ABSTRACT
More than generally recognized, modern Jewish history is foreshadowed in antiquity. The Jewish educational tradition evolved from biblical and talmudic times as a defense both against hostility toward Jews as well as excessive veneration for foreign cultures and peoples. Jewish patriotism might have seemed unlikely in these circumstances. Patriotism, though not incompatible with the reform of Judaism and Jewish education, was generally associated with the denigration and abandonment of Jewish tradition. Aspects of the failure of European Jewish emancipation from the French Revolution to the Holocaust are comparable with and derive from the problems of the Jews in the ancient Roman empire. The decline in many aspects of modern Jewish life, including the loss or abandonment of judicial, educational and communal autonomy, parallels a similar decline among the Greek-speaking Jews in the Roman empire.
