I’m reading Shlomo Sand’s book, The Invention of the Jewish People, and am thrilled by it, by Sand’s moral engagement with Zionist foundational myths, and his brilliant, incisive effort to unravel the questionable historical sources of a Jewish identity rooted in fables of exile and nationhood rather than in a long "religious civilization." If some of the scholarship is synthesized from others’ groundbreaking academic studies, big deal. It’s news to me. Isn’t that just what Elaine Pagels did with gospels research, got it to a wider audience? (Without getting slammed in the Times by the usually-superb and dispassionate Patricia Cohen).
Tony Judt has an amazing piece at Financial Times that says this better than I can: that Shlomo Sand’s book is important as a rethinking of Jewish and Israeli identity outside of religious mythology, and that Americans don’t have a clue about this undertaking. Notice that Judt ends with a slam of the Israel lobby as the most powerful force in Middle East policy. Walt and Mearsheimer opened the door here; and yet the lobby obviously involves issues of identity-construction.
The story went like this. Jews, until the destruction of the Second Temple (in the First century), had been farmers in what is now Israel/Palestine. They had then been forced yet again into exile by the Romans and wandered the earth: homeless, rootless and outcast. Now at last “they” were “returning” and would once again farm the soil of their ancestors.
It is this narrative that the historian Shlomo Sand seeks to deconstruct in his controversial book The Invention of the Jewish People. His contribution, critics assert, is at best redundant. For the last century, specialists have been perfectly familiar with the sources he cites and the arguments he makes. From a purely scholarly perspective, I have no quarrel with this. Even I, dependent for the most part on second-hand information about the earlier millennia of Jewish history, can see that Prof Sand – for example in his emphasis upon the conversions and ethnic mixing that characterise the Jews in earlier times – is telling us nothing we do not already know.
The question is, who are “we”? Certainly in the US , the overwhelming majority of Jews (and perhaps non-Jews) have absolutely no acquaintance with the story Prof Sand tells. They will never have heard of most of his protagonists, but they are all too approvingly familiar with the caricatured version of Jewish history that he is seeking to discredit. If Prof Sand’s popularising work does nothing more than provoke reflection and further reading among such a constituency, it will have been worthwhile.
But there is more to it than that. While there were other justifications for the state of Israel , and still are – it was not by chance that David Ben-Gurion sought, planned and choreographed the trial of Adolf Eichmann – it is clear that Prof Sand has undermined the conventional case for a Jewish state. Once we agree, in short, that Israel ’s uniquely “Jewish” quality is an imagined or elective affinity, how are we to proceed?
Prof Sand is himself an Israeli and the idea that his country has no “raison d’etre” would be abhorrent to him. Rightly so. States exist or they do not. Egypt or Slovakia are not justified in international law by virtue of some theory of deep “Egyptianness” or “Slovakness”. Such states are recognised as international actors, with rights and status, simply by virtue of their existence and their capacity to maintain and protect themselves.
So Israel ’s survival does not rest on the credibility of the story it tells about its ethnic origins. If we accept this, we can begin to understand that the country’s insistence upon its exclusive claim upon Jewish identity is a significant handicap. In the first place, such an insistence reduces all non-Jewish Israeli citizens and residents to second-class status. This would be true even if the distinction were purely formal. But of course it is not: being a Muslim or a Christian – or even a Jew who does not meet the increasingly rigid specification for “Jewishness” in today’s Israel – carries a price.
Implicit in Prof Sand’s book is the conclusion that Israel would do better to identify itself and learn to think of itself as Israel . The perverse insistence upon identifying a universal Jewishness with one small piece of territory is dysfunctional in many ways. It is the single most important factor accounting for the failure to solve the Israel-Palestine imbroglio. It is bad for Israel and, I would suggest, bad for Jews elsewhere who are identified with its actions.
Aside from Sand’s excessive use of straw dogs. (Israel’s exile, who said that every person was exiled? There certainly came to be a LARGE diaspora that is nowhere close to being explainable by Khazaria.)
I’m hoping that Phil will acknowledge Judt’s point that Israel came to be for some substantive reason, multiple reasons (whether that conforms to what 8-year-olds are told is irrelevant. We were told some stories as well, no?), and continues for substantive reasons. Some of the reasons for its continued relevance as a distinct Zionist state are identical to founding reasons, and some have morphed.
It adds to acceptance of Israel as a/the site of Jewish self-governance, even if not adding the term “exclusive” as straw dog (Sand) or as advocate (likud).
Physician. Heal. Thyself.
And maybe read the goddamn book so that your opinion might actually be considered authoritative in some realistic fashion.
Sand argues that there is no reason why there should be a polity in Palestine which gives greater rights to some than to others on the grounds that they are descended from ancient inhabitants. Philosophically some might say that no amount of descent from ancients, however genuine and indisputable, gives anyone rights here and now: but that’s another matter.
Judt for his part refers to other ‘raisons d’etre’ for Israel’s existence, notably a version of the principle that ‘what is should be’, though his version does not seem to imply unconditional and indefinite acceptance of Israel in the absence of either a one-state or a two-state solution. Whereas Sand for his part seems, as Judt observes, ready to accept only the one-state idea.
