S1, E3: In episode 3, Simon Schama charts the huge leap of faith taken by the Jews of Northern Europe. After centuries of being cast out of gentile society, the dawn of the Enlightenment promised the Jews a stake in the nations where they had long been kept separate, sustained by self-sufficient traditions, and their own language. But from the late eighteenth century, many Jews left their ghettos and joined the common society of the gentiles. Their hope was to become fellow citizens, and to finally be treated as equals.
