Shlomo Sand
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.Blog
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Debunking a Nationalist Myth: Donald Sassoon on Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Land of Israel
Donald Sassoon, in his recent review of Shlomo Sand's latest book, The Invention of the Land of Israel, presents us with the book's main argument, namely, that the entire notion of 'the land of Israel' is an invention. That is to say, most nations' location and borders are the result of endless shifts, changes and movements throughout history, many of them contingent and unwarranted. Israel, on the other hand, claims for itself a specific place on the map based on a transcendental prescription, also known as a divine promise.
First off, this promise, if it was indeed made (by God no less), it does not in fact include Jerusalem, Hebron, or Bethehem. And even less does it follow from this, that peoples should be displaced, wars should be waged and lands should be colonized to fulfill a promise made over 2000 years ago. Indeed, Sassoon reminds us that "in traditional Judaism there is no injunction to "return" to the "land of Israel"", which only serves to make things for the campaigners of such yearnings even harder.
But all this matters very little in the end: nations have always created myths to justify their existence, fabricated enemies to solidify national identities and reserved a special place for themselves in order to warrant domination over others. In the case of Israel, the facts Sand presents are known (at least to specialists), as Donald Sassoon confirms. What matters, and what this book's "painful truth-telling" delivers, is that they become more widely so. In Sassoon's own words:
"[Shlomo Sand's] achievement consists in debunking a nationalist mythology."
Something which, on all accounts, is no small feat.
Visit the Guardian to read the review in full. -
"Do we, too, have a fabricated history?" : Moncef Marzouki on The Invention of the Jewish People
After reading Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People, President Moncef Morzouki of Tunisia asks about the lessons Sand's book might have for other nations and peoples.
Do we, too, have a fabricated history?There is no doubt about it - the book The Invention of the Jewish People by the Jewish Israeli historian Shlomo Sand, which stirred up great controversy in Israel and was translated into 26 languages in less than a year, came as a pleasant surprise to all its Arab readers, including to the author of these lines.
What this historian, whose hostility towards Zionism cannot be dismissed as mere Anti-Semitism, establishes very clearly is that the Zionist claim to their right to the lands of Palestine is void. He proves, relying on a vast amount of sources – many of them Jewish – that the forceful expulsion of the Jews from Palestine after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans is a myth.... that the preservation of a pure race during years of exile is a myth... that the claim that the ones who returned to conquer Palestine were the grandchildren of those exiled thousands of years earlier is a myth... And even the exodus from Egypt and the Kingdom of David and Salomon, all of these are legends upon legends.
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Shlomo Sand: ‘"The Zionist Left has never been less colonialist than the Right"
On the eve of the Israeli parliamentary elections, L’Express interviewed the historian Shlomo Sand. He looked back to the use of religious reference points by Israeli politicians ever since the creation of the State of Israel, holding this contradiction to blame for the failure of the Israeli Left.
'The Zionist Left has never been less colonialist than the Right'
The parliamentary elections to be held this Tuesday looked certain to confirm the Israeli electorate’s turn to the Right. On the eve of the vote, L’Express interviewed the historian Shlomo Sand, author of The Invention of the Land of Israel: from Holy Land to Homeland. He looked back to the use of religious reference points by Israeli politicians ever since the creation of the State of Israel, holding this contradiction partly to blame for the failure of the Israeli Left.
Discussions
Discussions occur on book pages throughout the site. The most recent discussions about the works of Shlomo Sand are listed below.
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Several critics of Shlomo Sand’s book have seized on recent scientific studies that supposedly proved "that Jewish communities in places as far afield as Europe and the Caucasus are genetically linked, and that their DNA ancestry traces back to the Middle East" and thus that "demonstrate conclusively that the theories propounded by Sand and others ring visibly and unmistakably hollow". Sand himself, in the postface to the paperback edition of his book, argues that: "After exhausting all the historical arguments, several critics have seized on genetics. The same people who maintain that the Zionists never referred to a race conclude their argument by evoking a common Jewish gene. Their thinking can be summed up as follows: ‘We are not a pure race, but we are a race just the same.’ ... As of today, no study based on anonymous DNA samples has succeeded in identifying a genetic marker specific to Jews, and it is not likely that any study ever will." Is Shlomo Sand’s argument—especially where it concerns the role of conversion in the spread of Judaism—vulnerable to objections based on genetic science?