Book Calls Jewish People an ‘Invention’

[steven johnson]

Every group has it's origin myths and lore. Conservatives in this country claim some knowledge of the pure intentions of the 'Founding Fathers' on which they base their social and legal theories. Evangelicals claim a Biblical basis of the 'Rapture' that was invented in the 1800s for their eschatology.

History is invented if it isn't conveniently available to support any group's world view.

Despite the fragmented and incomplete historical record, experts pretty much agree that some popular beliefs about Jewish history simply don’t hold up: there was no sudden expulsion of all Jews from Jerusalem in A.D. 70, for instance. What’s more, modern Jews owe their ancestry as much to converts from the first millennium and early Middle Ages as to the Jews of antiquity.

Professor Sand, a scholar of modern France, not Jewish history, candidly states his aim is to undercut the Jews’ claims to the land of Israel by demonstrating that they do not constitute “a people,” with a shared racial or biological past. The book has been extravagantly denounced and praised, often on the basis of whether or not the reader agrees with his politics.

Though no final consensus has emerged on the ancestral link between Palestinians and Jews, Harry Ostrer, director of the Human Genetics Program at New York University Langone Medical Center, who has been studying the genetic organization of Jews, said, “The assumption of lineal descent seems reasonable.”
(Supporting the view that Palestinian Arab villagers are descended from the original Jewish farmers.)

In that sense, Professor Sand is operating within a long established tradition. As “The Illustrated History of the Jewish People,” edited by Nicholas Lange (Harcourt, 1997), notes, “Every generation of Jewish historians has faced the same task: to retell and adapt the story to meet the needs of its own situation.” The same could be said of all nations and religions

Book Calls Jewish People an ‘Invention’

[baldguy]

1. So, aside from a distinct religious faith & traditions, genetic history

And culture that the ancient Romans thought of as ancient ... ?

[imdjh]

2. Well yeah, other than that, they're just a bunch of international conspiracist banking commies.

[imdjh]

3. I'll file this away with the "Brits are the true Jews" stuff.

http://britam.org/

http://www.davidbenariel.org/



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[struggle4progress]

4. Sand's article in Le Monde Diplomatique explains his project:

Zionist nationalist myth of enforced exile
Israel deliberately forgets its history
An Israeli historian suggests the diaspora was the consequence, not of the expulsion of the Hebrews from Palestine, but of proselytising across north Africa, southern Europe and the Middle East
by Schlomo Sand
http://mondediplo.com/2008/09/07israel


His book might not be very useful as history, as his motives are tangled in Israeli cultural politics

[Meshuga]

5. Ideology (related to I/P politics) seems to be a major driving factor here...

I see that some facts are present but other important facts are ignored.

I don't think Jews take the position that we are all decedents of a specific race going back to ancient Hebrews. It is a common understanding that there were mixes through history and conversions along the way. A major fact here not mentioned is that Jewish law does not define a Jew by his race or having passed a DNA test. Jewish law states that a person is Jewish if he/she is born of a Jewish mother or becomes Jewish through the formal rites of conversion.

When people define us as a race, we know to promptly correct the claim by saying that it is impossible for someone to convert into a race as there are many Jews-by-choice (as opposed to Jews-by-birth) among us.

And many of the Jews-by-birth today are children or grandchildren or great grandchildren of Jews-by-choice who do not share any lineage. However, they are as Jewish as Jews-by-choice and as Jewish as Jews whose lineage go back to Jews in ancient times.

Many of Sand's assertions about history are acknowledged by the community. But he seems to be saying that the Jewish desire to return to the homeland is something invented by 19th century zionists. Maybe I understood him wrong but this desire to return to the homeland is not a recent desire but something repeated by Jewish sages. Is he suggesting the Jewish conspiracy took place as early as medieval times?

I don't think the Jewish community is naive to think Ethiopian Jews, Arab Jews, Indian Jews, Eastern European Jews, Jews from the Iberia Peninsula, Asian Jews, etc. are all part of the same race. Israel is proof that we are not a race if you go there and compare the different races of Israeli Jews.

The major push for Zionism was caused by all the expulsions, persecutions, pogroms, and all the scape goating that history actuall recorded. The Roman expulsion may be a myth but these other important reasons aren't myths. Racial purity is a dishonest attack if that is what he is getting at.