Chaim Potok has not written a scholarly history of the Jews. No one person could possibly do that…. But what Potok has done [in Wanderings] is to dramatize all of Jewish history and bring it to life, as only a novelist could. He has done his homework well and has gone to the scholars….

But after that, he has done something more, something they could not do, which is to make the bare bones of their scholarship come alive. He has made of Jewish history real theatre. He describes each period in dramatic terms as a conflict and a contrast between the Jewish people and the people whom they came in contact with, the ones who harbored and oppressed them. (p. 116)

There is a point to the subtitle of this book. It is indeed "Chaim Potok's History of the Jews," for the book is personal. In a way...