Monday 28 November 2016

Documentary review: The Story of the Jews, by Simon Schama

I bought this 5-part BBC documentary (made in 2013) thinking it was called "The History of the Jews" and I watched it through to the end thinking as such. It was only when I started typing this Blog post that I realised it was called "The Story of the Jews"! And now the content of the documentary makes a lot more sense. Its title is pretty apt but a better one-line summary is probably: "The Case for Israel, written and presented by Simon Schama". Don't get me wrong though: this is a good documentary and definitely worth the watch. If you want to understand why the existence of present-day Israel is so important to many Jewish people, then this is definitely a good documentary to watch. There are a couple of things to bear in mind however: Firstly, you'll find that modern history is given way more mention than the origins of Judaism; secondly, you'll have to overlook some strange comments like "Judaism was the first monotheistic religion" and "Judaism invented the abstract God". At the end of the day, it's all good food for thought.