Simon Schama tells his people's story

The last thing the young Simon Schama thought he would do as an adult was write a history of Judaism.

"When I was a kid doing history at school in the '60s, I remember my teacher saying, 'Well, lads . . . nationalism and organized religion are a thing of the past.' He thought the socialist revolution would sweep them away," said Schama, whose five-hour TV documentary The Story of the Jews will air on on PBS (locally on WHYY TV12) in two installments, 8 to 10 p.m. Tuesday and 8 to 11 p.m. on April 1.

The revolution never came: Nationalism and religion weren't abolished, but became even more powerful forces in world events, said Schama - witness 9/11 and the current crisis in Ukraine.

Written and narrated by Schama, The Story of the Jews is an exciting, breezy, fast-moving yet deeply engaging look back at the 3,000-year history of Schama's religion and culture. Despite its scope, it's one of the historian's most personal works.

Schama, 69, this month also released the first of two volumes to accompany the series, The Story of the Jews, Volume I: Finding the Words, 1000 BCE-1492 CE. The second volume is due in fall. He will discuss the series and books Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Central Library of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

An erudite historian best known for his book on the French Revolution, Citizens, and a magisterial three-volume history of Britain, Schama has infinite faith in the power of TV to inform, enlighten, and educate. His previous programs include Simon Schama's Power of Art, The American Future: A History, and Simon Schama's Shakespeare.

"This type of documentary making is often a trivialization of what is gravely written," he said, putting ironic emphasis on gravely. "I have not believed that ever. There is a kinship between" book and television.

Given the sheer volume of books and documentaries on this topic, Schama knew he had to approach the job from a fresh angle.

"This is a series without a back-lit camel," he said, "I knew we wanted to stay away from questions such as 'So, was Abraham a real person?' or ask whether the Bible is a real historical document."

A populist as well as a popular historian, he decided to focus The Story of the Jews not on Jewish theology or biblical history, but on people, and unearthed unique stories about Jewish families, bankers, artists and musicians, and others through the centuries.

His story has a majestic sweep: We learn about a community of Jewish mercenaries at Elephantine, an island in the Nile, who built their own version of the Temple about 419 B.C. He shares stories about the historian Josephus, who ingratiated himself to the Romans but remained a proud Jew.

We hear the inspiring story of the 18th-century philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, who proudly defended Judaism in a debate with Christian theologians. Schama talks of Mendelssohn's friendship with gentile playwright Gotthold Lessing and their fervent belief that the Enlightenment would dissolve the difference between Jews and Christians.

And he plays us the music of the philosopher's grandson, composer Felix Mendelssohn, who set Europe alight with symphonic and chamber works in the first half of the 19th century. He was a mentor to the young Richard Wagner - who after Mendelssohn's death proceeded to destroy his reputation in much of Europe based on his "Jewish blood."

The Story of the Jews also traces the history of anti-Semitism from late antiquity to the Middle Ages, when first England, then Spain expelled all Jews, to the 19th-century Russian pogroms and the 20th century's Holocaust.

Schama deconstructs the language of anti-Semitism used in 388 A.D., when Christians in the Roman Empire attacked synagogues, demonizing Jews as Christ-killers and satanists who sacrificed Christian babies to their deity. It's the same language used 1,550 years later in Germany.

So what makes Jews living thousands of miles and hundreds of years apart Jewish, Schama asks?

Jews are not united "by the color of our skin, not the language we speak, the tunes we sing, the food we eat, not our opinions," Schama says on camera.

Instead, he says, it is "loyalty to the God of words."

The early Israelites had a Temple and a set of established rituals. But after the Temple was destroyed - for the second time - in 70 A.D., Judaism came to be a religion of the word, a religion centered on reading, argumentation, and interpretation.

"The most striking thing about Judaism," Schama says, " . . . is that it has discovered a way of maintaining an identity not defined by the usual markers: power, land, and armies. Jews defined themselves by the power of words."

Simon Schama: "The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 1000 BC-1492 AD"

Thursday 7:30 p.m. at the Free Library

of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine St.

Tickets: $15, $7 students.

215-567-4341, www.freelibrary.org/

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