Difference between revisions 283570425 and 283570461 on enwiki

++$deleted'''When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?''' (''Matai ve’ech humtza ha’am hayehudi?'' ) is a "controversial"<ref name=Sela> [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1070628.html Israeli wins French prize for book questioning origins of Jewish people], Maya Sela, [[Haaretz]] 12 March 2009 </ref>,  book by [[Shlomo Sand]], an Israeli "expert on 20th-century history" who has previously written on  the "intellectual history of modern France" and on French cinema.<ref name=Ilani/>  

==Sand's argument==

In the book Sand attempts to prove that the Jewish people never existed as a "nation-race" with a common origin, but rather is a colorful mix of groups that at various stages in history adopted the Jewish religion. He argues that for a number of [[Zionism|Zionist]] ideologues, "the mythical perception of the Jews as an ancient people led to truly [[racism|racist]] thinking".<ref name=Ilani/>

Sand's argument is that the people who were the original Jews living in Israel, contrary to what is accepted history, were not exiled following the [[Bar Kokhba revolt]]<ref name=Ilani/>  He has suggested that much of the present day world Jewish population are individuals, and groups, who converted to Judaism at later periods. Additionally, he suggests that the story of the exile was a myth promoted by early Christians to recruit Jews to the new faith. Sand writes that "''Christians wanted later generations of Jews to believe that their ancestors had been exiled as a punishment from God.''<ref name=Cook>  [http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081006/FOREIGN/279853798 Book refuting Jewish taboo on Israel’s bestseller list][[Jonathan Cook]], [[The National (Abu Dhabi)]] 6 October 2008</ref> Sand argues that most of the Jews were not exiled by the [[Roman Empire|Romans]], and were permitted to remain in the country. He puts the number of those exiled at tens of thousands at most. He further argues that many of the Jews converted to Islam following the Arab conquest, and were assimilated among the conquerors. He concludes that the progenitors of the [[Palestinian Arabs]] were Jews.<ref name=segev>{{Cite news
| last = Segev
| first = Tom
| title = An invention called 'the Jewish people'
| work = Haaretz
| accessdate = 2008-12-13
| date = 2008-03-01
| url = http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/959229.html
}}</ref>

Sand explains the birth of the concept of a Jewish people as follows : "[a]t a certain stage in the 19th century intellectuals of Jewish origin in Germany, influenced by the folk character of German nationalism, took upon themselves the task of inventing a people "retrospectively," out of a thirst to create a modern Jewish people. From historian [[Heinrich Graetz]] on, Jewish historians began to draw the history of Judaism as the history of a nation that had been a kingdom, became a wandering people and ultimately turned around and went back to its birthplace."<ref name=Ilani>[http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/966952.html Shattering a 'national mythology'] by Ofri Ilani, ''[[Haaretz]]'' 21 March 2008</ref>

==Scholarly evaluations==

The book has been harshly criticized by [[Israel Bartal]], dean of the humanities faculty of the [[Hebrew University]], in a commentary published in [[Haaretz]]<ref name=Bartal/> Bartal writes that Sand's basic thesis and statements about Jewish history are "baseless".  According to Bartal,  "No historian of the Jewish national movement has ever really believed that the origins of the Jews are ethnically and biologically "pure."   Bartal writes that Sand applies academically marginal positions to the entire body of Jewish historiography and, in doing so, "denies the existence of the central positions in Jewish historical scholarship." He adds that "The kind of political intervention Sand is talking about, namely, a deliberate program designed to make Israelis forget the true biological origins of the Jews of Poland and Russia or a directive for the promotion of the story of the Jews' exile from their homeland is pure fantasy."<ref name=Bartal>{{Cite news
| last = Bartal
| first = Israel
| title = Inventing an invention
| work = Haaretz
| accessdate = 2008-12-11
| date = 2008-07-06
| url = http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/999386.html
}}</ref>

Historian [[Anita Shapira]] criticizes Sand for, in his survey of three thousand years of history, regularly "grab(ing) at the most unorthodox theory" in a field and then stretching it "to the outer limits of logic and beyond."<ref>"The Jewish-people deniers," Anita Shapira, Journal of Israeli History, Volume 28, Issue 1 March 2009 , pages 63 - 72</ref>

==Political motivations==

Sand is said to have written the book to advocate a [[One state solution]] to the Israeli Arab conflict. <ref name=segev/>  According to [[Tom Segev]], Sand's book "is intended to promote the idea that Israel should be a 'state of all its citizens' - Jews, Arabs and others - in contrast to its declared identity as a 'Jewish and democratic' state." <ref name=segev/>  Segev writes that the book is generally "well-written" and includes "numerous facts and insights that many Israelis will be astonished to read for the first time". <ref name=segev/>   Sand told an interviewer that "The revelation that the Jews are not from Judea would ostensibly knock the legitimacy for our being here out from under us....  There is a very deep fear that doubt will be cast on our right to exist." <ref name=Ilani/>

The book has been criticized as an attempt to "drag history into a topical argument, and with the help of misrepresentations and half-truths to adapt it to the needs of a political discussion." <ref>"The Jewish-people deniers," Anita Shapira, Journal of Israeli History, Volume 28, Issue 1 March 2009 , pages 63 - 72</ref>

==Sand's qualifications==

Experts on the Jewish history have said that Sand is dealing with subjects about which he has no understanding and are that he bases his book on work that he is incapable of reading in the original languages.<ref name=Ilani/>

Most of the book deals with the question of where the Jews come from, rather than questions of modern Jewish nationalism and the - according to Sand -  modern invention of the Jewish people."<ref name=Ilani/>  Sand admits that he is "An historian of France and Europe, and not of the ancient period. (...)",<ref name=Ilani/> and that he has "been criticised in Israel for writing about Jewish history when European history is my specialty."<ref name=Cook/>

==Popular success==

The book was in the best-seller list in Israel for 19 weeks and quickly went to 3 editions when published in French (''Comment le people juif fut inventé'', Fayard, Paris, 2008). In France it received the "Aujourd'hui Award", a journalists' award for top non-fiction political or historical work. <ref name=Sela/>More translations are in progress and the book is scheduled for publication by Verso in English in 2009.<ref name=Cook/>.

==References==
{{reflist}}


[[Category:2008 books]]
[[Category:Pseudohistory]]
[[Category:Jews and Judaism-related controversies]]
[[Category:Historical revisionism (political)]]

[[fr:Comment le peuple juif fut inventé]]