New studies in Nature magazine and the American Journal of Human Genetics have revived the debate on Jewish origins.

The New York Times, Newsweek, and UPI, reporting on these studies, have placed them in counterpoint to Sand’s argument. In his new afterword for the paperback edition of The Invention of the Jewish People, Sand writes:

After exhausting all the historical arguments, several critics have seized on genetics. The same people who maintain that the Zionists never referred to a race conclude their argument by evoking a common Jewish gene. Their thinking can be summed up as follows: “We are not a pure race, but we are a race just the same.” In the 1950s there was research in Israel on characteristic Jewish fingerprints, and from the 1970s, biologists in their laboratories (sometimes also in the USA) have sought a genetic marker common to all Jews. I reviewed in my book their lack of data, the frequent slipperiness of their conclusions, and their ethno-nationalist ardor, which is unsupported by any serious scientific findings. This attempt to justify Zionism through genetics is reminiscent of the procedures of late nineteenth-century anthropologists who very scientifically set out to discover the specific characteristics of Europeans.

As of today, no study based on anonymous DNA samples has succeeded in identifying a genetic marker specific to Jews, and it is not likely that any study ever will. It is a bitter irony to see the descendants of Holocaust survivors set out to find a biological Jewish identity: Hitler would certainly have been very pleased! And it is all the more repulsive that this kind of research should be conducted in a state that has waged for years a declared policy of “Judaization of the country” in which even today a Jew is not allowed to marry a non-Jew.

Simon Schama, despite his critical review in the Financial Times, has chosen Shlomo Sand’s Invention of the Jewish People as his book of the year in Italy’s leading business daily Sole 24 Ore.

Shlomo Sand, author of The Invention of the Jewish People, was interviewed by Stephen Sackur for BBC HARDtalk. Broadcast last night on the BBC News Channel, Professor Sand discusses The Invention of the Jewish People and the controversy surrounding the English translation of his bestselling book. Watch online here, more information here.

Professor Sand was also interviewed by Rana Mitter on Night Waves, BBC Radio 3. Listen 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.

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]