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Shlomo Sand

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Israeli historian and academic (born 1946)

Shlomo Sand
Portrait photo of Sand in 2014Sand in 2014
Born (1946-09-10) 10 September 1946 (age 78)
Linz, Austria
Academic background
Education1978–1982, Doctoral student at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
Academic work
EraContemporary
Institutions
  • 1983–1985, Maître assistant associé, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
  • 1988–1994, Tenure, Tel Aviv University
  • 1995–2001, Associate Professor, Tel Aviv University
  • 2002–2014, Full Professor, Tel Aviv University
  • 2014–present, Professor Emeritus, Tel Aviv University
Main interestsHistory of Jews
Notable worksThe Invention of the Jewish People
Notable ideasNon-Zionism

Shlomo Sand (pronounced Zand; Hebrew: שלמה זנד; born 10 September 1946) is an Austrian-born Israeli post-Zionist historian and socialist. He has served as an emeritus Professor of History at Tel Aviv University since 2014. He is known for his book The Invention of the Jewish People, originally published in Hebrew as Matai ve’eich humtsa ha‘am hayehudi? (מתי ואיך הומצא העם היהודי? When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?) in 2008.

Biography

Sand was born in Linz, Austria, to Polish Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. His cultural background was grounded in Yiddish culture. His father, having taken an aversion to rabbis, abandoned his Talmudic studies at a yeshiva and dropped attendance at synagogues, after his mother was denied a front seat after her husband's death, and they could not afford the seat price. Both his parents had communist and anti-imperialist views and refused to accept compensation from Germany for their suffering during the Second World War. Sand spent his first two years in a displaced persons camp near Munich, and moved with the family to Jaffa in 1948, where his father got a job as night porter in the headquarters of the local Communist party. He was expelled from high school at the age of sixteen, studied electronics by night and found employment by day in a radio repair business. Drafted in 1965, he served at the communist kibbutz of Yad Hanna. According to one interview, "Sand spent the late 1960s and early 1970s working a series of odd jobs, including several years as a telephone lineman." He completed his high-school work at age 25 and spent three years in the military. The Six-Day War, in which he served – his unit conquered at heavy loss the Abu Tor area in East Jerusalem – pushed him towards the radical left. After the war he served in Jericho, where, he says, Palestinians trying to return to the country were gunned down if they infiltrated at night, but were arrested if caught doing so by day. Such experiences, particularly one incident in which he reports his fellow soldiers beat and tortured a restrained Palestinian man to death, left him with a sense that he had lost his homeland.

He was friends with the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, with whom he was involved in the Rakah communist party, and a conversation between the two inspired Darwish's 1967 poem "A Soldier Dreams Of White Lilies," though it was not revealed at the time that the soldier was Sand.

Quitting the Union of Israeli Communist Youth (Banki), Sand joined the more radical, and anti-Zionist, Matzpen in 1968. He resigned from Matzpen in 1970 due to his disillusionment with the organisation.

Declining an offer by the Israeli Maki Communist Party to be sent to do cinema studies in Poland, Sand graduated with a BA in History from Tel Aviv University in 1975. Determined to "abandon everything" Israeli, he moved to France, where, from 1975 to 1985, after winning a scholarship, he studied and taught in Paris, receiving an MA in French History and a PhD for his thesis on Georges Sorel and Marxism. Since 1982, Sand has taught at Tel Aviv University as well as at the University of California, Berkeley, and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris.

In 1983, according to one source, Sand "took part in a heated exchange over Zeev Sternhell's Ni droite, ni gauche: l'idéologie fasciste en France, and later drew the ire of Claude Lanzmann with his 2002 book in Hebrew, Film as History, in which he not only passed scathing judgement on Lanzmann's Shoah, but also revealed that the film had been secretly funded by the Israeli government."

