Defining the Jewish People: Why Are This People and This Nation Different from All Other
Peoples and Nations?
By Ami Isseroff
Abstract: Ignoring historical records, genetic evidence and Jewish and Christian traditions, some Israeli academics and political commentators such as Shlomo Zand, Israel Yuval and their followers have built an elaborate case that there was never a Jewish exile, and that Jews are not descended from the ancient inhabitants of Israel and Judea. The heart of their claim, however, is the contention that the Jews are not a people, a political claim that is not really related to genetic or historical evidence. Their admitted purpose is to deny the right of self-determination to the Jewish people.
For almost all
peoples of the world, the accepted definition of a nation is something like
this, from the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
People whose common identity creates a psychological bond and a political community.
Their political identity usually comprises such characteristics as a common
language, culture, ethnicity, and history.
For the Jewish
people, for some reason, it is different. Why are this people and this nation
different from all other nations and peoples?
Not every American
is descended from George Washington, and most British people are not descended
from Boadicea and her compatriots. The British monarchy is of German origin.
President Sarkozy of France is not descended from Vercingetorix or his
contemporaries. Barack Obama, running for president of the United States, is not
a lineal descendent of either John Smith or Pocahontas. Nobody insists on
pulling down the genes of every individual in every country to determine if
their ancestors really belonged to their people.
Yet for the Jews,
it is different. Of late, a variety of "wise men "(and women) have decided that
every Jew must provide proof of descent from Abraham of Ur. Otherwise, it has
been claimed, the Jewish people have no special title to the land of Israel. Now this claim has been expanded. In his new
book, Matai ve’eych humzta ha’am hayehudi?
[When and how was the Jewish people invented?] Professor Shlomo Zand apparently
claims that the Jews are not descendents of Abraham and King David. Therefore,
he argues that there is no Jewish people and no Jewish nation at all. Zand's
claim appears to be enthusiastically embraced by publicists including Tom Segev, Ofri Ilani and Yosef Gurevich. As he told interviewer Ofri Ilani:
[Ilani:] In effect you are saying that there is no such thing
as a Jewish people.
[Zand:] I don't recognize an international people. I recognize
'the Yiddish people' that existed in Eastern Europe, which though it is not a
nation can be seen as a Yiddishist civilization with a modern popular culture. I
think that Jewish nationalism grew up in the context of this 'Yiddish people.' I
also recognize the existence of an Israeli people, and do not deny its right to
sovereignty. But Zionism and also Arab nationalism over the years are not
prepared to recognize it.
It would seem that
only Yiddish speaking Jews have a claim to Jewishness. Zand's book is already an
Israeli bestseller in Hebrew, and is being published in French in September,
2008. As Tom Segev summarizes:
…Wrong, says the historian Shlomo Zand… There never was a Jewish
people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also never happened - hence there
was no return. Zand rejects most of the stories of national-identity formation
in the Bible, including the exodus from Egypt and, most satisfactorily, the
horrors of the conquest under Joshua. It's all fiction and myth that served as
an excuse for the establishment of the State of Israel, he asserts.
According to Zand, the Romans did not generally exile whole nations, and most of
the Jews were permitted to remain in the country. The number of those exiled was
at most tens of thousands. When the country was conquered by the Arabs, many of
the Jews converted to Islam and were assimilated among the conquerors. It
follows that the progenitors of the Palestinian Arabs were Jews. Zand did not
invent this thesis; 30 years before the Declaration of Independence, it was
espoused by David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Israel Belkind and others.
If the majority of the Jews were not exiled, how is it that so many of them
reached almost every country on earth? Zand says they emigrated of their own
volition or, if they were among those exiled to Babylon, remained there because
they chose to. He hints that not only was the Roman exile of the Jews a "myth,"
but perhaps the Babylonian exile was as well, noting that only the Babylonian
Talmud, but not the Jerusalem Talmud, lamented exile (Gurevich, 2008c). With
Zand, Gurevich asks rhetorically if the Babylonian exile was a myth. Contrary to
conventional belief, the Jewish religion tried to induce members of other faiths
to become Jews, which explains how there came to be millions of Jews in the
Who then are the
real Jews? Zand says:
No population remains pure over a period of thousands of years.
