The Chosen People

"Einstein... Shylock... Rothschild... Trotsky... Jesus. The scientist and philosopher... the greedy money-lender and middle man... the impoverished immigrant... the elite of politics and high finance... the prophet... the revolutionary. All of these have been faces of the Jewish people over the centuries. They have inspired admiration, envy, suspicion, and hatred and overflowed with world-changing personages. The historian Yuri Slezkine claimed that the 20th century was nothing less than the 'Jewish century,' so indispensable were they in the creation of the modern world"--Cover, p. [4].