Introduction

The Jewish idea of the chosen people is one of the topics on which a great number of academic as well as non-academic works have been written from theological, philosophical, and psychological perspectives. However, if we put aside Arnold Eisen’s The Chosen People in America (1983), little has been done concerning the socio-historical aspect of the question of chosenness, and Eisen’s excellent work restricts its scope to American Jewish experience from the late nineteenth century to 1980. This present study aims to examine the relation between the development of the idea of chosenness and the shaping of Jewish religion, in particular as it affects notions of Jewish identity down through the ages. The intention is to survey a vast corpus of Jewish literature, biblical, ancient Jewish, rabbinic, and modern, and conduct a descriptive and analytical study designed to contribute to a better understanding of a central doctrine of the Jewish religion and the primary constituent of Jewish identity.