Shlomo Sand's 'The Invention of the Jewish People' is a success for Israel
Some may be surprised to find that Sand's goal is to preserve Israel as a democracy with a Jewish character.
By Carlo Strenger Tags: Israel newsFor a number of days now, the NYT review of Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People, which has recently been published in an English translation, has been on the list of 'most emailed articles' - a remarkable feat for a book review. As the reviewer points out, the hype around the book was mostly generated by some of Sand's less controversial claims.
Yes, Jewish public consciousness continues to be formed by the idea that Jews were exiled from Israel by the Romans, whereas the truth is that close to two million Jews continued to live here until the fall of the Roman empire. Yes, a large portion of the Roman Empire Jews became Jewish by conversion, and hence most Jews today are unlikely to be descendants of Jews who lived here two thousand years ago. But, as Sand repeatedly points out, none of this is disputed by historians.
Yes, the Zionist narrative has created a semblance of continuity between the Jews living in Israel two thousand years ago and modern Jews, much more than actually exists. But, as Sand shows, all modern nation states have created narratives aimed at legitimizing cultural, linguistic and political hegemony of the dominant group. In this respect Israel is not different from Germany, Italy or Indonesia. Sand's claim is that Israel doesn't need to shroud itself in myth for its continued existence, and this, in my view, is the book's most important merit, and should come as a relief rather than be seen as an attack on Israel.
Sand's book is not a pure work of history. In fact, it has a clearly stated political agenda. From all the sound and the fury you might think that his agenda is to expel all Jews from Israel, or to abolish the Jewish state. It might come as a surprise to some who have not read the book that Sand's goal is to preserve Israel as a democracy with a Jewish character based on a Jewish majority.
Sand points out that modern democracies fall into two categories that emerged in modern Europe: East of the Rhein, the dominant model was that of ethnocracies: countries that were supposed to have a special attachment to a particular ethnos. West of the Rhein the model of pure liberal democracies prevailed: for them the sovereign is simply the totality of its citizens. The clearest case of this model is, of course, the U.S. No one could conceivably argue that the Caucasian conquerors of America had some special historical relation to the land. The U.S. continued to be an immigrant country, and every new citizen had the same right, whatever his or her provenance.
Sand claims that most of Israel's present ills stem from its being an ethnocracy that gives Jews special privileges. This keeps raising the question 'who is a Jew', and makes it very difficult for the large minority of Israeli Arabs to feel that they have equal rights. Sand's book came out early in 2008, too early to address one of the utter perversions that the current state of affairs presents: Notoriously, Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's platform would require every citizen in Israel to take a loyalty oath to the Jewish state. Most commentators saw this as an attempt to delegitimize Israel's Arabs - which was certainly true. But they forgot that most of Lieberman's voters are from the former Soviet bloc, many of whom are not recognized as Jews by the Rabbinate. His move was supposed to help them by substituting Jewish ancestry or orthodox conversion with loyalty to the state as their stamp of legitimacy.
Lieberman's outlandish and totalitarian proposal would have been unnecessary if Israel was a pure liberal democracy: once immigrants receive citizenship, they would not have to worry about their status and legitimacy. However, as Sand points out, Ben-Gurion's historical compromise with the orthodox establishment created an anomaly unique in advanced democracies: in Israel the state actually tells Jews who we can marry and how.
One of the reasons for all these maneuvers is, of course, Hok Hashevut, the law of return, which allows Jews from anywhere to receive automatic Israeli citizenship. Sand argues that this law must be repealed. By turning Israel into a liberal democracy, all Israeli citizens at this point in history, never mind their ethnic provenance or religion, would be its sovereign. Given Israel's current demography, this would guarantee Jewish hegemony without making recourse to non-democratic means ranging from the involvement of the Rabbinate in citizens' private lives to Lieberman's loyalty oath. Sand also argues that abolishing Hok Hashevut is necessary in preventing Palestinians from claiming their Right of Return, as nobody would, from that moment onwards, have an automatic right to citizenship.
I disagree with this aspect of Sand's conclusion: I think that Hok Hashevut has little weight in the Palestinians' accepting or rejecting the existence of Israel. I also think that Sand's criticism of the efforts of legal scholars like Amnon Rubinstein to work out a liberal platform that would safeguard Hok Hashevut are mostly not convincing, and he doesn't mention law professor Ruth Gavison's important work in this context. This law is one of Israel's raisons d'etre, and should be maintained, even though some of its specifics need to be reworked to make sure that it is not abused for political and other purposes.
