Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People - Rafapal

Preface to the English-Language Edition
This book was originally written in Hebrew. My mother tongue is actually
Yiddish, but Hebrew has remained the language of my imagination, probably of
my dreams and certainly of my writing. I chose to publish the book in Israel
because initially my intended readers were Israelis, both those who see themselves
as Jews and those who are defined as Arabs. My reason was simple
enough: I live in Tel Aviv, where I teach history.
When the book first appeared in early 2008, its reception was somewhat
odd. The electronic media were intensely curious, and I was invited to take
part in many television and radio programs. Journalists, too, turned their
attention to my study, mostly in a favorable way. By contrast, representatives
of the "authorized" body of historians fell on the book with academic fury, and
excitable bloggers depicted me as an enemy of the people. Perhaps it was this
contrast that prompted the readers to indulge me—the book stayed on the
bestseller list for nineteen weeks.
To understand this development, you have to take a clear-eyed look
at Israel and forgo any bias for or against. I live in a rather strange society.
As the closing chapter of the book shows—to the annoyance of many book
reviewers—Israel cannot be described as a democratic state while it sees itself
as the state of the "Jewish people," rather than as a body representing all the
citizens within its recognized boundaries (not including the occupied
territories). The spirit of Israel's laws indicates that, at the start of the twentyfirst
century, the state's objective is to serve Jews rather than Israelis, and to
provide the best conditions for the supposed descendants of this ethnos rather
than for all the citizens who live in it and speak its language. In fact, anyone
born to a Jewish mother may have the best of both worlds—being free to live
in London or in New York, confident that the State of Israel is theirs, even if
they do not wish to live under its sovereignty. Yet anyone who did not emerge
from Jewish loins and who lives in Jaffa or in Nazareth will feel that the state in
which they were born will never be theirs.
Yet there is a rare kind of liberal pluralism in Israel, which weakens in times
of war but functions quite well in peacetime. So far it has been possible in
Israel to express a range of political opinions at literary events, to have Arab
parties take part in parliamentary elections (provided they do not question