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Last update - 16:53 01/03/2008 An invention called 'the Jewish people' By Tom Segev e Jews. Zand did not invent this thesis; 30 years before the Declaration of Independence, it was espoused by David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and others. If the majority of the Jews were not exiled, how is it that so many of them reached almost every country on earth? Zand says they emigrated of their own volition or, if they were among those exiled to Babylon, remained there because they chose to. Contrary to conventional belief, the Jewish religion tried to induce members of other faiths to become Jews, which explains how there came to be millions of Jews in the world. As the Book of Esther, for example, notes, "And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them." Advertisement Zand quotes from many existing studies, some of which were written in Israel but shunted out of the central discourse. He also describes at length the Jewish kingdom of Himyar in the southern Arabian Peninsula and the Jewish Berbers in North Africa. The community of Jews in Spain sprang from Arabs who became Jews and arrived with the forces that captured Spain from the Christians, and from European-born individuals who had also become Jews. The first Jews of Ashkenaz (Germany) did not come from the Land of Israel and did not reach Eastern Europe from Germany, but became Jews in the Khazar Kingdom in the Caucasus. Zand explains the origins of Yiddish culture: it was not a Jewish import from Germany, but the result of the connection between the offspring of the Kuzari and Germans who traveled to the East, some of them as merchants. We find, then, that the members of a variety of peoples and races, blond and black, brown and yellow, became Jews in large numbers. According to Zand, the Zionist need to devise for them a shared ethnicity and historical continuity produced a long series of inventions and fictions, along with an invocation of racist theses. Some were concocted in the minds of those who conceived the Zionist movement, while others were offered as the findings of genetic studies conducted in Israel. Prof. Zand teaches at Tel Aviv University. His book, "When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?" (published by Resling in Hebrew), 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. Personal stories, a prolonged theoretical discussion and abundant sarcastic quips do not help the book, but its historical chapters are well-written and cite numerous facts and insights that many Israelis will be astonished to read for the first time. The mosquito from Kiryat Yam On March 27, 1948, a meeting was held in Hiafa concerning the fate of the Bedouin of Arab al-Ghawarina in the Haifa area. "They must be removed from there, so that they, too, will not add to our troubles," Yosef Weitz, of the Keren Kayemeth (Jewish National Fund), wrote in his personal diary. Two months later, Weitz reported to the organization's director, "Our Haifa Bay has been evacuated completely and there is hardly a remnant of those who encroached our border." They were probably expelled to Jordan; some were allowed to remain in the village of Jisr al-Zarqa. The fate of the Arab al-Ghawarina Bedouin has recently made the headlines thanks to Shmuel Sisso, mayor of the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Yam. He has filed a complaint with the police against Google. The reason is the addition that one of the site's surfers, a resident of Nablus, attached to the center of Kiryat Yam in the world satellite photo, stating that the city is built on the ruins of a village that was destroyed in 1948, Arab al-Ghawarina. Sisso's complaint says that this is slanderous. The facts are as follows: The lands of the Zevulun Valley were purchased in the 1920s by the JNF and by various construction companies, among them one called Gav Yam. The Zionist Archives have the plan for the establishment of Kiryat Yam, dated 1938, and a letter from 1945 states that there were already 100 homes there. Government maps from the British Mandate period identify the territory on which Kiryat Yam was built by two names: Zevulun Valley and Ghawarina. Thus it appears that this was not a settlement but an area in which Bedouin resided. The Web site of the Israeli organization Zochrot (Remembering) states that there were 720 people at the site