Unsettled is a very fine, unsettling book-
and highly recommended to Jews and non-Jews alike!
reviewed by Allan Gould
History can be exciting, yet so many classic histories of the Jews are rather dry and dispassionate—surprising, when one considers how dynamic and passionate are the Jewish people, and the outrageously vicious (and often deeply-loving) response they draw out of others. I love recent books such as Paul Johnson’s A History of the Jews (written by a committed Catholic, and a right-winger, to boot), but the Jewish histories I once were enthralled by—such as Max Dimont’s Jews, God, and History, were later discovered to be often wrong-headed and factually flawed.
What a thrill then, to discover Unsettled (with the intriguing sub-title, An Anthropology of the Jews), by medical doctor and Professor of Anthropology at Emory University Melvin Konner. The book is both highly personal (he was a practising, Orthodox Jew until he was 17, and only recently has returned—at least culturally—to the faith) and dynamically, reliably historical.
And what an interesting concept, to begin with: to look at the Jews from an anthropological viewpoint, studying them from the mountains of Ethiopia to villages in Afghanistan, India and China. As he notes, a quarter-way through this 450-page book, although Jewish history "seems a trail of tears. . . .the real history is not that of wars and kings, slaughter and exile, but that of the moment-to-moment lives of ordinary people." Then, as he often does, he quotes a phrase from the TRUE basis of the Jewish people over the past two millennia—far more than the Torah—the Talmud: "Every place where Israel was exiled, the Divine Presence was with them/ They were exiled to Egypt, the Presence was with them/ They were exiled to Babylon, the Presence was with them. . . .and when they shall return, the Presence will be with them."
From his very introduction, Professor Konner grabs us by our intellectual and moral eyes, ears and throat with his beautiful prose. He lists "some of the main points" that he hopes to make in the book, and many will challenge even the most educated student of Jewish history: "Contrary to some claims—peoplehood—something quite different from religion—has been a part of Jewish identity from the beginning. . . . The notion of the Jews as a studious, mild, ethical people who do not fight is a myth. Ancient Israel was born in violence, as were both Temple and Torah Judaism. . . . The great Jewish gifts to the world—monotheism, the Ten Commandments, resistance against tyranny—were born in weakness in a group of tribes, then a kingdom, buffeted between great empires. . . . At least four times ancient Israel was devastated because of Jewish factionalism, splinter cults, extreme religious zealotry, and military overreach. This may happen again. . . ."
I was so enthralled by the book's daring, its insights, its strikingly New Way of approaching thirty-plus centuries of Jewish existence. The author is capable of great wit and irony, as he notes that, long before Rome, Greece, even Babylon, a Pharaoh by the name of Merneptah gave the world the very first archeological use of the word "Israel" in a list of nations which had been vanquished, and were no more. "The first mention of Israel is meant to be its last," Konner almost chuckles, referring to an Egyptian column which dates back to over 1200 years before the Common Era.
What makes Unsettled (what an inspired title!!) so special? The fact that the author has been "an insider" helps; the fact that he longs to see the Jews continue as a people, a nation, a religion also helps—even if many might be ware of such empathy and closeness to a scientist’s subject. While never chauvinistic, he makes claims which I’ve rarely seen before, but are probably irrefutable: "Why did Jewish thinkers play a strong role in laying the intellectual foundations of the modern world? [Einstein, Freud, Marx, etc.] First, their ancient tradition of creating and studying texts was one of the oldest on the planet. When other cultures’ identities depended on territory, the Jews had to rely on texts. There were always Jews who restricted themselves to holy texts and Jews—Philo, Josephus, the Jewish thinkers of Islam, even Maimonides—who straddled Jewish and secular civilization. Renaissance Europe was no exception, and the Jewish printing presses spreading throughout the Continent and beyond mass-produced sacred texts as well as new secular ones. For centuries Jews had literacy rates several times as high as those of the people around them."
Konner sees the insanity, even absurdity, of Jew-hatred with a clearer eye than I have even encountered, such as this paragraph in his closing chapter: "The Jews were killed for keeping their own ways, and they were killed for trying to pass as Greek. They were killed for rejecting Christianity, and when they accepted it they were killed for not embracing it strongly enough. They were killed for being in charge of world capitalism, and they were killed for trying to overthrow it. . . . They were killed because they were weak, pathetic, and defenseless, and now they are killed because they are strong, proud, and protected. . . ."
Unsettled was first published in the last days of 2003, and recently came out in a reasonably-priced paperback, but it’s also easily available in remaindered hardcover in many Jewish bookstores or available online for less than ten dollars. It is money well-spent, and will give you strength to survive—and oodles of good cocktail conversation—for the next millennia, if they let us live that long. Bravo, Dr. Konner.
Allan Gould is a Toronto-based author and journalist. He is presently teaching a course for KOLEL based on his own, edited anthology, WHAT DID THEY THINK OF THE JEWS?
