Professor Sand’s 11th of November London lecture will be broadcast tonight at 8pm GMT on Resonance104.4fm. For more information, and to listen online, click here.

Shlomo Sand, author of The Invention of the Jewish People, was interviewed on the BBC World Service’s News Hour last night. In an e-mail exchange between Sand’s UK publicist and the producer of last night’s programme, it was emphasised that the BBC were “interviewing Mr Sand on the basis that the controversy over his book is an international news story.”

‘The Invention of the Jewish People’ has now been translated into more languages than any other Israeli history book. Currently the book is available in 3 languages (Hebrew, French, and published just this week, English), and in 2 months time the book will be translated into Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian, Arabic, Turkish and Indonesian. In Indonesia, the biggest Muslim country in the world, the translator has just finished translating The Bible, and is now starting work on The Invention of the Jewish People.

Professor Sand will be speaking at SOAS in London  tonight at 6.30. Lecture details here.

Listen to Shlomo Sand on BBC World Service News Hour here.

Watch Kirsty Lang interview Shlomo Sand on BBC World News Today here.

9 November: Shlomo Sand was on BBC Radio’s Start the Week this morning discussing the invention of the Jewish people with Andrew Marr. Listen again here.

‘ Tonight, Professor Sand will be ‘In Conversation with The New Statesman’ discussing his book The Invention of the Jewish People with Labour MP Denis MacShane. This is a free public event chaired by Jonathan Derbyshire,  Culture Editor of The New Statesman at Borders Bookshop, 122 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H OJR. For more information, click here, or call +44 (0)20 7379 8877.

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The Invention of the Jewish People is available online and in all good bookshops.

By Philip Weiss from Mondoweiss.

Of all the events I’ve covered surrounding Jewish identity and Israel in the last year, none has given me so much pleasure as the lecture last night by Shlomo Sand at NYU on the Invention of the Jewish People. Most events I go to are grinding, awful, heartrending; often with lamentations and pictures of mutilated children. This one was pure intellectual deviltry of the highest order by a Pavarotti of the lecture hall. And while it was fiercely anti-Zionist and included references to the mutilated children, it left me in just an incredibly elated mood. For I saw real light at the end of the tunnel, and not the horrifying dimness that surrounds almost all other events that deal with Israel politics here– for instance with the neoconservative Weekly Standard’s disgusting pursuit of J Street.

This pleasure was entirely Shlomo Sand’s achievement. He walked by me going down to the lectern and I noticed his physical vanity at once. He had expensive shoes on, designer jeans or cords, a zipup black jacket and a black shirt under that unbuttoned to the sternum. He is lean and mid-60sish, and behaves like a player. His beard is cut in an interesting manner, he wears designer glasses. I wondered if he dyed his hair. All glorious devil.

Sand has an excitable, self-referential style, and he began the lecture by breaking his guitar. “Jewish history is not my field.” No, but once he had discovered that the story of the connection of the Jewish people to the Holy Land was a myth, he decided that he would secretly explore the history but not publish until he got tenure for doing other work. Because if he published this first, “there would not be any chance of being a full professor. Not only in Tel Aviv. But at NYU too.”

Everyone laughed, but Sand said, “That is not a joke. I must write the book after I see that no one could touch me really.” More devil. Though Sand is right. This is no joke. [click to read full article]

From NYU News:

Last Friday’s monthly Marxist Theory Colloquium featured Tel Aviv University history professor Shlomo Sand. He discussed his controversial book, “The Invention of the Jewish People,” which proposes that the majority of accepted Jewish history is incorrect.

NYU politics professor Bertell Ollman invited Sand to speak at the colloquium after he learned Sand had come to New York to publicize the English edition of his book. While “The Invention of the Jewish People” is not specifically about Marxist theory, Ollman wanted Sand to speak because he said he “found it a marvelous book.”

The book has stirred much controversy since its release. In it, Sand said he believes that the Romans did not expel the Jews from Palestine and that today’s Palestinians are actually partial descendants of Jews. Sand believes the rest of the Middle Eastern and European Jewish population was converted to Judaism, which directly challenges the Zionist idea that Palestine is the rightful homeland of all Jewish people. [click to read full article]