in 1948 and that the area was divided among three kibbutzim: Ein Hamifratz, Kfar Masaryk and Ein Hayam, today Ein Carmel. This story has been making the rounds on the Internet and drawing responses, which can be summed up as follows: "If Sisso is suing Google because they stated that he is living on a destroyed Arab village, the implication is that he thinks this is something bad." Sisso, a lawyer of 57 who is identified with Likud and was formerly Israeli consul general in New York, says, "I don't think there is anything bad about it, but other people might think it is bad, especially people abroad, and that is liable to hurt Kiryat Yam, because people will not want to invest here. Since we are not sitting on a Palestinian village, why should we have to suffer for no reason?" Moroccan-born, Sisso arrived in Israel in 1955. "I wandered around the whole region and I saw no trace of anyone's having been here before us and supposedly expelled." He asked an American law professor how, if at all, Google could be sued for slander or for damages. This, he says, is the contribution of Kiryat Yam to the struggle against the right of return (of the Palestinian refugees). It could turn out to be the most riveting trial since Ariel Sharon sued Time magazine, but mayor Sisso has no illusions: "Me against Google is like a mosquito against an elephant," he said this week. Who America belongs to Two professors, Gabi Shefer and Avi Ben-Zvi, were guests this week on Yitzhak Noy's "International Hour" current events program on Israel Radio. The anchor, sounding slightly concerned, asked whether the achievements of Barack Obama show that the United States no longer belongs to the white man. Prof. Shefer confirmed this: Obama is an immigrant, he said. Prof. Ben-Zvi asked to add a remark: Gabi Shefer is right, he said. They are both wrong. If Obama were an immigrant, he would not be eligible to be elected president. He was born in Honolulu, some two years after Hawaii became the 50th state of the union. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Hamas on the Holocaust Al-Aqsa TV claims Jews concocted the Holocaust. Grasping genocide How a non-Jew in Israel came to understand the Holocaust.   1.   re Invention by Tom Segev 11:29  |  Rakefet 02/03/08   2.   most or all religions r mere cults 15:20  |  triska TORONTO 02/03/08   3.   As a historian, Segev is more of a journalist 19:24  |  DJStahl 02/03/08   4.   Segev and Zand vs. the facts 19:37  |  DJStahl 02/03/08   5.   The Jewish people 13:53  |  Ahmed Asgher 03/03/08   6.   Re #6 "millions of foreign looking people" 18:40  |  DJStahl 03/03/08   7.   Re #5 Remember the name "Amir Peretz"? 23:22  |  DJStahl 03/03/08   8.   You can Erase the History Books 02:42  |  Yechiel Cohen 04/03/08   9.   Haredi Judaisim is the Truth 02:46  |  Yechiel 04/03/08   10.   Jewish Race 11:32  |  Ahmed Asgher 04/03/08   11.   I dont understand! 15:56  |  Kevin 04/03/08   12.   If Israel is a state for the Jews, what will happen if a Jewish 16:18  |  Palestinian Jewish 04/03/08   13.   Pseudohistorians are Interesting? To Whom? Psychiatrists? 20:38  |  Efox 04/03/08   14.   re: Ahmed Asgher 20:41  |  Efox 04/03/08   15.   re: Palestinian Jewish 20:46  |  Efox 04/03/08   16.   The Jewish people survived hitler, we can survive you too 18:28  |  elianna 06/03/08   17.   Ahmed Asgar 06:15  |  musings 08/03/08   18.   Disproven? By whom? 11:10  |  HPS 08/03/08   19.   Nice lie that you wish was true 14:40  |  The Truth 08/03/08   20.   DNA Studies 19:21  |  Jessica 08/03/08   21.   TRUTH FOR REAL 03:21  |  burntbronze 09/03/08   22.   Who America belongs to 19:03  |  Carla Murphy 09/03/08   23.   The Jewish People 08:35  |  tom 11/03/08   24.   Jessica and DNA studies 08:08  |  Marilyn 14/03/08   25.   German ethnics 15:17  |  Levi 17/03/08   26.   King David was a redhead 15:35  |  Levi 17/03/08   27.   Invention called the Jewish People 04:02  |  Sam Cohen 19/03/08   28.   anchient deportations 15:43  |  tom 16/04/08   29.   to Mr burntbronze from no. 21 21:24  |  Shirley 18/04/08   30.   Israelites were Egyptians 15:00  |  ralph Ellis 26/04/08   31.   Hyksos Exodus 15:02  |  ralph Ellis 26/04/08   32.   King David was a redhead?? 15:12  |  ralph Ellis 26/04/08   33.   DNA 22:46  |  Dennis The Menace 26/04/08   34.   An Invention called `the Jewish People` 17:11  |  xxPeter 27/04/08

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