By Tom Segev : An invention called 'the Jewish people'
Talkback
Title: Segev and Zand vs. the facts Name: DJStahl City: HP State: USA
...from capital punishment to petty harassment, used by Rome to drive Jews out of the land. Incl removing the name "Judaea" and merging it with Syria. Africans today talk about the slave "diaspora." S & Z cavil at calling what Rome did to the Jews a comparable diaspora. Zand`s nonsense, which Segev faithfully repeats, suggests that there were mass conversions to Judaism in various lands. But the Talmud since at least 400 CE has strongly discouraged conversion. And the tragic frequency of genetic illness like Tay-Sachs, Gaucher`s, and several others testifies that conversion to Judaism has always been a rare and individual event. Further, recent DNA studies have shown remarkable connection among Jews across wide distances, esp among Cohanim. Similar DNA studies, AFIK, have disproved the notion, that some politicians once may have held, about the genetic connection Palestinian Arabs have with Jews. The Khazar myth also was disproved often, tho S & Z try to bring it back