'I am enjoying reading it, not least for the wry touches of Yiddish humour. What a saving grace it is to be able to laugh at ourselves. Not much of your information was new to me but you have put it all together in a readable and accessible way. I do hope it will reach some of those who need it most and not just Zionists.' David Pawson, international Bible teacher

‘Steve Maltz writes unashamedly as a Jewish believer in Jesus and for this reason is able to bring some very challenging insights into the Jewish people, both past and present.’ Derek White, founder of Christian Friends of Israel

‘Steve gives a fast paced, witty but both insightful and perceptive framework for his readers to gain a meaningful overview of the Jewish people and their relationship with God and the Nations.’ Fred Wright, author and Director of Chesed

‘I think it's brilliant, inspired, a great read, of interest to both Jews and Christians, a breath of fresh air – and timely! What more can I say!’ Julia Fisher, writer and broadcaster

'I have read about half of it so far; it is excellent. Very readable and informative.' Mark Weeden, chief minister at Worthing Tabernacle Church

I used to have a dream where I enter a drab airy room filled with nervous people sitting in a circle on wooden chairs. All eyes turn to me as I creep to the front, then I turn to face them and make my admission, a brave confession after years of denial. "My name is Steve and I'm a … Jew."

Why the dream? Well, the fact is that there was some truth in it, brought on by vestiges of shame from deep within my psyche. You see, I was not always upfront about my racial origins, even when confronted by direct questioning. "But you do look Jewish." "No, not me, mate, you're mistaken." I was never sure where this shame came from. Perhaps it was the desire not to be different, perhaps it was a need not to be stereotyped. Or, most likely, perhaps there was fear of rejection, the least serious of the whole gamut of emotions and reactions provoked by making the statement, "my name is Steve and I'm a … Jew." Because, let's face it, earlier generations have faced a lot worse than mere rejection.

As far as I could remember the only thing Jewish about my family was when we gorged ourselves with food at Uncle Syd's at Passover time. We even had a Christmas tree at my Nana's house every year, though I don't recollect us actually going as far as singing carols. In fact, I was the only religious person in my family, as far as I could see. For as long as I could remember, up to my thirteenth birthday, I was blessed (or cursed?) with the weekly visit of Rabbi Jacobs. He was the one who taught me to be a Jew. I became the World authority on Deuteronomy 12. I could read it forwards and backwards, sing it, even yodel it. My whole reason for being, in a Jewish sense, was to learn that passage until it permeated every pore of my body. And the whole reason behind that was that, on some fateful day in some far-off time, I would be able to stand up in confidence at the front of a Synagogue congregation at the time of my Barmitzvah and sing that passage with the unwavering voice of a pre-pubescent Cantor. And the whole reason behind that was that my dad, a few rows ahead of me, and my mum, hidden among the hats in the gallery, could get that warm glow of satisfaction that only comes from the knowledge that you've brought up your son in a proper Jewish manner. That's what being Jewish was to me. I could say that with confidence because, the day after my Barmitzvah, there was no Rabbi Jacobs, no Hebrew lessons, no Deuteronomy 12. At last I didn't have to be Jewish any more, I could be like everyone else!

Deprived of Jewish friends from childhood, due to having a private Hebrew tutor, I drifted more towards Gentiles. If it was up to me I would have hidden my Jewishness under a bush at the school entrance. As things were, my religion was down on the register. I was excused RE and worship in the chapel, being given far more interesting things to do such as learning Braille and corresponding with blind kids. We occasionally had to sit through the odd RE lesson, though, curiously, I can't remember anything about religion being taught. Of the Jewish boys in my class I was only friendly with two of them, one a committed Zionist, no doubt by now a respected settler in Israel and the other a rabid Atheist. The others were more typically Jewish and at least two of them grew up to become very high achievers. One is now a highly acclaimed Q.C. and the other a nationally known journalist.

At eighteen I left for University. At last real freedom and this time I not so much left my Jewish identity behind as buried it 12 foot underground! It wasn't without a great deal of shame, and, later, regret, that I went through my three years at college as a WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant, or, in my case, Weak Anti Social Person). This was fine until the last month, of my last term, of my last year, just after Finals, when I inexplicably fell for a Christian girl and I was introduced to Jesus and my life was never to be the same again. But that's another book!