But the chances that the Palestinians are descendents of the ancient Judaic
people are much greater than the chances that you or I are its descendents (Ilani, 2009).
Zand's claim is
that the "real" Jews of the land of Israel were killed or were converted to
Islam and Christianity following the Roman conquest, and the Jews of today are
"impostors." Contrary to Jewish tradition and Roman historical reports, almost
no Jews were exiled from the land. All the Jews of Europe, including the
Sephardic Jews of Spain, were converts, according to Zand. The Ashkenazi Jews
were descendents of Khazars, he claims. That is hardly a new claim and one that is not supported by the latest
genetic evidence. Zand however, insists that this is not a
reason to disinherit the Jews, though it discredits Zionism. The political
motivations of his claims are self evident:
[Ilani] Why do you think the idea of the Khazar origins is so
[Zand] It is clear that the fear is of an undermining of the
historic right to the land. The revelation that the Jews are not from Judea
would ostensibly knock the legitimacy for our being here out from under us.
Since the beginning of the period of decolonization, settlers have no longer
been able to say simply: 'We came, we won and now we are here' the way the
Americans, the whites in South Africa and the Australians said. There is a very
deep fear that doubt will be cast on our right to exist.
[Ilani] Is there no justification for this fear?
[Zand] No. I don't think that the historical myth of the exile
and the wanderings is the source of the legitimization for me being here, and
therefore I don't mind believing that I am Khazar in my origins. I am not afraid
of the undermining of our existence, because I think that the character of the
State of Israel undermines it in a much more serious way. What would constitute
the basis for our existence here is not mythological historical right, but
rather would be for us to start to establish an open society here of all Israeli
citizens (Ilani, 2008).
The Sephardic Jews,
claims Zand, were converted "Berbers." Ironically, "Berber" is the racist name
for the Amazigh and other native people of North Africa, conquered and
suppressed by the Arab conquerors.
Zand falsely claims
that Zionism insists that Jews are a "race," and then demolishes the straw man
he created, in order to disprove "Zionism" as he interprets it:
In the Israeli discourse about roots there is a degree of
perversion. This is an ethnocentric, biological, genetic discourse. But Israel
has no existence as a Jewish state… (Ilani, 2008).
Zionism, though it
sometimes borrowed the "race" terminology of various 19th century movements,
never claimed to be based on the assumption that the Jewish people are a "pure
race." This question was thoroughly and critically examined by Raphael Falk.
Though Falk discusses the various references to race theory in Zionist writings,
he notes that Zionism was not based on race theory.
Zand asserts that
the French, English and Germans only became peoples in the 19th century. If this
were true, it would only prove that the Jews have a better claim on nationality
than European nations. However, Henry the VIII and Elizabeth I as well as
William Shakespeare would likely have been astonished at this news, though
"Britain" came into being somewhat later. They were perfectly aware of the
Norman, Saxon, Danish, Pictish and other "blood” in their ancestry, but that did
not preclude forming a nation state. "Rule Britannia" was written in the 18th
century and set to music in 1740. The Zionists, according to Zand, copied
their blood myth from the Germans. But in the 1840s, when the first
proto-Zionists wrote of return to Zion, the Greek model must have been foremost
in their minds. Moses Hess, on the other hand, cites the Italian Risorgimento.
the physical annihilation of the Jewish people through a racist doctrine. Zand
and his followers seem to be trying to complete the process in another way. Zand
is a long time communist, who used the "tried and true" method of inventing a
dogma and then gathering evidence to support it. As he told Ha'aretz
interviewer Ilani (Ilani, 2008):
My initial intention was to take certain kinds of modern historiographic materials
and examine how they invented the 'figment' of the Jewish people.