Disagreements aside, I think that Shlomo Sand's questions about how Israel's democracy can be liberalized and stabilized are thought-provoking and deserve serious discussion. But most of all, the book's success in Israel (it was on the bestseller list for nineteen weeks) is a success for Israel. The fact that very basic questions about Israel's foundations can be discussed trenchantly shows that Israel is a vibrant, if at times flawed, democracy. It will resist all attempts by politicians like Lieberman to prescribe its citizens what to think or feel.
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There is a genetic connection between most Jewish communities worldwide and the eastern/southern mediterranean region. But this is a very large area. It includes what is today Israel, but it also includes Lebanon, Syria, southernTurkey, Greece, North Africa and even southern Italy. About 70% of Ashkenazi Jewish males have Y chromosomes of haplotype J (modal Cohen) and E1b1b1, which are different from haplotypes R1a, R1b and I that are dominant among central and eastern Europeans. However, the J and E1b1b1 markers reach similarly high proportion in Greece and Sicily. Therefore, a lot of the ancestors of modern day Ashkenazim could have been converted Roman citizens from this broad mediterranean region but not from the biblical Judean area. Therefore, genetic data does not disprove Sand's contention.
"The Arabs did their best to displace the Jews from Palestine, but they failed." They didn't. They tried to stop colonization. "Palestinian-Arab state would have been 61 y old today, side by side with the Palestinian-Jewish state." There has never been a time when the Palestinians could declare Sovereignty. A part of their territory has always been under someone else's control. "BTW, in the India-Pakistan conflict more than 14 million became refugees. Not a single one was allowed to return." Population transfer.... "The same compensation should be given to the 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries" What Jewish refugees. If a refugee takes up citizenship in a new country they forgo all refugee status and rights.
I guess some folk'd miss out... http://tinyurl.com/y8ewves/myths-mis-conceptions-propaganda/#Jews-are-a-race
"There is nothing strange or unique in Israeli laws that prefer the Jews as immigrants. The same laws exist in Japan and a number of other countries." They do not. Israel is the ONLY country in the world that has a Law of Return for religious converts. For people who have no ties to the land and no matching 'Jewish' DNA. No relatives who are Jewish, not born Jewish.
...namely that it exists, it has a functioning government and -- unlike many of its neighbors -- it governs by the consent of its citizenry. The rest of Sand's argument is basically nonsense. One might apply the same argument to claim that France should not exist as well. Several centuries ago, the people who lived there didn't think of themselves as french, didn't speak french, and didn't want to be part of france. Ergo, based on Sand's argument, there is no French ethnicity, but only a latter day construct, and France is illegitimate. Now go and sell it to the french and come back to the jews later....
LET ME REPHRASE THAT.. What qualifications are needed to establish an ancestral land claim to an area you were not born in? There are 2 differing opinions: ● Rule A: "You just need to join a nation or a religion that originated there". (Under this rule the Indonesian Muslims have the right to colonize the Middle East.) ● Rule B: "You need to have DNA that originated there". (Under this rule White Americans have the right to colonize Europe, and everybody has the right to colonize Africa.) What Shlomo Sands calls "The Invention of the Jewish people", was done to shift Jewish qualifications to colonize Palestine, from under rule A to B (which the clergy saw as more believable).
Many years ago, Stalin had formulated a set of rigid rules for a people to qualify as a nation, such as common language, etc. By stalin's definition, the Jews are not a nation, which repeats Sand's theory. Both of them ignore the simple obvious fact that a person is Jewish if he truly feels like Jewish, regardless of "scientific" definitions. See a recent book by A. Barr.
millions of palestinian lives; who are descendants from the ancient jewry as well... through expulsion, killing, occupation, bombing.. and discriminatory policies that try to push them out to welcome the foreign Jews into their lands.
the M.E.,China etc centuries before the Khazaar story. Giving the Khazaar theory central place gives away the agenda. Why stop there.Most Moslems are descedents of converts to Islam,proving what?
the M.E.,China etc centuries before the Khazaar story. Giving the Khazaar theory central place gives away the agenda. Why stop there.Most Moslems are descedents of converts to Islam,proving what?
I have followed your work with great interest a number of years !
The evidence that Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews both descend from common Israelite ancestors is not only genetic. We also learn this from studies of documents, archeology, linguistics, physical anthropology, architecture, and personal names. Sand's book is not a proper, objective evaluation of these topics, but a politically motivated work. I disproved Sand's contention that Jews are an "invented" people. Chapter 10 and Appendix D in my book "The Jews of Khazaria, Second Edition" present the evidence for the common Israelite ancestry of most living Jewish populations. Haaretz should review my book, which just came out this month in softcover format. Yes there were conversions to Judaism, and yes modern Jews descend in part from Khazars and other non-Jews, but that doesn't explain everything.
...but tell them then that G-D/Allah/Hashem is also the mightiest power ever, and that he has not forgotten the Hebrew Moslems and the Hebrew Christians of Palestine - they will ultimately not be deserted.
