The Invention of the Jewish People [Hardcover]

"Shlomo Sand has written a remarkable book. ..Anyone interested in understanding the contemporary Middle East should read this book." -- Tony Judt "..a formidable polemic against claims that Israel has a moral right to define itself as an explicitly and exclusively Jewish society, in which non-Jews, such as Palestino-Israelis, are culturally and politically marginalised." --Max Hastings, Sunday Times

"Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People (Verso) is both a welcome and, in the case of Israel, much needed exercise in the dismantling of nationalist historical myth and a plea for an Israel that belongs equally to all its inhabitants. Perhaps books combining passion and erudition don t change political situations, but if they did, this one would count as a landmark." -- Eric Hobshawm, Observer, Books of the year "A string of firecrackers." --Stephen Howe, Independent, Book of the Week

"Sand takes on a formidable tradition in claiming that moral validity in the Middle East needs good history, and no discussion of the region any longer seems complete without acknowledgement of his book." -- Independent on Sunday, Best History Books of 2009 "An important book one that hammers another nail into Zionism's ideological coffin." -- Tony Greenstein, Weekly Worker "[Sand's] quiet earthquake of a book is shaking historical faith in the link between Judaism and Israel." --Rafael Behr, Observer

All modern nation states have a story of their origins, passed down through both official and popular culture, and yet few of these accounts have proved as divisive and influential as the Israeli national myth. The well-known tale of Jewish exile at the hands of the Romans during the first century AD, and the assertion of both cultural and racial continuity through to the Jewish people of the present day, resonates far beyond Israels borders. Despite its use as a justification for Jewish settlement in Palestine and the project of a Greater Israel, there have been few scholarly investigations into the historical accuracy of the story as a whole. In this bold and ambitious new book, Shlomo Sand shows that the Israeli national myth has its origins in the nineteenth century, rather than in biblical times when Jewish historians, like scholars in many other cultures, reconstituted an imagined people in order to model a future nation. Sand forensically dissects the official storyand demonstrates the construction of a nationalist myth and the collective mystification that this requires. A bestseller in Israel and France, Shlomo Sands book has sparked a widespread and lively debate. Should the Jewish people regard themselves as genetically distinct and identifiable across the millenniaor should that doctrine now be left behind and if the myth of the Jewish state is dismantled, could this open a path toward a more inclusive Israeli state, content within its borders?

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 other books include LIllusion 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.