Views and opinions

While acknowledging "the affinity between Jews and the holy land," Sand has said that "I don't think the religious affinity to the land gives you historical right." Expounding on this argument, in 2012, Sand wrote:

t always seemed to me that a sincere attempt to organize the world as it was organized hundreds or thousands of years ago would mean the injection of violent deceptive insanity into the overall system of international relations. Would anyone today consider encouraging an Arab demand to settle in the Iberian Peninsula to establish a Muslim state there simply because their ancestors were expelled from the region during the Reconquista? Why should the descendants of the Puritans who were forced to leave England centuries ago not attempt to return en masse to the land of their forefathers in order to establish the heavenly kingdom? Would any sane person support Native American demands to assume territorial possession of Manhattan and to expel its white, black, Asian and Latino inhabitants? And somewhat more recently are we obligated to assist the Serbs in returning to Kosovo and reasserting control over the region because of the sacred heroic battle of 1389 or because Orthodox Christians who spoke a Serbian dialect constituted a decisive majority of the local population a mere two hundred years ago?

Nevertheless, Sand supports Israel's existence "not because of historical right, but because of the fact that it exists today and any effort to destroy it will bring new tragedies." He explained that he does not call himself a Zionist, but "a post-Zionist and non-Zionist because the justification of this land is not historical right." Comparing the Palestinians to children of rape, Sand has said that Israel "raped a population. And not only a population – we destroyed this society, in constituting the Israeli state." He opposes the Law of Return and the right of return. Still, "Israel has to be the state of Israelis. That is the only way we can continue to live in the Middle East." He argues that before Hitler, Jews were overwhelmingly against Zionism, and the concept of "Eretz Israel" was not about an earthly homeland but about something more spiritual. He also opposes the one-state solution because, while "very very popular in leftist circles," it is "not serious" because Israelis, being "one of the most racist societies in the western world," will never accept it. Thus he supports a "two state solution on the borders of ’67, taking out most of the settlers. I don’t think it will be a big problem." His position on the formation of a national identity extends to Palestinians, who did not, in his view, exist as a people before the rise of Zionism.

Criticism of gene studies

Sand argues both against the notion of defining a nation based on genetic principles, and against the concrete results and reliability of genetic studies focusing on ethnic markers.

In 2010, when Harry Ostrer, a professor of genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, announced the results of a DNA study showing "powerful genetic markers of Jewish ancestry," Sand told Science Magazine that "Hitler would certainly have been very pleased." Writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Josh Fischman commented that Sand's argument in The Invention of the Jewish People that Jews arose from multiple conversions among various communities in Europe and elsewhere contradicted work by Harry Ostrer which argued that "geographically and culturally distant Jews still have more genes in common than they do with non-Jews around them," and that such genes were of Levantine origin," including the area where modern Israel is situated. Ostrer himself took offense at Sand's attack on his work: "Bringing up Hitler was overheated and misconstrues my work," he said. Sand reiterated his criticism, writing in an email to Fischman that "It is a shame for somebody who defines himself as a Jew to look for a Jewish gene."

Geneticist Dr. Eran Elhaik has published two research papers which cite Sand's work extensively. The first, "The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses", came out in December 2012 argued that genetic evidence points to a "mosaic of Near Eastern-Caucasus, European, and Semitic ancestries" within the founding population of modern European Jews. The theory proved highly controversial, and was contested by a number of historians and several geneticists. Elhaik's second paper, in collaboration with others, similarly used Sand's work and concluded that the Ashkenazi descend from 'a heterogeneous Iranian population, which later mixed with Eastern and Western Slavs and possibly some Turks and Greeks in the territory of the Khazar Empire around the 8th century A.D.'

Published works

The Invention of the Jewish People

Sand’s best-known book in English is The Invention of the Jewish People, originally published in Hebrew (Resling, 2008) as Matai ve’eich humtsa ha‘am hayehudi? (מתי ואיך הומצא העם היהודי? When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?) and translated into English the following year (Verso, 2009). It has generated a heated controversy.

Sand was criticized for presenting "dubious theories" regarding Jewish identity as historical facts. One provocative theory espoused by Sand, but challenged by other historians as "a myth with no factual basis," is the hypothesis that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Khazars, who purportedly converted in the early Middle Ages.

