On Monday, Patricia Cohen of the Times discussed Shlomo Sand’s claptrap, The Invention of the Jewish People.
Cohen, who based on prior writings and my prior correspondence with her, is a left-winger who likely has a fair amount of sympathy for Sand’s political views, bends over backwards to be “even-handed.”
Nevertheless, if you read Cohen’s piece closely, you see that she gets things basically right: what Sand has to say that is correct (e.g., Jews grew their numbers in part by conversion, that Jews are not ethnically homogenous–no surprise to me with my blued-eyed daughter and blond, blue-eyed grandmother–, and that there was no sudden and complete exile of Jews from the Land of Israel in 70 A.D.) is known to anyone with even a passing interest in the subject. His more “controversial” points (e.g., that Ashkenazic Jews are primarily descended from Turkic Khazars, that Sephardic Jews are primarily descended from Arab invaders who converted, or that the notion of Jewish nationhood was invented by 19th century Zionists) are thinly-veiled, ahistorical, politically motivated lies, contradicted by readily available evidence.
(As a related aside, I recently learned that I’m distantly related to Rashi, the great 12th century commenter on the Torah and Talmud. Rashi lived in France, whereas my ancestors come from Eastern Europe; the Khazars don’t seem to have been involved.)
Orin Kerr says:
Or perhaps Patricia Cohen likes to write about idiosyncratic and weird ideas by idiosyncratic and weird people.
November 25, 2009, 2:42 pmJames Craig Ziegler says:
Is this just a rehash of Arthur Koestler’s book “The Thirteenth Tribe?”
November 25, 2009, 2:43 pmDG says:
{Is this just a rehash of Arthur Koestler’s book “The Thirteenth Tribe?”}
I think its some of that plus a bunch of additional “Jews are bad” stuff.
November 25, 2009, 2:51 pmUnkosher says:
I am not extremely well-read on the topic but my general impression has been that anyone who invokes the “Khazar” theory was an anti-Semite. While there is nothing facially hateful about it, its insinuations are plain to see, and is known to be unfounded in fact. When someone floats this concept I think of it as a red marker, kind of like when people refer to Jews as “crafty” or “manipulative” or hint darkly of their ability to control heads of state and enormous institutions; these signals tell me where the writer is willing to go to “support” his argument.
Maybe I’m wrong about that, but seeing this un-factual assertion pushed vociferously by haters like the Farrakhan crowd, tends to diminish respect for scholars who continue to spread the falsehood.
So it’s quite difficult to take a person such as Sand seriously.
I’m sure there is a story to be told about conversion, and responsible scholarship in history, archaeology and genetics may tell us some fascinating things. Some of what we learn might challenge or upset some people; but if those are the facts, they are worth knowing. Sand’s contribution to this endeavor is not a serious one. It’s the wine-and-cheese set’s answer to Dreaming of Palestine, unfortunately not labeled as “fiction,” which aims to provoke rather than to educate.
November 25, 2009, 3:15 pmArkady says:
You left out the mirabile dictu.
November 25, 2009, 3:17 pmneurodoc says:
The N.Y. Times, “An Invention of the Jewish People.” (That’s true, isn’t it, even if the current Sulzberger publisher is an Episcopalian.)
As for Jewish numbers owing much to conversions of non-Jews to Judaism, I wonder when and where it was more of an advantage than disadvantage to be a Jew. And, conversions from Judaism, both “voluntary” and forced, to say nothing of outright slaughters, surely winnowed the ranks many, many, many times more than conversions to Judaism increased them. (And yes, I do realize that Abraham and Sarah could not by themselves have accounted for all who would later be counted as Jews.)
November 25, 2009, 3:31 pmCountDuckula says:
I don’t really see the case for this. Her conclusion about Sand is dismissive:
I should say I read the article on Monday when it first appeared, and I read it again today. My feeling was the same both times.
November 25, 2009, 3:41 pmneurodoc says:
BTW, how consequential is it if:
Judaism, and hence Jews, long antedated Christianity and Christians, which antedated Islam and Muslims. Though making it harder than the two later monotheistic religions do, Judaism allows for conversions, and the “identity” and notion of community, that is of a Jewish people, is ancient and central to the religion and its adherents.
November 25, 2009, 3:45 pmrichard says:
I am not extremely well-read on the topic but my general impression has been that anyone who invokes the “Khazar” theory was an anti-Semite.
That may be the modern use of the theory (and I firmly believe the theory is wrong) but it first gained prominence in Koestler’s Thirteenth Tribe and Koestler did not invoke it because of anti-Semitism, just the opposite. As Ms. Cohen points out in her excellent article, somewhat grudgingly commended by Professor Bernstein, Koestler believed that descent from the Khazars acquitted the Jews of the charge that they were Christ killers.
