Why am I passionate about this?
I grew up in the Soviet Union, where being Jewish had no intellectual or religious substance. My discovery of Judaism and Jewish history happened after my emigration, when I was already an adult. This helps me to relate to audiences and readers who are not Jewish. For example, a Japanese translation of my book on Jewish opposition to Zionism earned a place on a bestseller list in Japan, where hardly any Jews live. In the course of my university career, I have explained events in Israel in electronic and printed media on the five continents where I also have taught as a visiting professor.
Yakov's book list on honest books about Israel and Zionism
Why did Yakov love this book?
It always intrigued me how Zionism as a political movement and Israel as its embodiment can claim to act on behalf of the Jewish people. Sand brilliantly explains that the specific conditions of Jews in Eastern and Central Europe, particularly discrimination and violent outbursts (pogroms), produced a sense of nationhood.
As a historian, I am fascinated by Sandâs account of Zionist ideologues from that part of the world manufacturing powerful myths, which have buttressed the new Israeli identity even among Jews transplanted to Israel from Asia and Africa, where this kind of Jewish nationalism had been virtually unknown.
2 authors picked The Invention of the Jewish People as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
A historical tour de force, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a groundbreaking account of Jewish and Israeli history. Exploding the myth that there was a forced Jewish exile in the first century at the hands of the Romans, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand argues that most modern Jews descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered across the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
In this iconoclastic work, which spent nineteen weeks on the Israeli bestseller list and won the coveted Aujourd'hui Award in France, Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel's future.