Why should I be ashamed of my heritage? I wasn't alone, I knew of many family friends who changed their surnames after the Second World War, to distance themselves from the shame of the Holocaust and the realities of post-war anti-Semitism. Would they have done the same if they had been born Greek, or Swedish, or Icelandish? I very much doubt it. Being Jewish has always been a provocation to others around you, whoever they are, whatever period of history you are living in. Don't you find that strange?

It is strange and really needs to be examined.

Steve Maltz London 2004.

We Jews are a strange people. Buffeted and battered by the forces of history, we survive with our senses intact. Our story is perhaps the saddest of all, yet we have helped to give humour to the world! A race that was being systematically slaughtered by Nazi brutes in Europe was, at the same time, entertaining America on stage and screen. A people who have, on the world stage, produced the highest proportion to size of Nobel Prize winners have been persecuted and reviled and forced into Jewish ghettos. A folk who provided Gentiles, in Jesus of Nazareth, with a saviour and inspiration are tortured and killed in the name of the same man.

Why can't they all just leave us alone - to create, invent, compose and entertain - and find another people to torment? What's it all about? So, the Jews are meant to be different, the 'chosen people'. As Tevya said in The Fiddler in the Roof, 'Maybe we've had enough of being chosen, Lord, can't you go and choose someone else - if just for one day?' Do we feel the same way? Does our chosen-ness mean anything to us now, in the 21st Century? Sure, it's a source of great pride when we look at the achievements of our people, often against great odds. But we don't like reading and hearing about the other side, the Holocaust and the pogroms. Yet they both work together, they are both part of the same package, like strawberries and cream (or should I say 'smoked salmon and beigels').

Jewish achievements in the world at large are nothing short of astounding! There are just over 13 million Jews world-wide (2000 figures), out of a World population of 6,100 million. This means that about 0.21% of the world is Jewish; about 1 person out of every 470. So one would naturally expect that 0.21% of the worlds' scientists, musicians, entertainers, writers etc. would, on average, be Jewish. Well, it hasn't worked out like that, something has gone wrong in our calculations, our decimal point has gone haywire! Just looking in the period since the mid nineteenth century we find that about 25% of the world's scientists have been Jews. That's over one hundred times too many! It has been estimated also that, in 1978, over half the Nobel Prize winners were Jewish. Over 50% of the main contributors to the progress of mankind that year coming from 0.21% of the population! But has mankind been grateful for this contribution? What do people think of the Jews?

This book has been written to look at how the World has reacted to the Jewish people over the centuries, from the time of Abraham to the modern day. We will be doing this by looking at the names given to them by their enemies, their friends and God himself and we will be pondering over the significance of the Jewish story to the times in which we now live.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never harm me." How wrong can you be if you happen to be Jewish! Names can be harmful indeed, especially when they are also accompanied by sticks, stones and whatever else can be thrown at you.

Jews certainly have been known by a whole library of names, mostly derogatory, but not all. Even God himself wasn't always complimentary, calling them stiff-necked. But He also called them the apple of his eye and this is significant. What is also significant is that, despite all this name calling, the Jews, by the very fact of surviving for so long, have managed to confound all models of history. The historian, Arnold Toynbee, who couldn't fit them into any of the usual moulds, just dismissed them as fossils of history. Oh yes? How many fossils do you know that account for 25% of the world's scientists since the mid nineteenth century? The Jews are certainly an interesting people.

We will begin by considering the question, who exactly is a Jew? At a time of unprecedented mixing between the races we find ourselves in a society inhabited by folk of all hues and mixtures of traditions. My own children have the culturally confused heritage of English secular Judaism mixed with Polish Catholicism. My wife comes from a German/Polish background; her German mother is an Atheist and her Polish father was a Catholic. What does that make our children? According to one definition they are not Jewish by birth, but another tradition would make them as Jewish as they wish to be and yet another tradition, the Nazi one, albeit for the wrong purposes, would make them Jewish on account of their grandparents' background and nothing else. If you go to Israel and expect to see a nation of olive skin and brown eyes you'll be surprised at the blond hair and blue eyes you'll see, even in that bastion of national identity, the Israeli Army. These days, contrary to the belief of some, you can't measure your Jewishness by the size of your nose. Mind you I am reminded of a true story of a friend, a Gentile, who only discovered when he was in his twenties that his father was Jewish. His first words at this discovery were, 'Ah, so that explains the nose!' This story aside, we need a better way of defining Jewishness and we do this in our first Chapter, when we look at the question of origins.

