On Tuesday, October 13th, Shlomo Zand will be speaking about his newly translated book The Invention of the Jewish People, at 4pm in UC Berkeley's Dwinelle Hall. In this new book, Zand 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. Zand dissects the official story - and demonstrates the construction of a nationalist myth and the collective mystification that this requires.

A bestseller in Israel and France, Shlomo Sand’s book has sparked a widespread and lively debate. Should the Jewish people regard themselves as genetically distinct and identifiable across the millennia - or 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?

Read more

Shlomo Sand speaks on The Invention Of The Jewish People | Israel's surprising best seller contradicts founding ideology | An invention called 'the Jewish people'