Judt takes the same view as Israeli academia in general seems to take, which is that ‘we knew this (with the exception of the Khazar bit, which is false) already’ – so also Patricia Cohen. But it is clear enough from the reaction to Sand that this general knowledge, which calls into question highly important, high-profile and official statements about ‘the Book of Books’, was under discussion only in a discreet academic undertone: which does not do the academics concerned too much credit.
To my mind, Sand and others have shown that the Biblical evidence reveals on the most reasonable interpretation a multicultural Palestine almost throughout Biblical times – the post-biblical evidence reveals the same for the post-biblical world. The Jewish ‘rights of memory’ are, if we accept such rights at all, not more profound than those of the Palestinians – should I say Philistines? Whether a one-state or two-state ‘solution’ would best reflect the ancient situation might be debated.
Sand is not attacking the plainly absurd proposition that all Jews were expelled by Roman or Arab powers but the proposition that there was a major, politically directed shift of population such as we have found in our cruel world. Again, I think that he and others have shown at least that there was still a major Jewish population, actively pursuing its religion, in at least some parts of Palestine long after the Jewish Wars – beyond that, the picture still needs some clarification. There was certainly a large Jewish population elsewhere, but there ‘always’ had been, so that its existence in later times is easily explicable without either an expulsion from Palestine or an influx from Khazaria. Khazaria is a bit of a closed book to me, though I’d be surprised if the Khazars have made no or no significant contribution to Jewish bloodlines in eastern Europe.
The battle where the fate of the Achaemenid Empire was settled for a time, in or after which Xenophon distinguished himself, could be called ‘The Battle of the Synagogue’ and took place in a region of Iraq that had become Jewish by the fifth century, a testimony to the importance – under-recognised, I guess – of Aramaic-speakers in the Achaemenid system. There was a large Jewish presence well before the Christian era in Egypt, Rome and Spain – one could go on, even on and on, imperilling donkeys and their hind legs.
Some conversions to Judaism happened of course because the Hasmonean monarchs – though maybe they adopted the claim to be ‘priests for ever after the order of (the Canaanite!) Melchizedek’ – hit people over the head unless they would convert. On the other hand Jews should be proud of the intellectual appeal of their religion in those days, which again was part of the multiculturalism of the ancient world which our pervasive nationalism has obscured.
Hughs writeswith the exception of the Khazar bit, which is false, but then goes on to say Khazaria is a bit of a closed book to me, though I’d be surprised if the Khazars have made no or no significant contribution to Jewish bloodlines in eastern Europe.
So what is it. Sands makes the point that Eastern European Jews descended from the Jewish Khazars that were converted to Judaism over a millenia ago. Almost certainly true. I believe Sands is probably wrong to say that this same people did not have significant ancestral contributions of Jews who migrated there from Palestine. There is no logical or scientific conflict here. In fact modern haplotype mapping seems to show that Ashkenazi Jews do in fact have significant contributions of markers from people who came from both Central Asia and Palestine as well as sharing many markers with Europeans. What a scandal. European Jews as well as the Europeans themselves are all a bunch of mongrel races that when we add them all together are part of the human race.
‘Which is false’ was part of my summary of the somewhat glib response that seems to have become typical of Israel academia. My reference to Khazaria as a closed book refers to my own state of knowledge. I’ve studied ancient history quite a lot but have never made any serious study of genetics or statistics.
Let me say that I think that Sand has written the ancient history book of the year.
Can’t wait to get the book. After I finish Richard Clarke’s “against all enemies”
Thanks for letting us know about this book. I have brought up in the past at your site that I have always tried to figure out why many folks who are Jewish often bring this up even when most Jews I know are not a bit religious.
Heavy identification
A while back you connected us up with a conference where Tony Judt was speaking I had no idea that he was having serious health issues. He is a remarkable man willing to tell the truth. I hope he is doing as well as can be expected.
I’m pleased to report that Judt has less than a year to live. His colleagues are, it seems, ecstatic.
Wow. You really are a complete psychopath, aren’t you?
ziotoxin overdose
.
I am stunned. Ohio Jones, our local Zionist, cheering that one of his enemies, an original thinker and scholar, through the randomness of disease, is prematurely approaching the end of his life. Ohio, you must have been one of those Israelis last winter that brought out their lawn chairs to watch and cheer as Israel bombed Gaza. That must have been very satisfying to learn that over 300 Gazan children were deprived of more than 50 years of their lives.
Kiss my ass OJ, you little bastard…
OhioJoes is the embodiment of Zionizm, and demonstrates he ideology that Witty calls humane.
Hey Ohio, do you live in Israel, or is that patch of sand to 3rd world for your trailer park persuasion?
As I’ve told y’all before, I live in Ohio, not Israel. Why don’t you talk to one of Judt’s colleagues at NYU? They might invite you to their upcoming “farewell” party. It will be held, I understand, shortly after the big event.
Sylvanen (sic): what would be an example of Judt’s original thought?
Yes we know you live in Ohio OJ. What’s the matter? Israel won’t take you, or are you afraid there isn’t enough white trash in Israel to keep you company?