But what of today? What do modern Jews think of their identity? There is a certain degree of pride. After all, Jewish people have impacted the world in so many different spheres and have influenced the thinking of the world so dramatically, that we need to look deeper at this situation. The three men who have, arguably, most influenced the 20th century, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, were all Jewish, as were the founders of two of the main world religions, Judaism and Christianity. Even Mohammed, the founder of Islam, drew greatly from Jewish sources. I'm sure someday someone will discover that the Buddha was a victim of the first Diaspora who got lost and ended up in India!

Like it or not, we Jews are pretty religious too. There is a joke that is told, in various forms, by Jews the world over. It goes something like this, in a heavy Yiddish accent:

Sadie Cohen, an elderly Jewish lady from New York goes to her travel agent. "I vont to go to India."

"Mrs Cohen, India! It's filthy, it's too hot, and it's full of brown people!"

"I vont to go to India."

"But it's a long journey. And what will you eat? The food's too hot and spicy. You can't drink the water, you can't eat fresh fruit or vegetables. You'll get ill. Plague, cholera, typhoid. God only knows. Can you imagine? And no Jewish doctors. Why torture yourself?"

"I vont to go to India."

So arrangements are made and off she goes. She gets there and despite the noise, the smells, the crowds, she gets to the ashram, a holy place. There she joins the long queue waiting to see the guru, the holy man. She's told she'll have to queue for three days. Out comes her knitting. Eventually she's at the head of the queue. She's told firmly that she's allowed only three words with the guru.

"Dat's OK."

She's ushered into the inner sanctum where the guru is seated, ready to bestow blessings on eager disciples. Again she's reminded by an aide that she's only got three words. Unlike every other visitor she doesn't prostrate herself at his feet. She stands right in front of him, her arms crossed, staring at him fixedly and says, "Marvin, come home."

You may laugh but Jews form a large proportion of both leaders and followers of many spiritual movements, some of them decidedly dodgy. You'll see them in yoga and meditation classes, New Age cults, Hindu and Buddhist groups. One guru had so many Jewish disciples that he called them 'Hinjews'. Jews are not always as material minded as people think, many seem to spend their lives searching to fill a spiritual 'hole in their heart'.

So, what is special about this folk? And where does it say that these people are special, chosen for some purpose? Where does it say "all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." The Bible, of course. How could the writers of the Bible have known about Einstein, Freud and Marx (though it's hard to discern what sort of blessing we received here, considering the fruits of their endeavours - the atom bomb, overpaid psychiatrists and communism), to say nothing of the scores of other major influences? How could they know about 'this one solitary life', the Jew, Jesus, written about in a famous essay?

"Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty, and then for three years he was an itinerant preacher. He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never travelled more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself ... I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever were built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life."

Like it or not the above is true, though the effects felt on the Jewish nation as a result of this particular 'solitary life' has been one of the tragedies of history, a subject that we will explore in later chapters.

It was an amazing deal, the likes of which had never been offered to a group of people before and never would be offered again. These people had already been through a lot, both good and bad. They had spent their whole lives wandering and wondering. It had been far worse for their parents. They had grown up as slaves and had died in sadness, their potential unrealised, in the unforgiving desert. That whole generation, bar two, had now perished and here we find their children standing on the threshold of a new chapter in their lives.

They had trudged around the desert for up to forty years, yet things could have been far worse. They had a ready supply of food and water, their clothes had not worn out and not one of them had suffered so much as a blister in their feet! And they were bolstered by great tales of miracles, involving the parting of great waters, great deliverances from their enemies and everyday provisions. And they didn't travel alone, their God travelled with them. The God who had created them and the World in which they lived, had chosen to lead them personally, through a vanguard of smoke and fire. And this same God now offered them a new deal.

