the history of Jewish violence since late antiquity and the ways in which generations of historians have grappled with that history. In the process, he has written the most wide-ranging book on Jewish violence in any language, and the first to fully acknowledge and address the actual anti-Christian practices that became part of the playful, theatrical violence of the Jewish festival of Purim. He has also examined the different ways in which the book of Esther, upon which the festival is based, was used by Jews and Christians over the centuries--whether as an ancient mirror of modern tribulations or as the scriptural basis for anti-Semitic claims regarding the bloodthirstiness of the Jews.
Reckless Rites reassesses the historical interpretation of Jewish violence--from the alleged massacre of thousands of Christians in seventh-century Jerusalem to later medieval attacks on Christian symbols such as the crucifix, transgressions that were often committed in full knowledge that their likely consequence would be death.
A book that calls for major changes in the way that Jewish history is written and conceptualized, Reckless Rites will be essential reading for scholars and students of history, religion, and Jewish-Christian relations.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
The Pronounced Reciprocity of Jewish-Christian Religious Hostilities:
Usually, all we hear is that Christians thought of Jews as responsible for deicide. Throughout this book, Horowitz makes it clear that Jews had just as much religiously-motivated animosity against Christians as Christians did against Jews. Horowitz paints the former as a defensive reaction of Jews against Christian persecution. Yet it becomes obvious from reading his book that such acts occurred in places and times when Jews were not undergoing persecution, and that these acts were often very overt and... more info
Bad judgment as historical injustice:
Elliot Horowitz tries to make a new reading of Jewish history as a whole. He wants to argue for the idea that violence on the part of Jews has been in the Diaspora an important and predominant factor. However the number of illustrations he can muster to prove his point is few. And what he does instead is provide a skewed misreading of Diaspora Jewish history as whole.
It may be true that Jewish history for two thousand years consists in more than victimization. But there is no proportion whatsoever... more info
A brilliant book by a prodigiously creative historian:
Horowitz is one of the most original historians of Jewish cultural and intellectual history writing today. This book is in turn surprising, unnerving and enchanting, and disposes of pious presuppositions about the changing image and force of violence in Jewish religious thought. A tour de force.
A new perspective on Purim and Esther:
This book, subtitled Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence, everything is viewed through the prism of the violence inflicted by the Jews upon their enemies at the end of Esther. While arguably, the violence at the end is only a minor part of the story for some that aspect has clouded everything about the Book of Esther and Purim. First Horowitz looks at how the Book was viewed by non-Jews. Some had a very negative view due to the Jewish revenge. They considered that motif, un-biblical (read... more info
