Shlomo Sand - "The Invention of" Jewish history

[amity1844]

Shlomo Sand is a professor of history at Tel Aviv University who doesn’t mind going out on a limb.
He is best known for his very controversial book,
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Invention-Jewish-People-Shlomo-Sand/dp/1844676234/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403649594&sr=8-1&keywords=The+invention+of+the+jewish+people]The Invention of the Jewish People: Shlomo Sand, Yael Lotan: 9781844676231: Amazon.com: Books[/ame] The Invention of the Jewish People, originally published in Hebrew in 2008.
Here he addresses some of the …. er …..logic of Jewish history. (I don’t know how this fits in with Dr. Oppenheim’s genetic studies)

For those who like soundbytes, here is a 10 minute version:


and a longer version:



Dr. Sand has recently (2013) iced the cake with a sequel that promises stir up at least as much excitement,
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/The-Invention-Land-Israel-Homeland/dp/1844679462/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1403649594&sr=8-2&keywords=The+invention+of+the+jewish+people]The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland: Shlomo Sand, Geremy Forman: 9781844679461: Amazon.com: Books[/ame] The Invention of the Land of Israel:

Sound byte version 13 minute version (begins at minute 13):


Longer version (Dr. Sand’s talk begins around minute 15):


The upshot of his work very nearly parallels arguments often heard about the Palestinians - that they were not a people.
Dr. Sand argues that Jews were not a people.

 

[MJB12741]

Oh thank you so much for this fascinating article. What a difference this will make to everybody's own thinking. Heh Heh!

Shlomo Sand is a professor of history at Tel Aviv University who doesn’t mind going out on a limb.
He is best known for his very controversial book,
The Invention of the Jewish People: Shlomo Sand, Yael Lotan: 9781844676231: Amazon.com: Books The Invention of the Jewish People, originally published in Hebrew in 2008.
Here he addresses some of the …. er …..logic of Jewish history. (I don’t know how this fits in with Dr. Oppenheim’s genetic studies)

For those who like soundbytes, here is a 10 minute version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq6EPYLfcM0

and a longer version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EmvANgw9Mk


Dr. Sand has recently (2013) iced the cake with a sequel that promises stir up at least as much excitement,
The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland: Shlomo Sand, Geremy Forman: 9781844679461: Amazon.com: Books The Invention of the Land of Israel:

Sound byte version 13 minute version (begins at minute 13):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR-dDwwXx2E

Longer version (Dr. Sand’s talk begins around minute 15):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5s_trEBcbU

The upshot of his work very nearly parallels arguments often heard about the Palestinians - that they were not a people.
Dr. Sand argues that Jews were not a people.

 

[amity1844]

It's my pleasure!!

I haven't read either of these books yet, so if anyone has please clue me in. They are on my list and I have to decide between Sand and Gilad Atzmon for next month.

 

[Sally]

Oh thank you so much for this fascinating article. What a difference this will make to everybody's own thinking. Heh Heh!

Shlomo Sand is a professor of history at Tel Aviv University who doesn’t mind going out on a limb.
He is best known for his very controversial book,
The Invention of the Jewish People: Shlomo Sand, Yael Lotan: 9781844676231: Amazon.com: Books The Invention of the Jewish People, originally published in Hebrew in 2008.
Here he addresses some of the …. er …..logic of Jewish history. (I don’t know how this fits in with Dr. Oppenheim’s genetic studies)

For those who like soundbytes, here is a 10 minute version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq6EPYLfcM0

and a longer version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EmvANgw9Mk


Dr. Sand has recently (2013) iced the cake with a sequel that promises stir up at least as much excitement,
The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland: Shlomo Sand, Geremy Forman: 9781844679461: Amazon.com: Books The Invention of the Land of Israel:

Sound byte version 13 minute version (begins at minute 13):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR-dDwwXx2E

Longer version (Dr. Sand’s talk begins around minute 15):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5s_trEBcbU

The upshot of his work very nearly parallels arguments often heard about the Palestinians - that they were not a people.
Dr. Sand argues that Jews were not a people.