November 25, 2009, 3:49 pmAndrew L says:
Who published this book? I mean this guy isn’t just wrong, he’s incompetent at analyzing sources. It seems as if he barely has even basic familiarity with the primary sources with which he is concerned.
In any event, Anita Shapira’s review reminded me of (a much less brutal/entertaining version of) Prof. Haym Soloveitchik’s review of Peter J. Haas’ book on rabbinic responsa.
H. Soloveitchik, “Responsa: Literary History and Basic Literacy,” AJS Review, 24:2 (1999) p. 343-357
November 25, 2009, 3:52 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Dockula, the fact that Cohen takes the book at all seriously is a sign of even-handedness. The genetic evidence alone, which Sand has lamely tried to discredit in recent public appearances, is enough to rebut Sand.
And, fwiw it’s worth, I believe it’s the Christians, not the Jews, who have been the primary adhearents to the myth that Jews were exiled in 70 A.D., for the Christians because of their sin in rejecting Jesus (hence the “wandering Jew”). Any Jew with a modicum of knowledge of Judaism knows about the Bar Kochba revolt in 132, the writing of the Mishna thereafter, and the creation of the Jersualem Talmud even later.
November 25, 2009, 3:52 pmOff Kilter says:
Are you sure this isn’t a satire based on the initially well received but subsequently debunked work From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters, which tried to argue that the Palestinians were an invented people?
November 25, 2009, 3:56 pmCJColucci says:
Cohen, who based on prior writings and my prior correspondence with her, is a left-winger who likely has a fair amount of sympathy for Sand’s political views, bends over backwards to be “even-handed.”
Nevertheless, if you read Cohen’s piece closely, you see that she gets things basically right
This seems to be a post about Sand’s “claptrap,” and not about Cohen, who, concededly, gets things right. Conjoining these two sentences suggests that you had some reason (presumably other than her general political slant — or maybe not) to distrust
November 25, 2009, 4:05 pmCohen’s reporting, and is a bit of a drive-by hit.
David Bernstein says:
Yes, Colucci, I do have reason to distrust her reporting. The way she described the AJC controversy, linked to above, is one reason. My follow up correspondence with her, in which she revealed very strong ideological priors on Jewish-related issues is a second. So I was surprised that, to her credit, she got this one right.
November 25, 2009, 4:19 pmYankev says:
Judaism also makes it more easy NOT to convert than Christianity and Islam. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
And DB, being descended from Rashi is serious yichus.
November 25, 2009, 4:28 pmNowMDJD says:
The genetic homogeneity of Jews is an empiric question that can be resolved to a high degree of confidence, or soon will be resolvable, using studies of genetic markers. Any speculation on this matter based on methods of the discipline of history are so speculative, and speculative in a way that is subject to conclusive refutation, that their use is almost certainly tendentious.
In other words, anyone who talks about the Khazars simply is not interested in the truth unless he is discussing common genetic markers that confirm or refute Khazak ancestry of eastern European Jews.
November 25, 2009, 4:36 pmAndrew L says:
Not to mention the slew of documents, spanning from the end of the 1st century to the eve of the Bar Kokhba revolt, discovered by Yigael Yadin in the region around Ein Gedi, published in two thick volumes. And let’s not forget the Muraba’at papyri published in DJD 2 by Benoit, Milik and De Vaux.
November 25, 2009, 4:51 pmDilan Esper says:
Every people is “invented”, and everyone has more in common with others living in the present than they do with people who lived 2,000 years ago. Jewish people are no exception, and this is why, while it is fine to celebrate one’s heritage, one shouldn’t get too invested in narratives about things “the Jews” or “the Persians” or “the Chinese” did thousands of years ago, as if those groups are equivalent to the groups that have the same title in the present day.
That said, the fact that someone would go to the trouble of writing a book that made an argument like this solely with respect to the Jews does sound like a classic example of applying a double standard to Jews and, yes, that smacks of anti-semitism.
November 25, 2009, 6:18 pmYankev says:
But Yadin was not only a Jew but a Zionist, which in the eyes of a certain audience is enough to dismiss his work out of hand.
November 25, 2009, 6:19 pmneurodoc says:
There is no reason to think you don’t mean well, and you are only expressing an opinion. It is an ignorant opinion, though, like your disquisitions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (“Theology and Israel:…Israel was born in a state of original sin, because it was formed by international powers who dispossessed Palestinian Arabs of their land without concern for the consequences. And that original sin has defined the state of war that Israel has found itself in ever since. That original sin, however, can never be mended.” 12/2/03, http://dilan.blogspot.com/)
November 25, 2009, 6:50 pmreadery says:
Kind of a bummer — define people tightly and their not really a people because they have religious elements. But define religion tightly and they’re not really a religon because they have “people” elements.
