Scholem's scholarship betrays an alert presentness... No great textual scholar, no master of philology and historical criticism commands a technique at once more scrupulously attentive to its object and more instinct with the writer's voice. That voices reaches and grips... [M]agisterial.
New Yorker Immensely important and fascinating... A monumental work of historical scholarship, which recounts in minute detail a moving tragedy of vast dimensions.
The New York Review of Books Comprehensive... the last word on an astonishing episode of Jewish history.
Times Literary Supplement A masterful mix of traditional Jewish scholarship and... original insight into the psychology of Judaism.
Boston Globe Undoubtedly one of the all-time masterpieces of scholarship and intellectual history.
Commonweal A major contribution not only to the study of messianic movements but also a study enlightening to the history of the Jewish people.
Jewish Press