Aren't the Amity girls so full of fun, pulling up the same old articles which the viewers have seen many, many times before. Do you ever think these gals would ever pull up any rebuttal to their articles. Meanwhile, you will notice how hard they are trying to get their Muslim brethren into Israel so that they can take over the governance of that country. See, isn't there some monument in Egypt showing the Jews carrying away the gold from Egypt during the Exodus, and some Egyptian fellow is now suing them to get it back. You have to remember that the Russians told Arafat to calls these Arabs by the name of Palestinians and make up a country for them that never was.. I can just picture the laughs at our State Department when they heard about it and said to each other "So this is the way you create a people and a country?" You might have caught the retired State Department employees who posted the following several years back....

Sure there was a Palestine. It was invented in the 1960s in a conference room at 1 Lubyanka, Dzershinsky Place, Red Square, Moscow, CCCP. It came complete with a "Palestinian people" too. In fact, its legacy leader was trained east of Moscow at the legendary Balashikha special-ops school.

 

[MJB12741]

As soon as Israel turned the wasteland into a thriving metropolis, here come hoards of Palestinians to claim --- it's their land. Ya gotta love 'em for their great sense of humor. Heh Heh!

Oh thank you so much for this fascinating article. What a difference this will make to everybody's own thinking. Heh Heh!

Shlomo Sand is a professor of history at Tel Aviv University who doesn’t mind going out on a limb.
He is best known for his very controversial book,
The Invention of the Jewish People: Shlomo Sand, Yael Lotan: 9781844676231: Amazon.com: Books The Invention of the Jewish People, originally published in Hebrew in 2008.
Here he addresses some of the …. er …..logic of Jewish history. (I don’t know how this fits in with Dr. Oppenheim’s genetic studies)

For those who like soundbytes, here is a 10 minute version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq6EPYLfcM0

and a longer version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EmvANgw9Mk


Dr. Sand has recently (2013) iced the cake with a sequel that promises stir up at least as much excitement,
The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland: Shlomo Sand, Geremy Forman: 9781844679461: Amazon.com: Books The Invention of the Land of Israel:

Sound byte version 13 minute version (begins at minute 13):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR-dDwwXx2E

Longer version (Dr. Sand’s talk begins around minute 15):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5s_trEBcbU

The upshot of his work very nearly parallels arguments often heard about the Palestinians - that they were not a people.
Dr. Sand argues that Jews were not a people.

Aren't the Amity girls so full of fun, pulling up the same old articles which the viewers have seen many, many times before. Do you ever think these gals would ever pull up any rebuttal to their articles. Meanwhile, you will notice how hard they are trying to get their Muslim brethren into Israel so that they can take over the governance of that country. See, isn't there some monument in Egypt showing the Jews carrying away the gold from Egypt during the Exodus, and some Egyptian fellow is now suing them to get it back. You have to remember that the Russians told Arafat to calls these Arabs by the name of Palestinians and make up a country for them that never was.. I can just picture the laughs at our State Department when they heard about it and said to each other "So this is the way you create a people and a country?" You might have caught the retired State Department employees who posted the following several years back....

Sure there was a Palestine. It was invented in the 1960s in a conference room at 1 Lubyanka, Dzershinsky Place, Red Square, Moscow, CCCP. It came complete with a "Palestinian people" too. In fact, its legacy leader was trained east of Moscow at the legendary Balashikha special-ops school.

 

[amity1844]

No, it was not a wasteland. That is just Zionist mythology. We have pictures! See the Palestine without Zionism thread.
the Palestinians are the indigenous people, descended from the ancient Jews.

 

[Sally]

No, it was not a wasteland. That is just Zionist mythology.

It is Arab propaganda that the Palestinian Arabs were there. You can Google and find out how good the Arab propaganda is, and those posting like the Amity girls think you are going to believe it all.

The Arabs certainly are a greedy bunch. They have all but one tiny, tiny piece of the huge Middle East, but they want it all. They don't even allow the descendents of the original Christians to practice their beliefs in peace after they invaded those lands when they left Saudi Arabia. It wasn't surprising to hear people visiting the exhibit of the Icons of the Holyland from the 2nd to 4nd century that they certainly didn't see any Arabs depicted on these Icons. Those Arabs were still back on the Peninsula where they should have stayed.

 

[MHunterB]

Israeli Researcher Challenges Jewish DNA links to Israel, Calls Those Who Disagree 'Nazi Sympathizers' - Forbes

Here's an analysis of the situation which I think is worth reading. It appears that this is simply one more propaganda effort by the Israel-haters.

 

[Roudy]

And....another pile of crap propaganda which has been presented and debunked a like million times. Today's flavor: Shlomo sand.

