Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-237) and index.

Argues against the accepted view of historians that the Jewish past in the Diaspora was characterized by political powerlessness. In fact, the Jews enjoyed considerable self-rule during the Middle Ages. Both Christianity and Islam held that the Jews' refusal to convert incurred degradation and deprivation, but their protection was assured. Attacks on the Jews were usually carried out by rebels against the established power. From the 13th century on, the Jews' status declined due to new theological attitudes and the rise of the centralized, absolutist state. The Jewish Enlightenment created the myth of the Jew who was powerless in the Middle Ages, reinforced by Zionist attacks on Diaspora passivity and by the Holocaust. Recently, rising anti-Zionism has led to a change in the Jews' view of Israel as representing a radical break with the powerless past; a tendency to identify with Holocaust victims indicates belief in an eternal fate of persecution.,(From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism).

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