As he began to
gather the "evidence" to support his thesis, Zand convinced himself more and
more of its truth. Zand's notion that modern Zionists "invented" the exile and
the Jewish people requires one to posit that modern Zionists also invented most
Jewish, Christian and Muslim writings about the history of the Jews produced in
the last 1,800 years. Belief in the "myth" of Jewish origins in Zion is evident
in the medieval poetry of Yehuda Halevi, the messianic movement of Shabtai Tzvi
and myriad other sources. It was not Herzl in the nineteenth century who wrote:
How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while Zion still lies beneath the fetter of
Edom, and I am in the chains of Arabia?
It was not written
in Zand's beloved Yiddish, either. It was Yehuda Halevi, the Spanish Jewish
poet, who wrote it in Hebrew, about 800 years before the supposed "invention" of
the Jewish nation by Zionists.
movement supported the restoration of the Jews from its inception. Other
branches of Christianity likewise accepted the exile as fact, though they
posited that it was punishment for rejection of Jesus as Messiah. If the exile
of the Jews is all a myth, then it is a shared delusion of all of western
civilization. Zand would have us reject this "myth."
science drives policy, everyone benefits. When science is used to justify
political dogma, or "scientific" research is directed to find an answer that
suits politics, both science and mankind suffer.
Supporters of the
Palestinian cause ridicule the 19th century slogan adopted by the Zionists, "A
land without a people for a people without a land." The Arabs of Palestine are
still outraged over the dictum of Golda Meir, "There are no Palestinians." Tom
Segev, who wrote a glowing review of Zand's book, would never surely countenance
the statement that there is no Palestinian Arab people. Nonetheless, Segev and
other enthusiasts are willing to accept Zand's contention that there is no
Like Zand, Israel
Yuval has insisted that there was no Jewish exile and no evidence for it. Yuval
claims that Josephus, the Jewish historian, never mentions exile. Not by
coincidence, Yuval, like Zand, has views concerning the Palestinian Arab
question and feels the need to express them. Yuval, who is cited by Zand,
On the one hand, I am a Zionist loyal to awareness of the need for the existence of
the State of Israel. On the other hand, I am deeply troubled by the price paid
by the Palestinians for the fulfillment of this dream. Like many others, I
desperately seek a fair solution that will minimize the pain and suffering for
both sides (Yuval, 2006).
reviewers like Gurevich, Ilani and Segev, agree. It is fair to ask, would the
political views of these authors change, or should they change, if irrefutable
evidence were found to support one or another contention regarding the exile? Or
is it more likely that their contentions regarding the exile are based on their
political views? The nature of science and the nature of historiography are such
that there is no "irrefutable" evidence that would ever be accepted by all
parties. It appears that in this case, Zand, Yuval and their followers did not
like the history, so they invented a new one to suit their political ideas.
himself was among the exiled Jews, though he was a voluntary exile, and
therefore it is impossible to claim that he gives no evidence of the exile. In
relating the fall of Jerusalem, Josephus states:
Now the number of those that were carried captive during this whole war was
collected to be ninety-seven thousand; as was the number of those that perished
during the whole siege eleven hundred thousand, the greater part of whom were
indeed of the same nation [with the citizens of Jerusalem].
In a subsequent
chapter, Josephus related that "many" captives were "destroyed" but others were
exiled. Seven hundred were brought to Rome at the time and displayed in the
triumph of Titus. This event, recorded by Josephus, was also
recorded in the Arch of Titus in Rome. The famous relief on the arch shows both
the spoils of the temple and, apparently, the captives. But Yosef Gurevich
labels the Arch of Titus with the caption "Was there ever a Babylonian exile?"
and Zand insists, according to Gurevich, that the spoils were carried by Roman
soldiers (Gurevich, 2008c).
1. Detail from the arch of Titus in Rome from Gurevich (Gurevich, 2008c) with the
Hebrew caption, "Galut Bavel, Zeh Haya?" (Babylonian Exile: Did it happen?)