The book was in the best-seller list in Israel for nineteen weeks. It was reprinted three times when published in French (Comment le peuple juif fut inventé, Fayard, Paris, 2008). In France, it received the "Prix Aujourd'hui", a journalists' award given to a non-fiction political or historical work. An English translation of the book was published by Verso Books in October 2009. The book has also been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, and Slovene and as of late 2009 further translations were underway. As of 2009, The Invention of the Jewish People has been translated into more languages than any other Israeli history book.

The Invention of the Land of Israel

In April 2012, a sequel, The Invention of the Land of Israel, was published in Hebrew by Kinneret Zmora-Bitan Dvir. It was published in English in 2013.

How I Stopped Being a Jew

In 2013, Sand published How I Stopped Being a Jew which examines the question of Jewish identity and the distinction between being a Jew and being Israeli. It also examines the identity of Israel, with a focus on the country's relationship, as a "Jewish state," to Jews around the world and to its non-Jewish citizens. He expresses a desire to break with what he sees as a "tribal Judeocentrism" subject to the "caprices of the sleepwalking sorcerers of the tribe," expressing a deep attachment to the Hebrew language and to a secular ideal of Israel.

The End of the French Intellectual

Sand's 2016 book La fin de l'intellectuel français? was published in English in 2018 as The End of the French Intellectual (with the question mark omitted). It is a critique of three contemporary French intellectuals, Michel Houellebecq, Éric Zemmour and Alain Finkielkraut.

Other publications

  • L'Illusion du politique, Paris, La Découverte, 1984
  • Intellectuals, Truth and Power: From the Dreyfus Affair to the Gulf War, Tel Aviv, Am Oved, 2000 (in Hebrew).
  • Le XXe siècle à l'écran, Paris, Seuil, 2004 (also in Hebrew and Spanish).
  • Historians, Time and Imagination, Tel Aviv, Am Oved, 2004 (in Hebrew ).
  • The Words and the Land, Los Angeles, Semiotext, 2011 (also in French).
  • Twilight of History, London, Verso, 2017 (also in Hebrew and French).
  • J. Julliard & S. Sand (eds.), Georges Sorel en son temps, Paris, Seuil, 1985
  • H. Bresheeth, M. Zimmerman & S. Sand (eds.), Cinema and Memory, Jerusalem, Zalman Shazar, 2004 (in Hebrew).
  • S. Sand (ed.), Ernest Renan – On the Nation and the Jewish People. London, Verso, 2010 (also in French and Hebrew).

