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Shlomo Sand

The Invention of the Jewish People Paperback – June 14, 2010

by Shlomo Sand (Author), Yael Lotan (Translator)

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A historical tour de force, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a groundbreaking account of Jewish and Israeli history. Exploding the myth that there was a forced Jewish exile in the first century at the hands of the Romans, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand argues that most modern Jews descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered across the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

In this iconoclastic work, which spent nineteen weeks on the Israeli bestseller list and won the coveted Aujourd’hui Award in France, Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel’s future.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Sand’s questions about how Israel’s democracy can be liberalized and stabilized are thought-provoking and deserve serious discussion.”—Haaretz

“Perhaps books combining passion and erudition don’t change political situations, but if they did, this one would count as a landmark.”—Eric Hobsbawm, Observer

“[Sand’s] quiet earthquake of a book is shaking historical faith in the link between Judaism and Israel.”—Rafael Behr, Observer

“Anyone interested in understanding the contemporary Middle East should read this book.”—Tony Judt

“Extravagantly denounced and praised.”—New York Times

“No discussion of the region any longer seems complete without acknowledgement of this book.”—Independent on Sunday, Best History Books of 2009

“A radical dismantling of a national myth.”—Guardian

“Almost too baseless to debunk.”—Jewish Journal

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.

Product details

ASIN : 1844676234
Publisher : Verso; 5/15/10 edition (June 14, 2010)
Language : English
Paperback : 344 pages
ISBN-10 : 9781844676231
ISBN-13 : 978-1844676231
Item Weight : 15.5 ounces
Dimensions : 5.45 x 0.99 x 8.23 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #353,072 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #416 in Israel & Palestine History (Books)
- #450 in History of Judaism
- #1,180 in Jewish History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
543 ratings

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ibnsubhi

Challenges Zionist versions of Jewish History

Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2019

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Thinking back about this great book, the first thing that comes to mind is the unfortunate title, which many people who haven't read this book miscontrue as meaning there is no Jewish history. Far from it, Sand attempts to show that indeed there is a history, but not the one told by the Zionist ashkenazi version it is usually narrated through. In its place, he illustrates a more nuanced version that places the diverse history of Jews within their localized Afro-Arab context, which refuses to fall under the dominance of an ashkenazi version. Under his masterful guidance, Arab, Ethiopian, Iraqi, Russian, Iranian, and Palestinian Jewish history are allowed to emerge outside of the Zionist narrative that silences these Arab-African-Iranian-Yemenite experiences and refuses to fall in line with a colonizing racial project. The latter version tends to discipline these experiences into a flattened and condescending version. In this sense, this important book recreates a political identity that has the narrative power to reconstitute Jewish identity and make it re-emerge in a manner that permits a One-State solution. In this sense it is a tour de force in offering a new vision for the future of this state now called Israel.

26 people found this helpful

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Matthew W. Quinn

The Most Controversial and Interesting Part Gets The Least Page-Time.

Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2017

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I bought it because I was interested in the most controversial parts of his thesis--that modern Jews are largely descended from converts and the Jews of the Bible remained in the Middle East and eventually became the modern Palestinians--but the majority of the book is focused on the transformation of the Jewish people from a primarily religious group to an ethnic one.

The most interesting parts were the couple of chapters dedicated to Jewish proselytism and whether or not there was a mass expulsion of Jews from Judea. The parts of the book about Jewish ethno-nationalism in the 19th Century were far less interesting.

49 people found this helpful

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Morley Evans

FEARLESS

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2018

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Professor Sand is a true radical. He digs out the truth.

22 people found this helpful

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William F. Donovan

Reads like a medical book but if your interested in who ...

Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2018

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Reads like a medical book but if your interested in who is making believe they are jewish than this is for you.

25 people found this helpful

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Olivia Hazin

Free Palestine End The Occupation 🇵🇸

Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2019

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Such an informative and detailed history lesson. Shlomo is also a great author. He makes it easy to learn and keep focus on a topic that is so broadly disputed. Thank you.

10 people found this helpful

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Gracie Tracie

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2018

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A must read if you are seeking and wanting the truth!

16 people found this helpful

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Geoffrey Elliott

Not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination

Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2017

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This is a VERY scholarly and minutely detailed tome. Not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination. Wonderful insights of course, and DEEPLY sourced materials! I would highly recommend!

32 people found this helpful

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Thoughtworks

Everyone Should Understand the Truths Within This Book

Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2017

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I am not "anti-Semitic." Half the books I read are written by wonderful "Jewish" minds. But there is this horrible confusion in the world today that the people running Israel (and have been stealing from and murdering Arab people for decades) are "Jewish" by blood. They aren't. Almost all people in the Western, modern world today who are regarded as Jews are, for the most part, Russian/Khazarian. That's not a crime. That's fine. But we don't call Irish people "Catholic," simply because many practice the Catholic religion. Worse yet, the original inhabitants of the Old Testament lands were Semitic...Arab/Phoenician, etc. They are brown or black-skinned (a fact mentioned in the Bible). This very well-written book, written by a Khazarian "Jew," addresses this confusion. Israel, and America's support of it, is the fault-line of the world. These misconceptions, and the Israeli lobby in America, are going to get us all killed. But not if we understood the details of Shlomo Sand's book. I am very grateful for having read it.