It was to be an end of their fruitless wanderings. A land was being offered to them. A land where they could settle, their lifelong travels finally at an end. A land with streams and refreshing valley springs. A land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey. A rich land, where copper and iron were easily mined. A land where they would lack nothing. And best of all, it would be handed to them on a plate. Vineyards and olive groves would already be established, wells already dug and large flourishing cities would be theirs, as vacant possession.

Their leader, one hundred and twenty years old, surveyed this promised land from a high pace with sadness in his heart. He knew that his days were numbered, that he was at the threshold of death, never to lead his people into this land of milk and honey. But his sadness was not for himself, but rather for the people he had led for forty years. He knew something they didn't. He knew that these blessings would never be fully realised by his people and he knew why.

You see, there were conditions attached, simple conditions. God had offered them a choice between life and prosperity on the one hand, and death and destruction on the other. To claim the former all they had to do was to love him, walk in his ways and keep his laws. This oughtn't have been difficult, partly because these laws were there for their protection, safety and well-being. They were to deserve the latter if they were to ignore these instructions and follow their own ways and turn towards the gods of the people already in the land.

They were offered life or death, blessings or curses. Choose life! pleaded the God who wanted to give them the world, but they didn't listen. True, they entered the promised land and began to conquer it and began to enjoyed the blessings offered. But they chose the dark side, seduced by the gods and the customs of the native people. As a consequence, they took around a thousand years to fully conquer the land offered to them, then proceeded to lose the lot, before being exiled from the land itself, condemned to wander the world right up to the modern era.

Such has been the lot for the Jews. Offered so much, but still going their own way. No wonder they were called a stiff-necked people. The story of Moses and the Children of Israel is not just a cautionary tale, a fable from an uncertain fantasy, conjured up by the mind of man. The story is from the pages of the world's best selling book, the Bible. It is from the fifth section, originally titled 'Words', but saddled with the title, 'Deuteronomy', a name taken from an alien culture hundreds of years after the events took place.

This is the point where we take a deep breath and discuss our frames of reference before we go any further. The Bible - that's my frame of reference. But I can't just leave it at that, as many have looked into that particular book and seen different things. So what do I see there? I see a book that speaks from God's mind to our mind and God's heart to our heart. Whether or not you believe in God is not the issue here, that's between you and Him. Whatever your background, all I ask you is to consider the possibility that there is a God, who chooses to communicate to us through the Bible.

For those of you who may view the Bible as a relic from history, with no more credibility in the real world as The Hobbit, I may be asking you to take a step in faith. But the fact remains that this is the best place to start to examine early Jewish history. Even if you consider it more fiction than fact, it is the Bible, usually in the hands of other people, that has done more to shape Jewish history than anything else.

In the view of many, the explanation from the Bible is the only one that makes sense of the history of the Jewish people to the present day. Political, historical and sociological analysis gets us nowhere on this issue. Jews are an anomaly, mere fossils according to the historian, Toynbee, as mentioned earlier. Most would say that it was the Bible that got them in the mess in the first place, but what the Bible also does is offer hope that everything that has happened to them has been for a purpose and that there is a very real possibility of a happy ending.

So, let's begin at the beginning …

Preface

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter One: The Children of Promise - From Abraham to Moses

Chapter Two: The Kingdom of Priests - From Moses to Jesus

Chapter Three: Galut - Exile from the land

Chapter Four: "Christ killers" - The history of "Christian" anti-Semitism

Chapter Five: Dhimmis - How Muslims have seen the Jews

Chapter Six: The Chosen People - The rise of Christian philo-Semitism

Chapter Seven: Conspirators of Zion - Scapegoats of the World

Chapter Eight: The Jews - What Jews have contributed to the World

Chapter Nine: Yids, Kikes and Hebes - Cultural anti-Semitism

Chapter Ten: Jude! - What happened in the Holocaust and why

Chapter Eleven: Natural Branches - How God sees them. A Biblical investigation.

Epilogue: What to do next?

Appendix A : Recommended reading

Appendix B : Recommended organisations

Appendix C : A Liturgy of Reconciliation