Watch the full series at http://video.pbs.org/program/story-jews-program/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=pbsofficial&utm_campaign=sotj_covefullprogram (US Only)
Prize winning author and Emmy-Award winner Simon Schama brings to life Jewish history and experience in this new five-part documentary series, The Story of the Jews with Simon Schama, premiering Tuesdays March 25th 8-10 p.m. ET (episodes 1 and 2) and April 1st, 8-11 p.m. ET (episodes 3, 4 and 5) on PBS (check local listings).
The series is, at the same time, a personal journey for Schama, who has been immersed in Jewish history since his postwar childhood; a meditation on its dramatic trajectory; and a macro-history of a people whose mark on the world has been out of all proportion to its modest numbers.
“If you were to remove from our collective history,” said Schama, “the contribution Jews have made to human culture, our world would be almost unrecognizable. There would be no monotheism, no written Bible, and our sense of modernity would be completely different. So the history of the Jews is everyone’s history too and what I hope people will take away from the series is that sense of connection: a weave of cultural strands over the millennia, some brilliant, some dark, but resolving into a fabric of thrilling, sometimes tragic, often exalted creativity.”
View this video and more at http://www.pbs.org/StoryoftheJews
