Non­fic­tion

Oppor­tu­ni­ties That Pass: A His­tor­i­cal Miscellany

Cecil Roth; Israel Finestein, Joseph Roth, eds.
  • Review
By – July 26, 2012

Cecil Roth (1899 – 1970) was a pro­lif­ic, pop­u­lar and emi­nent­ly read­able Jew­ish his­to­ri­an. He was a col­lec­tor of Judaica as well as of arcane bits of Jew­ish his­to­ry. His first love was Ital­ian Jew­ry, and the vol­umes he wrote on that sub­ject are mon­u­ments to his eru­di­tion. Roth’s schol­ar­ship was ency­clo­pe­dic: over 700 pub­li­ca­tions bear his dis­tinct style and mas­tery of the Eng­lish lan­guage. The 16-vol­ume Ency­clo­pe­dia Judaica, which he edit­ed, was the crown­ing achieve­ment of his lega­cy. Sad­ly, the first vol­ume was print­ed the day fol­low­ing his death. 

This col­lec­tion of essays is unique for two rea­sons. First­ly, the essays includ­ed appeared in the Lon­don Jew­ish Chron­i­cle, most­ly dur­ing the 30’s, and were intend­ed for a gen­er­al audi­ence. Hence, they are unen­cum­bered by schol­ar­ly notes. Sec­ond­ly, they are grouped the­mat­i­cal­ly around the Jew­ish fes­ti­vals. Roth weaves a tapes­try of his­to­ry, folk­lore, and inter­est­ing bits of infor­ma­tion about the Jew­ish hol­i­days. We read about strange Purim cus­toms, Jews in Saloni­ca and Mal­ta and a host of unusu­al cel­e­bra­tions in dif­fer­ent communities. 

This vol­ume will pro­vide much joy to Roth’s admir­ers and will make devo­tees of those who have nev­er had the plea­sure of read­ing his essays.

Wal­lace Greene, Ph.D., has held sev­er­al uni­ver­si­ty appoint­ments, and cur­rent­ly writes and lec­tures on Jew­ish and his­tor­i­cal subjects.

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