Please stop the ad hominem, Shingo. It’s a violation of Phil’s code of conduct.
Where in Phil’s code of conduct does is it permitted to celebrate someone’s fatal illness?
And why won’t you answer the question as to why you don’t live in Israel?
What is perverse about the Jewish connection to Jerusalem?
Tony Judt says,
The perverse insistence upon identifying a universal Jewishness with one small piece of territory is dysfunctional in many ways.
Judaism and Jewishness have diverse meanings and interpretations and for one to dismiss an interpretation other than one’s own as perverse is presumptuous. Judaism, IMO, consists of both a universal tendency and a particularist tendency and to pretend otherwise is again presumptuous. From a religious point of view, one need only refer to the prayers and their constant invocation of Jerusalem and rebuilding Jerusalem to realize how key the connection to this “one small piece of territory” was to the Jews who prayed three times a day and blessed after a meal three more times a day. The prayers regarding peace, a universal idea, should be mentioned as well, but to pretend that it is perverse to see a connection to this one small piece of territory is to ignore a major strand of Judaism and Jewish practice.
Further: from a historical point of view one must confess that in 1948 there were few Jews who rejected the connection to “one small piece of territory”. Those Jews did exist, but the masses were rooting for a Jewish victory and took pride in the declaration of a state. There is no question that the proximity in time to the Shoah played a large role in this pride.
Within the last few weeks Phil Weiss quoted from Isaac Deutscher’s the non Jewish Jew. Deutscher, a socialist who rejected Zionism, understood the Jewish turn inwards after the massive disappointment that the universalist world presented to the Jews after the Shoah. He hoped that eventually the Jewish people would turn in the direction of Spinoza, Marx and Freud and recover their universalist spirit. But one wonders how those who still identify with the rejection of universalism which was an accepted reaction in the immediate post war years, now must be painted as perverse. Certainly different groups and different members of different groups have different arcs of grieving and recovery from grieving.
Seeking to replace the current modus operandi of militarism and ethnocentrism in Israel and to find a ground to satisfy some Palestinian needs and build a more just society in a state side by side with a Palestinian state are not in fact purely universalistic aspirations. They are in fact attempts to heal the “small piece of land” and if that is not perverse, then what is Tony Judt talking about when he claims that separating from the small piece of land is the essential act, rather than involvement with the “small piece of land”.
I think the catch phrase is “universal Jewishness.” That is, the idea that Jewishness — ostensibly, the Zionist flavor of it anyway — must spring from grabbing hold of a piece of land with military force is the specific perversion. Specifically a perversion of Judaism from its core values.
Not perverse. Idolatry.
Zionism is like a monkey who sticks his hand in a jar to pull out a coconut, but it can’t pull the coconut out or pull out its hand without letting go of the nut. And someone throws the money into the ocean, and the jar fills with water and it’s pulling the monkey under, but it refuses to let go of the nut.
“Judaism and Jewishness have diverse meanings and interpretations and for one to dismiss an interpretation other than one’s own as perverse is presumptuous.”
To try to portray this recent Zionist bullshit as in the tradition of Judaism is laughable, which makes you the brunt of the joke wondering jew. I would give this as much credence as I would the relatively new nonsense of Fundamentalism in Christianity.
The only thing Zionism did was to overthrow thousands of years of observation which is contrary to marching into the region to conquer the “Holy Land.” As Judt said, I as I have equally said in earlier posts, what Sand proposes is no new information – especially about the “mythical” quality of a Jewish history. Zionism has no universal quality in its current practice, nor will it gain one, it is destined to a similar end –
RAPIDLY APPROACHING DEVOLUTION
As we know biologically there is no de-evolution, so Israel will not be successful in its activities of its current Zionist form.
VR- I suppose the book of Joshua is not in the Bible and I suppose that Bar Kochba was not Jewish. And I suppose that the 400,000 Jews who were in Mandate Palestine between 1939 and 1945 would have all survived if they had stayed in Europe for the duration of World War II.
Just to clarify- I do not espouse Joshua like warfare/genocide. It may be more relevant to point out that Ezra and Nehemiah are books in the Bible, where a return to the land was sanctioned by a greater power and was opposed by “indigenous” peoples.
But that was not my point. The point I was making was that that there are diverse aspects to Judaism and to call the attachment to a sliver of land perverse is clearly historically narrow minded.
What is this universal X-ness? How many politically significant forms of X-ness do most of us have?
Does non-universalism mean the claim to exemption from the moral laws that apply to others, whose normal rights we have a special, overriding right to abrogate? What is to stop others, who don’t like us, from claiming the same rights? I know that there is an existentialist moral tradition which might help here but existentialist arguments can get somewhat perverse.
If there is a Palestinian narrative about ancient history there are few things to be said in its support – that according to the Genesis 20 (many might not believe this, of course) the Philistines were there before Abraham, that the first non-biblical attestation comes about 1175, some 30 years after the first non-biblical attestation of Israel, that there is no record of the Philistines’ ever having gone anywhere. And much more. This might lead to a claim that if there are indeed operative rights based on ancient history those of the Palestinians are as good as anyone’s.