The Defining Decade Secondary Title

In 701 B.C. the Assyrian empire was in its ascendancy. It had already vanquished the kingdom of Israel to the north including the capital at Samaria. It then prepared an assault on Judah and its capital at Jerusalem.

But in one of those significant events that changes the course of world history, Assyria was repelled. Jerusalem was saved until 586 B.C. when the Babylonians sacked the city, forcing its leadership class into exile.

Henry Aubin, in a major feat of scholarship, determines that Jerusalem was aided by a Kushite army from Africa which had marched northeast from the Nile valley. While the Bible attributes the Assyrian retreat to an angel and secular commentators cite pestilence, Aubin, in a meticulously documented work, demonstrates that an alliance with the African nation of Kush bolstered Jerusalem’s defences.

Kush, also known as Nubia, was located in what is now southern Egypt and northern Sudan. A monarchy that existed for more than 1000 years, from 900 B.C. to A.D. 350, Kushites held sway over Egypt from 712 B.C. to about 660 B.C. Of Egypt’s 31 dynasties, this, the 25th Dynasty, is the only one that all scholars agree, was black.

The commander of the Kushite expeditionary force was Taharqa (or as the Bible calls him Tirhakah). This Kushite prince, who had his own interests in halting Assyrian expansion, likely caught the aggressors by surprise as they prepared their siege of Jerusalem.

Aubin offers a thrilling military history and a stirring political analysis of the ancient world. He also sees the event as influential over the centuries.

The Kushite rescue of the Hebrew kingdom of Judah enabled the fragile, war-ravaged state to endure, to nurse itself back to economic and demographic health, and allowed the Hebrew religion, Yahwism, to evolve within the next several centuries into Judaism. Thus emerged the monotheistic trunk supporting Christianity and Islam.

“… an outstanding explanation of the transformation of Jews in Canada, from its origins, through the 60s and into the future.”
New York Journal of Books

“well-written…of interest to anyone looking for a better understanding of Canada’s evolution into a multicultural society and of how minority communities have asserted their places within it.”
Montreal Gazette

“…an antidote for social pessimism, a reminder that sometimes long-overdue change can happen astonishingly fast.”
National Post 

University of Toronto Press 2010

The Defining Decade

Identity, Politics, and The Canadian Jewish Community in the 1960s

The 1960s witnessed a radical transformation in the Canadian Jewish community. The erosion of long-standing antisemitism resulted in increased access for Jews to the economic, political, and social mainstream. Arguing that as Canadian society became more accepting, the Jewish community became more focused on its own identity, Harold Troper examines how the 1960s redefined what it meant to be a Canadian Jew and a Jewish Canadian.

Domestic events such as the Quiet Revolution, the eruption of Neo-Nazi activity, the election of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and the promise of multiculturalism as well as international affairs such as the Six Day War, Arab rejectionism with regards to Israel, and the explosion of Soviet Jewish activism radically reshaped Canadian Jewish priorities.

In tracing the rapid changes of this tumultuous decade, The Defining Decade draws upon a wealth of historical documentation, including more than eighty interviews, to demonstrate that the expression of Canadian Jewishness was an increasingly public – and political – commitment. 

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