Innsmouth_Apprentice There is a lot of information here. Interestingly, Mr. Schama skips the Holocaust almost entirely - I assume because that topic is already familiar enough to most potential viewers. "The Story of Jews" covers the multiple ordeals that the "People of the Book" who created the original Abrahamic religion - Judaism - had had to endure during the 1st millennium BCE while still in their homeland. We then follow the Jews who had departed from the Levant to seek better life elsewhere on their dramatic journeys around Europe, Africa, and the New World.Coupled with own Googling, the series' viewing has provided me with a deeper understanding of the issues surrounding the Jewish people.My short summary would be that the story of the Jews shows how much nonsense has historically been floating around in the collective human psyche. I am not excluding the Jews from this critique. I am not even excluding myself.8/10.

Justin Denson I am an "uneducated" godless "gentile" I guess. For me, this was purely an attempt to learn why people through history have hated the Jews. I did not grown up in an anti-Semitic home and never understood why the Jews were generally hated so much in History considering all the great cultural and intellectual contributions they have made. I do remember my Grandparents having some snide remarks about Jews and not wanting them to move into their neighborhood, but that always confused me because my Grandfathers fought in WWII and liberated the Jews from annihilation. BUT, I figured it out pretty quickly. The Jews were great creditors, which by default causes envy and animosity. I "hate" my credit card company, my mortgage lender, medical bills etc...You don't need 5 hours to figure out why the Jews have suffered the way they have. And this is not an endorsement or acceptance of those injustices. This is my interim opinion from the story told in this series, until I have more information. This series has given me a better appreciation of the Jewish faith and cultures. I found myself cheering for the Jews as History's great underdog story. I do agree with other reviews that this is very much a biased telling and felt at times the narrator was not being completely transparent concerning any historical missteps of the Jews. Surely they were not always simply the victim, there must have been times they were the aggressors and a more unbiased narrator may have been able to give a better telling of that. One of the other reviewers peaked my interest about the Jews involvement in Communism and I look forward to researching that history. All in all, this was a great series if you are completely in the dark, as I was, on Jewish History.

edwagreen Though the first two chapters of this documentary were rather dry in taste, the documentary itself got far better as we began to approach modern times.Even Simon Scharma, the narrator, seemed to come more alive as the film went on.This was extremely informative to watch. Let us remember that for example, Jews were expelled from England circa 1270.The Jewish people have always used assimilate to integrate themselves into society. Sadly, we saw that this certainly hasn't succeeded and we saw the obvious examples of the Nazi era with its resulting holocaust, and even the Dreyfuss Affair in France as an anti- semitic adventure on the part of the French people.We saw how our Jewish people have attempted to use music and culture in the assimilation process. Interesting to learn how the song Over the Rainbow is based on a Yiddish lullaby.

huguespt This is a very interesting Mocmentry of the Jewish history over the years as per Mr Schama. I enjoyed the history of this series however by the third episode I found Mr. Schama to be the, well "everyone in history has beaten up Jews", if Mr. Schama could be a little more reportive rather then, it seems asking anyone watching this program for an apologie. I do not condone war, genocide of any race or religion however I think a TV series should report the facts and not make the viewer want to switch off because it is a world that beats Jews. The first 2 episodes were not like the third as in they were factual and good reporting were as by the third episode, I found it more of a political/religious statement rather than an unbiased reporter giving the facts with passion rather someone that realistically wants to petition people to aplogise for the horrors of the past. Mr Schama needs to stay a reporter or a protester and reflect this in his Mocumentaries. Worth watching. It was informative. I say Mocumetrey rather than Documentary as to me a reporter of a Documentary is un- biased, Mr, Schama is far from unbiased but to me asks for an apologie from the viewer. There is so much horror in human past and even present of many peoples but for a documentary this needs to be unbiased. As I have said worth watching if by the time you get to the third episode, I wont watch anymore from Mr. Schama unless he can be a reporter rather than a person too close to the subject matter.