2. Enlarged detail from the Arch of Titus, which
commemorates the triumph of Vespasian and Titus over the Jews in 73 CE and the
destruction of the Second Temple, and not the destruction of the First Temple
and Babylonian exile, half a millennium earlier.
Josephus records nearly 100,000 captives after the fall of Jerusalem alone. These were
presumably sold in local slave markets in various parts of the Middle East. How
many centuries would be required before these captives accounted for millions of
Jews? Zand claims that the logistics of the time did not permit massive
deportations. Likewise, Zand insists that no Jew left Roman Palestine after the
Bar Kochba revolt in 132-135, though they were forbidden to live in Jerusalem,
and centers of Judaism moved to outlying districts. Rome abounded in slaves and
gladiators and freedmen of every nationality in the empire: Greeks from Asia
Minor as well as those from Greece, Gauls from Asia Minor, Gauls from Gaul,
Africans, Syrians, Egyptians, Thracians, Britons, Germans, Goths, Arabs and
Armenians. Thracians, Arabs and others came to be Roman emperors as well. Zand
would have us believe that Jews alone were not transportable and did not leave
their land for any reason.
There is a mass of
other evidence to contradict the claims of Zand and Yuval that there was no
Jewish Diaspora. For example, in Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus
relates a significant exile that is often ignored, the exile of Jews by Ptolemy
Soter, who were freed by Ptolemy Philadelphus:
When Alexander had reigned twelve years, and after him Ptolemy Soter forty
years, Philadelphus then took the kingdom of Egypt, and held it forty years
within one. He procured the law to be interpreted, and set free those that were
come from Jerusalem into Egypt, and were in slavery there, who were a hundred
and twenty thousand.
In the years
115-117, there was a revolt of overseas Jews that reached rather significant
proportions. The revolt is recorded by Dio Cassius, who claims that over 400,000
people were killed. This may give some idea of the size of the Jewish
communities in various countries at that time, though the accusation of
cannibalism by Jews and other atrocities render his account suspect.
The theory that
European Ashkenazi Jews are descendents of Khazar converts was popularized by
Arthur Koestler (Koestler, 1976). Genetic similarities between male Jews and
Eastern Mediterranean populations, however, indicate that Jewish roots probably
go back to the Middle East, rather than Central Asia., Studies
of Kohanim, who claim descent from the family of the high priest, indicate a
close genetic relationship between Kohanim of Jewish communities around the
world. Zand does not apparently examine genetic
evidence to prove that Yemenite Jews are unrelated to Europeans. For him, it is
sufficient that they have different customs. Zand bases his disenfranchisement
of the Jews on an argument about descent. It is therefore bizarre that he
disinherits the Yemenites based on their different customs, and that none of the
reviews of Zand's book or interviews with him discuss any of the genetic
evidence at all. Zand is a professor of French history and cinema, but surely
either he or his interviewers must have heard of the growing genetic evidence
regarding the origins of the Jews as shown in the recent scientific studies
cited above. There will probably never be evidence to prove that the Jews are
all descended from Abraham, but the best interpretation of the current genetic
data is that most Jews of different diasporas are at least genetically related
to each other more than they are related to surrounding peoples, and probably
arose from a population centered in the Middle East. (For an extensive critical
review, see Falk, 2006).
those who insist on disinheriting the Jewish people have a ready answer should
their racist genetic claims be refuted. They argue that studies that examine the
genetic relatedness of Jews exemplify "Zionist elitist racism" (Qumsiyeh 2004, for example) It would seem therefore, that
if the “Zandinistas“ have their way, the Jews are to be both disinherited and
relieved of their right to self-determination, regardless of who their ancestors
or relatives might be. The dispute, like the "debates" of the Middle Ages
between priests and rabbis, has a predestined outcome: the Jews will lose.
relatedness of populations and migration events are changing all the time, as
more genetic mutations are tested in larger samples of different populations.
