The Invention of the Jewish People

English language

ISBN:: 9781844674220

(1 review)

The Invention of the Jewish People (Hebrew: מתי ואיך הומצא העם היהודי?, romanized: Matai ve’ech humtza ha’am hayehudi?, literally When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?) is a study of the historiography of the Jewish people by Shlomo Sand, Professor of History at Tel Aviv University. It has generated a heated controversy. The book was on the best-seller list in Israel for nineteen weeks.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, French and Russian, and as of late 2009 further translations were underway.

5 editions

Frecklemaid reviewed The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand

Extremely thorough analysis of Jewish history

4 stars

I read this book because given the current conflicts in Israel-Palestine I thought I should learn more about how it got that way. This book is a comprehensive analysis of Jewish history and systematically pulls apart the Zionist mythistory of an ethnically cohesive, nomadic Jewish people returning to a long-lost homeland. It does so not by spending the whole book pulling apart Zionism (though that is peppered throughout), but by looking at the evidence available as to the origin of Jewish peoples, their migratory patterns and where a strong likelihood of mass proselytising occurred. Certainly, this was a bit of a dry read. It is every sense an academic text but if you've managed to make it through even part of a humanities degree you'll probably be able to smash this. For me personally, it further cemented my unfavorable opinion of Israeli statehood as it addressed the 'justification' for the …

I read this book because given the current conflicts in Israel-Palestine I thought I should learn more about how it got that way. This book is a comprehensive analysis of Jewish history and systematically pulls apart the Zionist mythistory of an ethnically cohesive, nomadic Jewish people returning to a long-lost homeland. It does so not by spending the whole book pulling apart Zionism (though that is peppered throughout), but by looking at the evidence available as to the origin of Jewish peoples, their migratory patterns and where a strong likelihood of mass proselytising occurred. Certainly, this was a bit of a dry read. It is every sense an academic text but if you've managed to make it through even part of a humanities degree you'll probably be able to smash this. For me personally, it further cemented my unfavorable opinion of Israeli statehood as it addressed the 'justification' for the existence of the state and for its ethnocentric, genocidal actions. Even if you disagree with me on those points, I think this is worth a read as an interesting history of the Jewish people, though be aware Sand does not make his own beliefs a secret either.