Diaspora cultures: Jewish creativity and doom.

This ambitious collection, * written by 23Judaic historians, literary critics, archaeologists, and Jewish folklorists, adheres to a common approach. The authors seek to explain how the Jewish people, without their own land, state, or military power, interacted with dominant societies for three millennia. To survive, Jews created new cultures by adopting and shaping the ideas and styles of the dominant beliefs while maintaining their uniqueness and avoiding assimilation. They became acculturated as they interacted with Muslims, Christians, and other dominant ideologies and customs.