Nor could such evidence, even if conclusive, ever be used to "prove" that a
group is or is not a people. The best evidence indicates that all contemporary
humans originated in Africa. That is scarcely sufficient basis for a European
claim to colonize and dominate Africa. It is also certain that most of the
ancestors of contemporary Americans, Australians, New Zealanders and white South
Africans originated in Europe, but that is not a serious basis for evicting them
from their new homes. Those who insist that the Jews are not a people will not
be convinced by any genetic evidence. They can point out for example, that
"Berbers" are descended in part from Carthaginians who originated in Phoenicia,
and would therefore have a genetic makeup similar to the Arabs of Palestine.
This could explain why Sephardic Jews, whom they claim are converted "Berbers,"
have genes similar to those of Palestinian Arabs and European Jews. They can
also point to mitochondrial DNA studies, which may be variously interpreted to support a diverse and relatively
recent ancestry for European Jewish women and various Jewish communities.
As Zand points out,
studies by Belkind and Ben-Tzvi among others, argued that the Arabs of the
land of Israel, as they were then called, were in part descended from Jews. This
might account in part for genetic similarities between Jews and Palestinian Arabs, provided
that it is admitted that there was indeed a Jewish exile. This very same
evidence is used by Tsvi Misinai to argue for the opposing political
position: that Israeli Jews should seek to reintegrate Arab Palestinians into
the Jewish people. This same idea figures in a novel by A. B. Yehoshua, Mr.
Mani. The main character, active during the British defeat of the Turks, and
something of a political fanatic, tries to convince Arabs that they are Jews,
and is met with incomprehension.
It is improbable
that all the Arabs of the land of Israel are descended from ancient Jews. Some
of the Arabs living between the Jordan and the Mediterranean are descendents of
Africans, and particularly of African slaves. Some of the Arabs were brought by the Turks
in the late 19th century to repopulate Palestine, and an appreciable number
apparently immigrated to Palestine during the Mandatory period. Some, as noted by
Belkind, can trace their ancestry back to Jews, though those Jewish ancestors
are often Sephardic Jews who came from Spain after the Spanish Inquisition --
the same Jews that Zand insists are "Berbers."
Of the leading
families of Palestine, the Nusseibeh family claims its ancestors came with Umar; the Husseini family claims to have come with
Saladin; the Nashashibi are though to have come with
the Mamelukes; Dajani are a peninsular Arabian family that
were awarded estates in Jerusalem in the 15th century. Among modern Palestinian Arab leaders,
Izzedin al Qassam was Syrian, for example, and Fawzi al Qauqji was Lebanese.
None of the above,
however, is relevant to current political realities. Modern Zionism did not
succeed because it invented a myth about Jewish origins and then convinced the
rest of the world of its truth, while rewriting all of previous history to make
the record conform to a political idea. Modern Zionism succeeded in part because
the Jews and the Christian world, whether pro-Zionist or not, always believed
that the Jews originated in the land of Israel, and because the Jews have always
believed they are a nation. After all, modern Zionism did not invent the term
am Yisrael, the people of Israel, and modern Zionism did not originate the
vow, "Next year in Jerusalem."
Actually, Zand is
asking us to overlook the imaginary nature of his notions of history and science
and accept them as fact in order to bring about a new and more just order in
Israel, a paradise of democracy for all. That is the justification for his
entire thesis, which should be judged on its merits:
What would constitute the basis for our existence here is not mythological
historical right, but rather would be for us to start to establish an open
society here of all Israeli citizens.
To my mind, a myth about the future is better than introverted mythologies of the
past (Ilani, 2008).
Or, as others have
said: "The end, comrades, justifies the means." In Zand's utopia, why would Jews have a
greater right to live in Israel, then to emigrate en masse and claim some
land in Iowa, and establish an open society of all Israeli citizens there? Or
perhaps Arabs and Jews should move to the former Jewish autonomous region of
Birobidjan, established by Stalin. Indeed, why would I or anyone else want to
live in Israel if we were convinced that we are not members of a Jewish nation?
