The Invention of the Jewish People

The Invention of the Jewish People

The Invention of the Jewish People

The Invention of the Jewish People

Paperback(Reprint)

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Overview

A historical tour de force that demolishes the myths and taboos that have surrounded Jewish and Israeli history, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a new account of both that demands to be read and reckoned with. Was there really a forced exile in the first century, at the hands of the Romans? Should we regard the Jewish people, throughout two millennia, as both a distinct ethnic group and a putative nation—returned at last to its Biblical homeland?

Shlomo Sand argues that most Jews actually descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered far across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The formation of a Jewish people and then a Jewish nation out of these disparate groups could only take place under the sway of a new historiography, developing in response to the rise of nationalism throughout Europe. Beneath the biblical back fill of the nineteenth-century historians, and the twentieth-century intellectuals who replaced rabbis as the architects of Jewish identity, The Invention of the Jewish People uncovers a new narrative of Israel’s formation, and proposes a bold analysis of nationalism that accounts for the old myths.

After a long stay on Israel’s bestseller list, and winning the coveted Aujourd’hui Award in France, The Invention of the Jewish People is finally available in English. The central importance of the conflict in the Middle East ensures that Sand’s arguments will reverberate well beyond the historians and politicians that he takes to task. Without an adequate understanding of Israel’s past, capable of superseding today’s opposing views, diplomatic solutions are likely to remain elusive. In this iconoclastic work of history, Shlomo Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel’s future.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781788736619
Publisher: Verso Books
Publication date: 08/04/2020
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 368
Sales rank: 62,233
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Shlomo Sand studied history at the University of Tel Aviv and at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, in Paris. He currently teaches contemporary history at the University of Tel Aviv. His books include The Invention of the Jewish People, On the Nation and the Jewish People, L’Illusion du politique: Georges Sorel et le débat intellectuel 1900, Georges Sorel en son temps, Le XXe siècle à l’écran and Les Mots et la terre: les intellectuels en Israël.

Table of Contents

Preface to the English-Language Edition ix

Preface to the 2020 Edition: Ten Years Later xiii

Introduction: Burdens of Memory 1

Identity in Movement 1

Constructed Memories 14

1 Making Nations: Sovereignty and Equality 23

Lexicon: "People" and Ethnos 24

The Nation: Boundaries and Definitions 31

From Ideology to Identity 40

From Ethnic Myth to Civil Imaginary 45

The Intellectual as the Nation's "Prince" 54

2 Mythistory: In the Beginning, God Created the People 64

The Early Shaping of Jewish History 65

The Old Testament as Mythistory 71

Race and Nation 78

A Historians' Dispute 81

A Protonationalist View from the East 87

An Ethnicist Stage in the West 95

The First Steps of Historiography in Zion 100

Politics and Archaeology 107

The Earth Rebels against Mythistory 115

The Bible as Metaphor 123

3 The Invention of the Exile: Proselytism and Conversion 129

The "People" Exiled in 70 ce 130

Exile without Expulsion-History in the Twilight Zone 136

Against Its Will, the "People" Emigrate from the Homeland 143

"All Nations Shall Flow unto It" 150

The Hasmoneans Impose Judaism on Their Neighbors 154

From Hellenistic Sphere to Mesopotamian Territory 161

Judaizing in the Shadow of Rome 166

How Rabbinical Judaism Viewed Proselytizing 173

The Sad Fate of the Judeans 178

Remembering and Forgetting the "People of the Land" 182

4 Realms of Silence: In Search of Lost (Jewish) Time 190

Arabia Felix: The Proselytized Kingdom of Himyar 192

Phoenicians and Berbers: The Mysterious Queen Kahina 199

Jewish Kagans? A Strange Empire Rises in the East 210

Khazars and Judaism: A Long Love Affair? 218

Modern Research Explores the Khazar Past 230

The Enigma: The Origin of Eastern Europe's Jews 238

5 The Distinction: Identity Politics in Israel 250

Zionism and Heredity 256

The Scientific Puppet and the Racist Hunchback 272

Founding an Ethnos State 280

"Jewish and Democratic"-An Oxymoron? 292

Ethnocracy in the Age of Globalization 397

Afterword: A People without a Land, A Land Without a People? Some Replies to My Critics 314

"The Jews Have Always Existed as a People" 314

Exile and Historical Memory 317

Are the Palestinians the Descendants of the Ancient Jews 318

The Last Resort: A Jewish DNA 318

Acknowledgments 326

Index 327

What People are Saying About This

Tony Judt

Anyone interested in understanding the contemporary Middle East should read this book.

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