Heritage

Fülszöveg

^The Jewish people constitute only a fraction of the human family, yet we cannot recount the history of civilization without coming face to face with what the Jews have thought and felt and written and done.This is the story of a small people with a large place in the destiny of mankind/'
ABBAEBAN
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Heritage is "tlie story of a small people with a large place In the destiny of mankind Tliere is virtually no civilization that does not have a Jewish component, just as there is no Jewish civilization tliat does not bear the mark of another culture!' Thus states Abba Eban in tliis magnificently illustrated and supertily written book, tlie companion volume to tlie PBS television series "Herit;ige!'
Witli tlie characteristic eloquence Üiat has made him an international spokesman for his country and his people, Mr. Eban charts the 5,000-year-old Jewish encounter with civilization, from its birtli in the Mesopotamian desert to the rebirth of independence in die modem... Tovább

Fülszöveg

^The Jewish people constitute only a fraction of the human family, yet we cannot recount the history of civilization without coming face to face with what the Jews have thought and felt and written and done.This is the story of a small people with a large place in the destiny of mankind/'
ABBAEBAN
; I ; ' '
1 ''
Heritage is "tlie story of a small people with a large place In the destiny of mankind Tliere is virtually no civilization that does not have a Jewish component, just as there is no Jewish civilization tliat does not bear the mark of another culture!' Thus states Abba Eban in tliis magnificently illustrated and supertily written book, tlie companion volume to tlie PBS television series "Herit;ige!'
Witli tlie characteristic eloquence Üiat has made him an international spokesman for his country and his people, Mr. Eban charts the 5,000-year-old Jewish encounter with civilization, from its birtli in the Mesopotamian desert to the rebirth of independence in die modem State of Israel. With paintings, statues, sculpture, drawings, and decorative arts, drawn from the collections of the finest museums in the world, Heritage throws new liglit on die mysterj' of how so small a people—there are only 14 million Jews in the world today—could have had such a profound impact on all aspects of civilization—religion, philosophy, law, drama, science, art, political systems, ethics—and yet manage to preserve its own Identity in dispersion and exile widiout a ten-itorlal base or political Institution, conditions under which no odier people has survived.
To answer Üiese questions, Heritage takes die reader on an extraordinary voyage through human history:
• To the glittering empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia, out of which emerged the ancient Israelites widi their revolutionary ideas of monodieism, individualism, and law.
• To ancient Israel andjudea, with dieir great Kings, Solomon and David, the judges, and die prophets whose vision broadened die Hebrew Idea of hope to include odier nations and peoples.
• To the spiritual and political clash with the classical world of Persia, Greece, and Rome, the birth of Christianity, and the Jews' entry Into history as a people dispersed and in exile from its land.
• To die Middle Ages—Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire In the West, Islam In the East—a rich and crowded epoch In which Judaism was in constant Interplay widi Christianity and Islam, the two great faidis to which It gave birth.
• To the ghetto of Venice, where die Jews played a remarkable role In the Italian Renaissance; and to Middle Europe, where the Protestant Refomiation's challenge to the papacy placed die Jews In jeopardy while creating the conditions for die assimilation of Individual Jews into the modem world.
• To die new world fash loned out of die French Revolution and tlie social and political upheaval of1848 which opened the gateway in Westem Europe for individual achievement in many disciplines: first Mendelssohn, Heine, Disraeli, and Marx, dien Freud, Offenbach, and Schnltzler
• To Russia, where czarist oppression produced a cultural and religious renewal In addition to political movements such as communism, socialism, and Zionism,
• To the new Promised Land, America, which offered sanctuary to millions fleeing European oppression, and in return received die
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special contributions of Jews in areas that have become an integral part of our way of life, from labor relations to motion pictures.
• To the dark days of World War II which placed the entire civilized world in a bloody battle against the Nazi nightmare—a period that marked the virtual destruction of the Jews of Europe—and finally to the birth of the State of Israel.
"As we come now to the end of the twentieth century,' concludes Mr. Eban, "the Jewish future is uncharted; there are no certainties ahead. But a people that takes its past and its future with such intensity of recollection, such poignancy of affliction, and such creative vitality will not easily renounce its hope of planting its seed in future civilizations and taking its share of the common harvest from their midst!'
The product of sw years of planning and production, the nine-part PBS series "Heritage" is the most ambitious documentary in the history of American public television. Filmed in eighteen countries on four continents, the series features Abba Eban as on-screen host and chief consultant.
Statesman, diplomat, scholar, and writer, Abba Eban is presently a member of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, to which he was first elected in 1959- During his long career he has held many cabinet level positions, including Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador to the United States, and Ambassador to the United Nations.
Educated at Queen's College at Cambridge University, where he distinguished himself for academic excellence, Mr. Eban was a research fellow and lecturer at Pembroke College for Persian Studies at Cambridge. From 1959 to 1966 he served as President of the Weizmann Institute in Israel. He is the author of many books, including My People, My Country, and his Autobiography Vissza