Zand seems to
contradict himself. He told Ofri Ilani:
I recognize one definition of a nation: a group of people that
wants to live in sovereignty over itself (Ilani 2008).
discourse about the historical origins of the Jews is therefore not relevant.
But Zand, as noted, does not recognize that non-Yiddish speaking Jews are part
of the Jewish people, even though they, together with other Jews, are a group of
people that wants to live in sovereignty over itself, whereas the Israeli Arabs
do not necessarily want to form such a group with the Jews. Neither the majority
of the Jews, nor the majority of the Arabs, see themselves as members of an
Israeli nation, as Zand admits, and neither would want to live in such a
society. For the same reason, the quaint notion of inviting Arabs to join the
Jewish people would not have many takers. A recent public opinion survey
indicates that a majority of the Arab Palestinian people living in Gaza and the
West Bank do not want a "secular democratic state of all its citizens." They
want a state governed by religion, and they believe that religion should be the
source of law. They also believe that the people should be the source of law,
and see no contradiction. These ideas are totally alien to Zand’s
thought. How could it be considered a democratic society if nobody supports it
except the few individuals of Zand’s persuasion? What would be the official
language of such a society? If the majority of such a society indeed voted for a
republic based on religion, and on that basis voted to expel all Jews except
those whose ancestors lived here before 1917, or to abridge the rights of Jews,
as the Hamas would want, would it be democratic?
Why does Zand deny
that the Jews of Israel (as opposed to the Arabs of Israel) are a people
according to his criterion? He told Ilani:
But most of the Jews in the world have no desire to live in the
State of Israel, even though nothing is preventing them from doing so.
Therefore, they cannot be seen as a nation (Ilani 2008).
This is a peculiar
idea. There are probably more people of Irish descent living in the United
States than there are in Ireland, and most do not want to return to live in
Ireland, but nobody has claimed, on that basis, that the Irish people have no
right to self determination or that there is no Irish people. But it is in fact
this contention, that the Jews are not a people, and not the elaborate
"historical" mythology that Zand constructed, that is at the heart of his
argument and that of his followers.
Zand is concerned
for the rights of Arab citizens of Israel, but has no regard for the rights of
non-Yiddish speaking Jews. As noted above, he told Ofri Ilani:
I don't recognize an international people. I recognize 'the Yiddish people' that
existed in Eastern Europe, which though it is not a nation can be seen as a
Yiddishist civilization with a modern popular culture. I think that Jewish
nationalism grew up in the context of this 'Yiddish people’ (Ilani, 2008).
Zand has created a
new myth. Historically, Yiddish was spoken by orthodox traditional Jews of
Europe in the framework of their rabbinically dominated ghetto society, which
was hardly modern. The Yiddishist society that Zand apparently has in mind is
either the secular culture of the enlightenment, which was often, in fact, based
largely around Hebrew, or the artificial culture of the Jewish Bund which was
created after the rise of Zionism and in reaction to it, and which was virtually
annihilated by Stalin and Hitler. The latter had nothing in common with
traditional Judaism. Yehuda Halevi, Ibn Gabirol and Maimonides, were not part of
our people according to Zand, as they spoke no Yiddish. Zand thereby disinherits
the Jews of Iraq and Persia and Spain and Yemen and North Africa.
opinionated, racist and elitist Ashkenazi Mapai stalwart, the worst fictional
stereotype that could be invented by the antisemitic enemies of Zionism, would
never have dared to attempt such a feat! Rabbi Alkalai, a forerunner of the
Zionist movement, a Sephardic Jew of Salonika who did not speak any Yiddish, has
no place in Zand's concept of the Jewish people and no part in Israel. The
Meyuhas family of Tiberias and Jerusalem originated in Spain. Its illustrious
members aided Eliezer Ben Yehuda in reviving the Hebrew language, staffed the
Palestine Post and performed many services for the Zionist movement and the
state of Israel. Zand insists that they have no part in Israel and no place in
Judah. Presumably, they were all "Berbers." They are to be excluded from
peoplehood along with prominent Israeli singer, Shoshana Damari, former
president Yitzhak Navon, former minister of police Shlomo Hillel and millions of
others. That is Zands' utopia.
