03 Dec 2008
Israeli Bestseller Breaks National Taboo: Idea of a Jewish People Invented, Says Historian by Jonathan Cook
If I read the article correctly, this Israeli historian tells us that the mythology central to establishing the Jewish state, the diaspora, that the Jewish people had been, like, exiled by the Romans ... something like that ... only arose in recent history and doesn't have any foundation. I remember my Father talking about the historical quandary of the different colored Jews. Judaism was a proselytizing religion, grew by conversion according to historical records according to this bearded academic Schlomo Sand.
When I visited Israel a few years ago, I saw people intensely alive, passionate, opinionated, intelligent, capable. My impression was it is a nation of geniuses. And yet the non-geniuses were as proud and self-promoting as the geniuses, maybe even moreso! Something of the culture teaches and demands a level of assertiveness that characterizes society.
What really wakes me up, he talks about universities in Israel having separate departments for History and Jewish History. Separate, because the Jewish experience was deemed to be unique, unlike any other!
So I wake up after my Amrit Vela meditation and picture these guys in their separate department, their alternative stories of history to become the official history. While actual historical scholarship has left them behind, their stories remain as the official story.
Professor Sand waited till he got his tenure before publishing his best-selling work.
If I read the article correctly, this Israeli historian tells us that the mythology central to establishing the Jewish state, the diaspora, that the Jewish people had been, like, exiled by the Romans ... something like that ... only arose in recent history and doesn't have any foundation. I remember my Father talking about the historical quandary of the different colored Jews. Judaism was a proselytizing religion, grew by conversion according to historical records according to this bearded academic Schlomo Sand.
When I visited Israel a few years ago, I saw people intensely alive, passionate, opinionated, intelligent, capable. My impression was it is a nation of geniuses. And yet the non-geniuses were as proud and self-promoting as the geniuses, maybe even moreso! Something of the culture teaches and demands a level of assertiveness that characterizes society.
What really wakes me up, he talks about universities in Israel having separate departments for History and Jewish History. Separate, because the Jewish experience was deemed to be unique, unlike any other!
So I wake up after my Amrit Vela meditation and picture these guys in their separate department, their alternative stories of history to become the official history. While actual historical scholarship has left them behind, their stories remain as the official story.
Professor Sand waited till he got his tenure before publishing his best-selling work.