The unconditional promises made to Abraham are still in effect. G-d never lies. He doesn't have to!! Israel is back!! Just as Ezekiel predicted!! The would be destroyers of Israel have no idea WHO they are up against!!!
Patricia Cohen says in her NY Times Review that Sand's aim is to lead to the demise of the state of Israel. This does not sound like anything this article is talking about.
The genetic evidence is certainly not silly or outdated, on the contrary. The point is, which I have mentioned so many times, that the Jews and the Palestinians mainly are the same people. The Palestinians happen to be Christian and Moslems, but that is from historic reasons. The Jews coming from the Diaspora, have kept their original religion (which also developed), whilst the Hebrews that remained, mainly converted to Christianity and furthermore to Islam. Both of them to be considered as developments of Judaism. Once you accept the Palestinians as also being true inheritors of the land, then you can start to make an everlasting peace. Goes for BOTH sides.
What is needed to establish an ancestral land claim to an area you were not born in? If you just need to join a nation or a religion that originated there, then the Indonesian Muslims have the right to colonize the Middle East. But if you need to have DNA that originated there, then the White Americans have the right to colonize Europe, and everybody has the right to colonize Africa.
If to establish an ancestral land claim to an area you were not born in, you just need to join a nation or a religion that originated there, then the Indonesian Muslims have the right to colonize the Middle East. On the other hand, if to establish an ancestral land claim to an area you were not born in, you need to have DNA that originated there, then the White Americans have the right to colonize Europe, and everybody has the right to colonize Africa.
There is no genetic argument upon which the Jewish national claim to Palestine is predicated. The genetic argument is to rebut claims such as those found in Sand that the Jews descend not from Jews of antiquity, but almost wholly from Asian Turks or north African Berbers. The genetic argument shows that: 1. the major rabbinical diaspora populations are substantially more related to each other than to their host populations, and more than the respective host populations are related to each other, and 2. In light of the above, and in light of the haplotype diversity of Jews, and in light of the genetic similarity to others of the Levant (namely, the Lebanese), rabbinical Jewish populations of today are primarily descendant from the Jews of antiquity
I'm not saying that DNA studies are silly; I'm saying that challenging a claim to soveriegnty in the middle east on DNA is silly. The Jews claim to soveriegnty in part of the land of Israel is not based on tracing DNA back 2000 years (based on what percentages?) It is based an unbroken cultural and ethnographic connection
There is nothing strange or unique in Israeli laws that prefer the Jews as immigrants. The same laws exist in Japan and a number of other countries. In Japan, a person of Japanese ancestry is given preference as to resident visas and citizenship. Hence, the Law of Return is both a necessary and widespread phenomenon.
Every person alive today has hundreds of thousands of ancestors, and many will have Ancient Jewish ancestors. This include today's Jews -- who are even more likely to have some Ancient Jewish ancestors than the average (due to intra-marriage). Even many converts to Judaism will have had Ancient Jewish ancestors.
The Arabs did their best to displace the Jews from Palestine, but they failed. If the Arabs in 1947 did not start a bloody civil war, to prevent by force the implementation of the UN partition plan, there would have been no refugees and their Palestinian-Arab state would have been 61 y old today, side by side with the Palestinian-Jewish state. BTW, in the India-Pakistan conflict more than 14 million became refugees. Not a single one was allowed to return. The Palestinian refugees will be able to settle in the future Palestinian state or in third countries with appropriate compensation. The same compensation should be given to the 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries. The Arab refugees will not return to Israel proper.
The genetic studies are not "silly". Visit your nearest medical library and read the articles. If a Jewish community in Yemen is very similar to a Jewish community in Poland, while not similar to its non-Jewish Yemanite neighbors, then those Jewish communities have a common ancestor. And if they are similar to Palestinian and Syrian Arabs, then their origin is in the Middle East.
The law of return is in many ways part of the raison d'etre of Israel. It is the idea that any Jew should be welcome and protected by the Jewish homeland if needed. In my reading, it is a law that is a direct result of a history of persecution and being driven out of countries. It's an answer to the question of Jewish statelesness which says to all Jews everywhere that if the land they are in makes them unwelcome, persecutes them, tries to force them out, etc., they will have a home in Israel. It is in man ways similar to the concept of citizenship attained on a basis of the parent's citizenship. There are many countries which will grant a person citizenship if the person's parents were citizens, no matter where this person was actually born. www.buckeach.blogspot.com
If it OK for Jews to displace Arabs, why isn't it OK for the Arabs to take their own back?
