Item Description:

This is a program of 56 individual subjects and personalities in Jewish history from the time of the Destruction of the First Temple until today. It includes a 3-5 minute overview and analysis by Rabbi Wein of each topic from Ezra to the 20th Century. Each is followed by a detailed explanation, written in outline form, as well as more detailed encyclopedic background material for the reader who wishes to explore further. Since each topic is independent and modular, every person can explore only the topic(s) of interest at their own pace and in any order. The topics are:

Babylonian Exile And The Rebuilding Of The Temple
Ezra and the Great Assembly
Greek Influence and Alexander the Great
Translating the Bible and Forced Assimilation
The Rabbis and the Hasmoneans
Decline of the Hasmoneans
The Last Hasmoneans
Beginning of the Roman Conquest
Rebellion Against Rome and Exile
Writing of the Talmud
Period of the Gaonim
Jews and Islam
Jews Come to Spain and The Golden Age
Jewish Poetry Beginning and Development of Ashkenazic Jewry
House of Rashi
Crusades
Maimonides, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon
Controversy Over Maimonides
Mysticism and Kabbalah
Changing Role of Jewish Spain and the Inquisition
Jews Return to the Land of Israel in the 1500’s
Code of Jewish Law-Shulchan Aruch
Renaissance and the Jews
Tach V’Tat 1648-49
Shabbetai Tzvi
Reverberations after Shabbetai Tzvi
Enlightenment and Reform
Rise of Reform
Haskalah and Reactions to Haskalah
Baal Shem Tov
Chassidic Movement
The Sephardic World
Gaon of Vilna
The Volozhin Yeshiva
Vilna Gaon and the Return to Israel
Jews Come to the United States
Sir Moses Montefiore
Mussar Movement
The Lovers of Zion
Impact of the Rothschild Family
Growth of the Colonies in the Land of Israel
Pogroms and Antisemitism
Dreyfus Affair and the New Antisemitism
Zionism
Jewish Immigration to America
The 1905 Russian Revolution
Secularization of Eastern European Jewry
World War I Begins
World War I Continues
Allenby, Lawrence, and Palestine
Versailles Treaty
Jewish Europe After WWI
Bolshevism and the Jews
American Jewry After WWI
Movies and the Jews