You really have nothing but the same repetitive garbage don't you?

 

[Indeependent]

By 3:44 Sholomo has made a complete fool of himself.
His explanation of how the Torah uses the work People (Ahm) is so wrong it immediately set off my bullshit alarm.
Then he credits Judaism for starting Monotheism?
Avaraham did NOT invent Monotheism, the Torah is specific in that he publicly PROCLAIMED it.

These intellectually fraudulent videos are painful to watch.

Shlomo is a complete fraud.

 

[Indeependent]

Actually, these fraudulent videos by Jews aren't totally a bad thing.
A Jew can do these things and make tons of money or make new friends and get lots of sex or simply make videos that are out of sync and have an interviewer nodding a lot.

A Moslem who makes videos critical of Islam is simply assassinated.

 

[teddyearp]

Actually, these fraudulent videos by Jews aren't totally a bad thing.
A Jew can do these things and make tons of money or make new friends and get lots of sex or simply make videos that are out of sync and have an interviewer nodding a lot.

A Moslem who makes videos critical of Islam is simply assassinated.

Which brings me to my opinion in this thread.

Amity, thank you very much for posting an interview (you called it a sound byte) that we can actually watch without wasting hours of our time to see your point.

This fellow kind of lost me somewhere along the way, but he did have some thought provoking things to say. But I don't quite agree with them.

However the one thing that really stood out to me very soon was what Independent pointed out. This guy is a professor at the Tel Aviv university. What would have happened to him if he was a professor at a university in Tehran and instead was using Muslims and Palestinians in place of Jews and Israelites? He would be dead. And the most ironic thing about that is that there was a very large Jewish population in Iraq since about 586 BC or so, but now they have been kicked out.

Source:

History of the Jews in Iraq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[amity1844]

As soon as Israel turned the wasteland into a thriving metropolis, here come hoards of Palestinians to claim --- it's their land. Ya gotta love 'em for their great sense of humor. Heh Heh!

That is not true. There is loads of documentary and photographic evidence of Palestine without Zionism.

Aren't the Amity girls so full of fun, pulling up the same old articles which the viewers have seen many, many times before. Do you ever think these gals would ever pull up any rebuttal to their articles. Meanwhile, you will notice how hard they are trying to get their Muslim brethren into Israel so that they can take over the governance of that country. See, isn't there some monument in Egypt showing the Jews carrying away the gold from Egypt during the Exodus, and some Egyptian fellow is now suing them to get it back. You have to remember that the Russians told Arafat to calls these Arabs by the name of Palestinians and make up a country for them that never was.. I can just picture the laughs at our State Department when they heard about it and said to each other "So this is the way you create a people and a country?" You might have caught the retired State Department employees who posted the following several years back....

Sure there was a Palestine. It was invented in the 1960s in a conference room at 1 Lubyanka, Dzershinsky Place, Red Square, Moscow, CCCP. It came complete with a "Palestinian people" too. In fact, its legacy leader was trained east of Moscow at the legendary Balashikha special-ops school.

Let's have some substantive comment, this is silly and shames you.

 

[Roudy]

There goes a Enmity trying to put lipstick on that pig again. Ain't gonna happen. Palestine is a hoax.

How long do "Palestinians" live in "Palestine"?

According to the United Nations weird standards, any person that spent TWO YEARS (!!!) in "Palestine" before 1948, with or without proof, is a "Palestinian", as well as all the descendants of that person. Indeed, the PLO leaders eagerly demand the "right" of all Palestinians to come back to the land that they occupied before June 1967 c.e., but utterly reject to return back to the land where they lived only 50 years before, namely, in 1917 c.e. Why? Because if they agree to do so, they have to settle back in Iraq, Syria, Arabia, Libya, Egypt... and only a handful Arabs would remain in Israel (by Israel is intended the whole Land between the Yarden River and the Mediterranean Sea, plus the Golan region). It is thoroughly documented that the first inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael after some centuries were the Jewish pioneers, and not the Arabs so-called Palestinians. Some eyewitnesses have written their memories about the Land before the Jewish immigration:

"There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent (valley of Jezreel, Galilea); not for thirty miles in either direction... One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings. For the sort of solitude to make one dreary, come to Galilee... Nazareth is forlorn... Jericho lies a mouldering ruin... Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and humiliation... untenanted by any living creature... A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds... a silent, mournful expanse... a desolation... We never saw a human being on the whole route... Hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil had almost deserted the country... Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes... desolate and unlovely...".
- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad", 1867 -