If Jewish people wanted to return to the land of their ancestors without any bad thoughts toward anyone else, why is it not possible that Palestinians want to return for the same reason? If your parents were driven from their home, wouldn't it be possible that you would want to come back because you consider where they left to be your homeland (especially since in fact it is)? Shouldn't the same rules apply to everyone else that apply to Jews?
I've been meaning to read his work.. I saw a Russia Today interview a while ago with Shlomo Sand that made me laugh because he hit the nail right on the head with regard to the use of language in defining an identity he closes the interview with "it is so stupid.. that sometimes.. I cannot even believe that it is real"
to the same people as it did 3000 yrs ago. Arabs are trying to displace Jews, as usually. Good luck....
The whole notion that rights to the land should or could be based on tracing DNA back 2 or three thousand years is ridiculous. In fact it's rather creepy. Most people's genetic makeup is a mix of various groups and races. Go back only several centuries and each person has thousands of ancestors that contributed to their DNA. Whether an Israeli Jew or a Palestinian can trace 60% of their DNA or 40% or 75% to someone who came from Palestine 2000 years ago is so silly and besides the point. There are
The genetic research clearly shows that, even though there is no "Jewish DNA", there is definite biological-genetic evidence that the Jews are one people. The researchers found that most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level. Palestinian, Syrian and other non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations were also very close to the Jewish populations. The Ashkenazi Jews were not found to be similar to present-day Turkish speakers. This opposes the suggestion that Ashkenazi Jews descended from the Khazar a Turkish-Asian empire, that converted to Judaism in or about the 8th century CE. The results support the notion that modern Jews are descendants of the Jews who lived in the Middle East 1900 years ago. Contrary to Sand's assertion, not only history supports the existence of the Jewish people and its Middle Eastern origin, so does science.
All genetics aside (including the studies that show that Palestinians and Jews, along with Lebanese, Syrians, and other Levant/Mediterannean peoples) are very similar, I don't think this will interfere with the eventuality of a one-state solution. As this writer states, Shlomo Sand's views are actually to the benefit of Israel if it is to continue as a Jewish state. Not following it will mean all the land from the river Jordan to the Mediterannean will be under one sovereign state, ironically mirroring the genetics even closer.
Whether Jews are religious, cultureal or genetic or some combination is utterly unimportant to Palastinian rejection of a Jewish State. The Palastinain right of return exists to promote a Palastinian majority and dispose of the Jewish State, and no Israeli redefinition of itself will make the slightest difference.
which are long forgotten.
I wonder why such "theories" are constantly popping up: to make some extra money or to help enemies of Israel to decieve ignorant public? Anyone who is a little bit familiar with the Judaism knows that this is simply impossible. And although not all of the present day Jews are direct descendants of those who 2 thousand years ago lived in Israel (as this is true to every ethnicity on earth for there are no "pure" races) the basic claim of this article nothing else but a nonsense.
I am not disputing the issue of the civil society in israel. But some facts are important, as in the previous threat by Gilad. The % of Y chromosomes among jews of almost all (but ethiopian) origins is about 20%. This is the same as from Lebanese and Jordanian populations, and is very different from the populations where diaspora jews live (europe, marokko, irak etc). It is possible that the presumed conversions in the Roman empire involved mainly women (they do not have a Y chromosome).
Nor do any historians dispute that the Romans were actually French and the original Jews were really exiles from a planet in the Andromeda galaxy. No historians dispute this because no lunatic ever made such ridiculous claims before. Moreover, it is unlikely that any historians will respond to the above assertions of French Romans and Jews from outer space as not sufficiently credible to warrant a response. So Sand's claims and French Romans and Jews from outer space have much in common.
I have not yet read Sand's book but it seems to be that Hok Hashavut cannot apply to foreign Jews from outside coming into Israel if it does not permit palestinians who were ejected in 1948 from returning if they desire. Also, how would demographics alone determine the Jewish character of the state since demographics can and do change? And if these Russians coming in are not deemed Jewish by the rabbinate then how would they be deemed Jewish by the state? Who would be the determiners?
Hi there. I must disagree with the concepts as articulated in this article (since I have not read the original). Genetic studies have demonstrated Israelite traits within MOST Ashkenazim, and a greater degree of similarity of genetic isotopes between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim than either population and their native lands (Europeans and Arabs). Does that, actual science, not prove that many have origins in the land? Even if some conversions were rooted along the way, they have ancestry from the Jewish people. Furthermore, as the Jews are a 'nation' (umm Israel/umm ha yehudi, not dat), it becomes irrelevant as a convert takes on the role of a true local. This is bordering on the same concept as the citizenship in many respects, since obtaining citizenship by passing a nations requirements is (although usually easier and mostly dependent on time rather than effort) akin to converting. Between these two points I have concerns about such a book. Although I base it on this article.