This is the rosy
future for which we must give up the "myth" of the Jewish people. As with all
such democratic utopias, we would all be obliged to be voluntarily enthusiastic
about the Zand future, whether we liked it or not.
does not recommend a single state between the Jordan and the sea, which would be
one logical outcome of his ideas. Secular democracy need only apply to Israel
within the borders of the Green Line. The Arabs of Palestine will have a
separate state where they are free to express their nationality according to
whatever myths please them. Surprisingly, too, Zand is afraid that his book will
be translated into Arabic in an unauthorized version and "misinterpreted" as
denying Jews (or we who pretend to be Jews) any rights in the land of Israel. He
doesn't want to destroy Israel, he only wants to make it democratic (Gurevich,
2008a). In the process,
the Jews would be denied not only the right to self-determination, but even the
right to claim peoplehood. Only the Arabs of the land of Israel will be able to
form their own exclusivist Arab state. Presumably all the Yemenites, Sephardi
"Berbers," Ethiopians and other Jews who are not privileged to be part of the
Yiddishist culture and do not support the ideology of the Bund will gravitate to
this Arabic state and would be received by them with open arms, provided only
that they accept the religion of the prophet. Zand should be more afraid of an
authorized and correct translation. Given that Zand insists that the Jewish
people is a lie invented by Zionists in the nineteenth century, or alternatively
by compilers of the Babylonian Talmud, what other possible interpretation or
implications can there be for his work, than that the so-called Jews should go
back where they came from?
Peoplehood is based
on personal and collective identity, which is a function of personal choice, not
genetics or belief in myths or facts. The choice of identity determines the
myths or history that people will believe. If
people believe myths or facts about flying horses, converted "Berbers," Joshua
and the walls of Jericho or other myths, it is because they choose to believe
them, as they reinforce their identity and the choices they have made, and not
the other way round. The Jews who vowed "Next year in Jerusalem" for 2,000
years, obviously felt they are part of a Jewish nation, "Am Yisrael," regardless
of whether or not they were all lineal descendents of Abraham.
is problematic. The political systems of neighboring states are certainly no
less problematic. Jewish criteria for deciding who is a Jew based on maternal
inheritance and Israeli criteria that are based on a Jewish grandparent are
equally arbitrary and capricious. However, the way to correct all these problems
is not to erase three thousand years of history or to deny the right of self
determination to the Jewish people or the Arabs of Palestine. The secular
democratic Yiddishist state of all its citizens will put all its citizens in a
miserable state. Injustices cannot be corrected by falsehoods and worse
Isseroff has a D.Sc. in Behavioral Biology and is director of MidEastWeb for
and editor of http://zionism-israel.com
Zionism and Israel. He writes about the
Middle East and Zionism.
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Gurevich, “Be'eyropa Himzeinu et Ha'Am HaYehudi,” [In Europe We Invented the Jewish People] Nana, March
21, 2008. (Gurevich, 2008a); Yosef
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"Y Chromosomes of Jewish Priests," Nature,
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"The end justifies the means" is often attributed to Machiavelli, apparently
falsely. However, it was a communist dictum. It appears in an ironic context in
Darkness at Noon (New York: Macmillan, 1941) by Arthur Koestler: "Politics can be relatively fair in
the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no
other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means." Trotsky
defended the thesis. He wrote: "A means can be justified only by its end." Leon
Trotsky, Their Morals and Ours (New York: Pathfinder Press,
5th edition, 1973), p. 48,
Hans-Georg Fleck, "Public Perceptions Towards Liberal Values in Palestine, Near East Consulting Survey,"
commissioned by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation
for Liberty in cooperation with the Freedom Forum, (Palestinian
Territories: January, 2008),