Where had the Palestinians been hidden that Mark Twain did not see them? Where was that "ancient" people in the mid XIX century c.e.? Of course, modern biased Arab politicians try to discredit Mark Twain and insult and blame him of racism. Yet, it seems that there were other people that did not achieve in recognizing a single Palestinian in those times and earlier:

"In 1590 a 'simple English visitor' to Jerusalem wrote: 'Nothing there is to bescene but a little of the old walls, which is yet remayning and all the rest is grasse, mosse and weedes much like to a piece of rank or moist grounde'.".
- Gunner Edward Webbe, Palestine Exploration Fund,
Quarterly Statement, p. 86; de Haas, History, p. 338 -

"The land in Palestine is lacking in people to till its fertile soil".
- British archaeologist Thomas Shaw, mid-1700s -

"Palestine is a ruined and desolate land".
- Count Constantine François Volney, XVIII century French author and historian -

"The Arabs themselves cannot be considered but temporary residents. They pitched their tents in its grazing fields or built their places of refuge in its ruined cities. They created nothing in it. Since they were strangers to the land, they never became its masters. The desert wind that brought them hither could one day carry them away without their leaving behind them any sign of their passage through it".
- Comments by Christians concerning the Arabs in Palestine in the 1800s -

"Then we entered the hill district, and our path lay through the clattering bed of an ancient stream, whose brawling waters have rolled away into the past, along with the fierce and turbulent race who once inhabited these savage hills. There may have been cultivation here two thousand years ago. The mountains, or huge stony mounds environing this rough path, have level ridges all the way up to their summits; on these parallel ledges there is still some verdure and soil: when water flowed here, and the country was thronged with that extraordinary population, which, according to the Sacred Histories, was crowded into the region, these mountain steps may have been gardens and vineyards, such as we see now thriving along the hills of the Rhine. Now the district is quite deserted, and you ride among what seem to be so many petrified waterfalls. We saw no animals moving among the stony brakes; scarcely even a dozen little birds in the whole course of the ride".
- William Thackeray in "From Jaffa To Jerusalem", 1844 -

"The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is of a body of population".
- James Finn, British Consul in 1857 -

"There are many proofs, such as ancient ruins, broken aqueducts, and remains of old roads, which show that it has not always been so desolate as it seems now. In the portion of the plain between Mount Carmel and Jaffa one sees but rarely a village or other sights of human life. There are some rude mills here which are turned by the stream. A ride of half an hour more brought us to the ruins of the ancient city of Cæsarea, once a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, and the Roman capital of Palestine, but now entirely deserted. As the sun was setting we gazed upon the desolate harbor, once filled with ships, and looked over the sea in vain for a single sail. In this once crowded mart, filled with the din of traffic, there was the silence of the desert. After our dinner we gathered in our tent as usual to talk over the incidents of the day, or the history of the locality. Yet it was sad, as I laid upon my couch at night, to listen to the moaning of the waves and to think of the desolation around us".
- B. W. Johnson, in "Young Folks in Bible Lands": Chapter IV, 1892 -

"The area was underpopulated and remained economically stagnant until the arrival of the first Zionist pioneers in the 1880's, who came to rebuild the Jewish land. The country had remained "The Holy Land" in the religious and historic consciousness of mankind, which associated it with the Bible and the history of the Jewish people. Jewish development of the country also attracted large numbers of other immigrants - both Jewish and Arab. The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts... Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen... The plows used were of wood... The yields were very poor... The sanitary conditions in the village [Yabna] were horrible... Schools did not exist... The rate of infant mortality was very high... The western part, toward the sea, was almost a desert... The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants".
- The report of the British Royal Commission, 1913 -

 

[amity1844]

So your handler provides you with quotes from colonialists and Zionists, huh? These sources would not be satisfied with the pattern of land use unless there were British or Zionist owned factories on every corner employing locals for 3% or less of the wages paid to the people in their native lands, and full exploitation of natural resources with no recompense to the native inhabitants.

