SOURCE: A review of A History of the Jews, in Los Angeles Times Book Review, April 19, 1987, pp. 1, 6.

In the following review of A History of the Jews, Neusner objects to Johnson's reductive linear narrative of Jewish history and his falsely homogenous portrait of Jewish identity.

Paul Johnson is excited by “the sheer span of Jewish history.” Loving these “long continuities,” and seeing the Jews as having a “separate and specific identity earlier than almost any other people which still survives,” he has come with great enthusiasm to a subject he in fact does not grasp at all. The result [A History of the Jews] is a pleasure to read, but most of what is in it is either half-true or all wrong.

Liberal editor turned conservative historian, Johnson has published, among other works, A History of the English People, A History of Christianity and—the best known and...