218 people found this helpful

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Mark Brown

Bitter ironies

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 25, 2018

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Imagine if Germany’s leading Universities embarked upon a project to find the “German Gene”. Imagine how obscene that would seem. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s “working definition” of anti-Semitism includes “comparing contemporary Israeli policies to those of the Nazis”. In 2018 one of Britain’s leading Political Parties rejected this definition in order to grant their members the right to criticise Israel. Jew-splaining is politically toxic, not just amongst Gentiles but in Israel itself. Schlomo Sand has bought us a controversial and brave book that may well have fallen foul of the same toxic environment if it was not for the fact that he is a Jewish Israeli academic who wrote this in Hebrew. This is dynamite. This is pertinent.

“The Invention of the Jewish People” is littered with references that may baffle a non-Jewish-reader yet it is worth sticking with, because it builds and builds and builds. Sand starts by establishing his own impeccable Jewish-ethnic credentials (very important!) before exploring the European origins of ethno-nationalism. After this slow start Sand builds his case refuting the concept that there is a Jewish Race. He argues that the Jewish belief in the wandering Tribes of Israel (expelled from their homeland) has no foundation in archaeology. This mythical “exile” was more a religious state of mind than a physical movement of peoples. Sand offers a simple explanation for the spread of Judaism – conversion.

Few of us Gentiles can properly understand the power of this national myth. Other than in Bible class we learn of no such thing in school. The idea that there is a Christian “race”, a Muslim “race” or a Buddhist “race” simply never arises. Judeo-history is unique since the 1940’s as being an area where such myths persist. And they persist for good reason – they retain modern political expediency. Sand explains how Zionism embraced the concept of ethno-nationalism in Europe in the 1880s at the exact same time that other European nationalities did the same. Yet even then, the concept of a “Jewish race” remain hotly contested amongst Jews and Gentiles alike. Many scholars scoffed at the idea and even rabbinical law forbade the Jews from returning to Israel until the return of the Messiah. Yet the idea of such a “race” was taken every bit as seriously as the idea of the Aryan race. Alarmingly so.

Sand is quick to disown his own conclusions. “This bizarre association with the National Socialists must not be misunderstood.” he writes before going on to suggest that the Zionists didn’t seek racial purity like the Nazis did. He devotes just one paragraph in the book to this yet in numerous other sections he marks the war of 1967 as a point at which the ethnic myth of a Jewish Race was re-invigorated to justify the occupation of a Greater Israeli territory. It would seem to the reader that if ethno-nationalism cannot be used to promote a ‘destiny’ of the German people in the lands of the Slavs then it cannot justify the presence of Israelis in the lands of Palestine. Yet here we are.

Sand expertly skirts around such taboo thoughts in his original book. Yet in the English language paperback edition there is an Afterword where he addresses his many critics. Sand is justifiably outraged at the use of science to pursue the hunt for a “Jewish gene” writing “It is a bitter irony to see descendants of Holocaust survivors set out to find a biological Jewish identity: Hitler would certainly have been very pleased!” Yes, he really wrote that. It is hard to fault his logic. This is frightening.

Without doubt this is one of the most interesting books you might ever pick up. Absolutely fascinating. Absolutely essential if we are to understand anything about the world today. History as a firework lighting up all before it.

44 people found this helpful

Chris Morriss

The Ashkenazi Khazar hypothesis is not dead.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 3, 2017

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A thorough and interesting update on 'The Khazar Hypothesis'. In this book Shlomo Sand goes into considerable detail about the origins of the Ashkenazi Jews, providing considerable support for the view that they are of Khazar origin, and are a Slavic, not a Semitic people.

Arthur Koestler's pioneering book, 'The Thirteenth Tribe' from 1976 was subjected to all the ire that the powerful Israeli propaganda machine could throw at it. Sand's book is much better researched, and written in a less provocative manner. Well worth reading, though the opening chapters do drag a bit.

23 people found this helpful

B. S. Bahi

Fantastic book, incredibly detailed so if you want to ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2018

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Fantastic book, incredibly detailed so if you want to refute anything you better know more than the author! Unfortunately confirms many people's worst fears: The Palestinians are the descendants of the original Judeans, and the modern Israelis are the descendants of Eastern European converts to Judaism. This makes the current situation in Israel even more heartbreaking. Shlomo not only increased my awareness of thei history, but made me feel evern more for both and all sides involved. Anyway, buy and read the book, make up your own minds. And then stand up for the truth. Thank you Mr Shlomo Sand.

19 people found this helpful

Tony LeMesma

An alternative explanation of Israel!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 28, 2020

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The premis of this book is that the Jewish people were not exiled from lands in the Middle East 2000 years ago and, so, there is no proper claim or right to re-occupy those lands in contemporary times. Jews never exiled after the fall of Jerusalem and they never harboured a desire to ‘return’; this was a fiction invented by Zionism in the 20th century. The presence of Jews around the world is not due to descendants of those exiled (so there is no modern-day DNA link with 2000 years ago) but due simply to the conversion of local peoples as the religion spread. The Jewish religion always having been an evangelical movement spreading the word first around the Mediterranean and then further afield.
A controversial and entertaining idea and fascinating reading for anyone interested in modern history and the ME. An academic work, heavily footnoted, referenced and with a huge index. 5 Stars for the chutzpah.

4 people found this helpful

jolly green giant

INTERESTING BOOK

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 6, 2019

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ZIONISTS HATE THIS BOOK !

14 people found this helpful

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