Notes

  1. Also translated as "A Soldier Dreams of White Tulips".

References

  1. ^ Strenger, Carlo (27 November 2009). "Shlomo Sand's 'The Invention of the Jewish People' is a success for Israel". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 20 May 2010. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
  2. Ilany, Ofri (26 November 2021). "Post-Zionist Historian Shlomo Sand: 'The Global Left Is Dying, and With It the Myth of Equality'". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 5 January 2024. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
  3. Rose, John (24 June 2010). "Interview: Zionism, socialism and nationalism". International Socialism. Archived from the original on 20 July 2024. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
  4. ^ CV on the Tel Aviv University website Archived 25 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 21 February 2015
  6. ^ Dalia Karpel, 'Author of 'The Invention of the Jewish People' vents again,' Archived 2 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine Haaretz 24 May 2012:'One night in September 1967 he witnessed soldiers abusing an elderly Palestinian man who had been arrested with a large amount of dollars in his possession. "I climbed onto a crate and watched a harrowing scene through the window," he writes. "The detainee was sitting tied to a chair, and my good buddies were beating him all over and occasionally pressing burning cigarettes into his arms. I climbed down from the crate, threw up and returned to my post shaking and frightened. A little later, a pickup left carrying the body ... My friends shouted to me that they were going to the Jordan River to dump the body".'
  7. ^ Shlomo Sand,'Shlomo Sand: ‘I wish to resign and cease considering myself a Jew’,' Archived 20 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine The Guardian 10 October 2014.
  8. ^ History as Film Archived 27 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine, (in Hebrew) Shiur Hofshi (Free Period) no 67, June 2005, Israeli Teachers' Union
  9. ^ Piterberg, Gabriel (October 2009). "CONVERTS TO COLONIZERS?". New Left Review (59): 145–151. Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  10. ^ "Caught in the history wars". Sydney Morning Herald. 5 March 2010. Archived from the original on 17 April 2014. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  11. Bartal, Shaul (1 January 2015). "Shlomo Sand, The Arabs' Darling". Middle East Quarterly. Archived from the original on 11 March 2023. Retrieved 2 May 2023.
  12. Khoury, Elias. "الزنابق البيضاء..." www.masarat.ps. Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
  13. Gamal (2 February 2020). "مَنْ يحلم بالزنابق البيضاء؟ | صبحي حديدي". القدس العربي (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 11 March 2023.
  14. Sand, Shlomo; זנד, שלמה (2008). מתי ואיך הומצא העם היהודי? (in Hebrew). רסלינג.
  15. Matzpen –The Socialist Organization in Israel (Archive). Retrieved 21 February 2015
  16. Conversation with Shlomo Sand Archived 15 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine, (in Hebrew) by Asaf Shor, Me'asef, 10 December 2004
  17. Halkin, Hilel (9 January 2010). "Indecent Proposal". New Republic.
  18. PhD Thesis: Georges Sorel et le marxisme. Rencontre et crise 1893–1902. Archived 23 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine (Georges Sorel and Marxism. Encounter and crisis 1893–1902), École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, France, 1982.
  19. ^ Weiss, Philip (13 December 2012). "Shlomo Sand on Zionism, post-Zionism, and the two-state solution". Mondoweiss. Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  20. Sand, Shlomo (2012). The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland. Translated by Geremy Forman. New York City: Verso Books. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-84467-946-1.
  21. Fischman, Josh (15 April 2012). "The Chosen Genes". The Chronicle Review. Archived from the original on 24 March 2016. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
  22. Elhaik, Eran (2013). "The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses". Genome Biology and Evolution. 5 (1): 61–74. doi:10.1093/gbe/evs119. PMC 3595026. PMID 23241444. Archived from the original on 20 January 2013.
  23. Shaul Stampfer, 'Are We All Khazars Now?,' Archived 1 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine Jewish Review of Books Spring 2014.
  24. Eran Elhaik, Ranajit Das, Paul Wexler and Mehdi Pirooznia,'Localizing Ashkenazic Jews to primeval villages in the ancient Iranian lands of Ashkenaz,' Genome Biology and Evolution, 3 March 2016.
  26. COHEN, PATRICIA (23 November 2009). "Book Calls Jewish People an 'Invention'". New York Times. Archived from the original on 25 July 2016. Retrieved 22 January 2017.
  27. Aderet, Ofer (26 June 2014). "Jews Are Not Descended From Khazars, Hebrew University Historian Says". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 23 January 2017. Retrieved 22 January 2017.
  28. "Prix Aujourd'hui". Prix Litteraires.net. 12 February 2010. Archived from the original on 15 March 2012. Retrieved 16 March 2010.
  29. The Invention of the Jewish People Archived 21 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine, English Edition (Verso Books, 2009)
  31. Sarah (11 November 2009). "BBC says Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People is "an international news story"". Inventionofthejewishpeople.com. Archived from the original on 8 July 2013. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
  32. Sand, Shlomo (20 November 2012). The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland. Verso Books. ISBN 978-1844679461.
  33. "ספרים חדשים (New Books)". Haaretz. 4 April 2012. Archived from the original on 6 November 2018. Retrieved 28 April 2012.
  34. Sand, Shlomo (2013). How I Stopped Being a Jew. Verso Books. ISBN 9781781686140.
  35. Rogachevsky, Neil (26 December 2018). "The Return of Shlomo Sand". Mosaic. Archived from the original on 26 December 2018. Retrieved 26 December 2018.
  36. Jeffries, Stuart (4 May 2018). "The End of the French Intellectual by Shlomo Sand review – from Judeophobia to Islamophobia". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 17 February 2019. Retrieved 17 February 2019.

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