Admittedly, the Ottomans made poor overlords by anyone's standards. Palestine especially by the 19th century was reduced to subsistence agriculture. That is not the Palestinians' fault. In one breath you say that Palestinians didn't even own their land, it was owned by absentees in Turkey (largely but not entirely true) and then in the next breath you hold Palestinians responsible for the desolation of their country during the course of the disintegration of the Ottoman empire and World War 1. SO WHICH IS IT GOING TO BE?

Look, census of the time showed the Palestinian Arab population at around 2 million. Where were they hiding all these people?
And again I want to just mention that genetics has established that these are indeed the descendants of ancient Israel of Roman and post-Roman times. So you're done with trying to assert that Palestinians were "just passing through."

Here is the case study of a village, Lajjun, which was forcibly depopulated and razed in 1948. Notice that their infrastructure maintained by that village, the bridge, was maintained for many centuries. Notice also that there was a brief period under the Ottomans when the village was depopulated. People were starving and in an era with no social services, they had to go elsewhere to survive ... briefly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lajjun

When the British consul James Finn visited the area in the mid-19th century, he did not see a village.[32] The authors of the Survey of Western Palestine also noticed a khan, however, south of the ruins of Lajjun in the early 1880s.[33]

In the late 19th-century, Arabs from Umm al-Fahm migrated to al-Lajjun to make use of its farmland.[11][34] Gradually, they settled in the village, building their houses around the springs, especially next to the khan. When the massive mound at nearby Tall al-Mutasallim (ancient Megiddo) was excavated by German archaeologists in 1903, some of the inhabitants of Lajjun reused stones from the ancient structure that had been unearthed to build new housing.[35]

But at any rate, thanks for the other sources. These are some I will have to look up and be ready to address in the future.

 

[Roudy]

So your handler provides you with quotes from colonialists and Zionists, huh?

Ha ha ha, you are a joke. Mark Twain wasn't a colonialist moron. Neither were the historians writers and archeologists in those quotes.

Slapped again with the truth, huh?

 

[Challenger]

It's my pleasure!!

I haven't read either of these books yet, so if anyone has please clue me in. They are on my list and I have to decide between Sand and Gilad Atzmon for next month.

I've read both books. Invention of the Jewish People can be a bit heavy going at times, but interesting nevertheless. Sand discusses what is and what is not an ethnicity, which is the heavy going part, then looks at Jewish historiography and the 1600 year gap in Jewish history between Flavius Josephus and Jaques Basnage and Isaak Markus Jost (did you know there were no Jewish histories written between the 1st century CE and the 18-19th centuries CE?). he then examines all the Jewish nation states that existed, like the Khazars, the kingdom of Hamyar and various other defunct Jewish kingdoms of North Africa. All fascinating stuff, widely known in Israeli academia but largely unknown to the general public. Invention of the Land...follows on to explore the myth of The Jewish Exile, the probable extent of "Biblical Israel" and the effect of Christian Zionism on Jewish Nationalism. Veryinteresting.

 

[toastman]

The only invention is the 'Palestinian' people.

 

[amity1844]

It's my pleasure!!

I haven't read either of these books yet, so if anyone has please clue me in. They are on my list and I have to decide between Sand and Gilad Atzmon for next month.

I've read both books. Invention of the Jewish People can be a bit heavy going at times, but interesting nevertheless. Sand discusses what is and what is not an ethnicity, which is the heavy going part, then looks at Jewish historiography and the 1600 year gap in Jewish history between Flavius Josephus and Jaques Basnage and Isaak Markus Jost (did you know there were no Jewish histories written between the 1st century CE and the 18-19th centuries CE?). he then examines all the Jewish nation states that existed, like the Khazars, the kingdom of Hamyar and various other defunct Jewish kingdoms of North Africa. All fascinating stuff, widely known in Israeli academia but largely unknown to the general public. Invention of the Land...follows on to explore the myth of The Jewish Exile, the probable extent of "Biblical Israel" and the effect of Christian Zionism on Jewish Nationalism. Veryinteresting.

Wow, thanks! That is definitely the book review I was hoping for and then some. I'm buying the books. They certainly seem to be very influential.

 

[amity1844]

So your handler provides you with quotes from colonialists and Zionists, huh?

Ha ha ha, you are a joke. Mark Twain wasn't a colonialist moron. Neither were the historians writers and archeologists in those quotes.

Slapped again with the truth, huh?

Hey, look, I love Mark Twain, detest those who want to censor his work (why deny who we were?) but honestly as far as international affairs go, he was definitely a product of his time.