The current view of he British courts is that protections for religions include only beliefs, so the peoplehood aspects of Judiasm are not genuinely religious in character and are not protected by laws protecting religious practices. The new British Supreme Court is considering an appeal from a Jewish religious school ordered not to consider parentage in determining who is a Jew on grounds that basing religious identity on birth constitutes illegal racial discrimination and is not a “religious” practice within the meaning of the laws protecting freedom of religion. The lower court compared Judaism’s concept of peoplehood to whites-only South African churches and said a civilized society cannot tolerate it.
November 25, 2009, 6:56 pmreadery says:
See the NYT article on the British Supreme Court case
November 25, 2009, 7:01 pmmariner says:
I’ve read that book, and I’ve read several articles by authors who claim to have “debunked” it. In fact they didn’t lay a glove on it, they simply demanded that readers accept their views instead of hers.
Most of the criticism I read centered on debate about the calculations of population increase by natural growth vs. immigration, and left alone the larger points about continuous Jewish presence on the land for over three thousand years.
November 25, 2009, 7:11 pmKevin Brook says:
In the letter “Shlomo Sand responds to Simon Schama’s review in the Financial Times”, dated November 21, Sand claims “no serious work concerning the origins of the demographic weight of Yiddish-speaking Jews has been carried out” in recent decades. That isn’t true. I wrote a study of this very nature titled “The Origins of East European Jews” and it was published in the scholarly journal Russian History/Histoire Russe volume 30 numbers 1-2 (Spring-Summer 2003) on pages 1-22.
Sand is familiar with the first edition of my book “The Jews of Khazaria” and cites it in “The Invention of the Jewish People” on page 238. But it is the second edition of my book that carries the full extent of the research on Jewish demographics and origins, with its Chapter 10 (formerly numbered 11) sourcing the new genetic studies as well as the demographic and linguistic research of scholars like Alexander Beider.
My evidence disproves Sand’s book’s ideas about the origins of Ashkenazim and Sephardim, showing that the real story is that Ashkenazim and Sephardim have preserved a large amount of ancestry from ancient Israel to the present day.
To NowMDJD: Ashkenazim do have potential Khazar elements, in haplogroups in the Q and R divisions of Y-DNA, but those two total only about 16 or 17 percent of Ashkenazic paternal ancestry. Combined with one or two percent of genetics that may come from the Caucasus region, we come to no more than about 19 percent that could come from Khazars. On the maternal side it’s a little different story but still not majority Khazar.
For full details on my book, visit http://www.khazaria.com/brook.html
November 25, 2009, 7:51 pmDilan Esper says:
Neuro:
Idiots don’t make arguments. They quote something and pretend that’s the same thing as an argument.
Don’t be an idiot.
November 25, 2009, 8:04 pmClara says:
Don’t mean to burst your bubble, but LOTS of Jews can trace themselves back to Rashi. I’m not sure why that is.
I can, for example; the Maharal of Prague appears in my family tree, and supposedly he traced himself back to Rashi. I’m also related to John Kerry, who is related to the Maharal of Prague on his Jewish side — so John Kerry can also claim kinship with Rashi.
November 25, 2009, 8:10 pmCornellian says:
His more “controversial” points (e.g., that Ashkenazic Jews are primarily descended from Turkic Khazars, that Sephardic Jews are primarily descended from Arab invaders who converted, or that the notion of Jewish nationhood was invented by 19th century Zionists) are thinly-veiled, ahistorical, politically motivated lies
The political motive needs some elaboration – it isn’t exactly self-evident. Does anyone know or care who the Khazars were?
November 25, 2009, 8:55 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Cornellian, explained in previous posts on Sand, linked above.
November 25, 2009, 8:58 pmCJColucci says:
OK, so it is a drive-by hit. Glad we straightened that out.
November 25, 2009, 9:23 pmRicardo says:
It’s surely worth noting that the places in the world where ethnic or racial identity are downplayed are those with relatively low levels of ethnic or racial conflict. The U.S., Canada or Australia for instance. Since you called Dilan’s opinion “ignorant,” perhaps you would be inclined to bring some actual facts to the discussion.
November 25, 2009, 9:29 pmKevin Brook says:
In the letter “Shlomo Sand responds to Simon Schama’s review in the Financial Times”, dated November 21, Sand claims “no serious work concerning the origins of the demographic weight of Yiddish-speaking Jews has been carried out” in recent decades. That isn’t true. I wrote a study of this very nature titled “The Origins of East European Jews” and it was published in the scholarly journal Russian History/Histoire Russe volume 30 numbers 1-2 (Spring-Summer 2003) on pages 1-22.
Sand is familiar with the first edition of my book “The Jews of Khazaria” and cites it in “The Invention of the Jewish People” on page 238. But it is the second edition of my book that carries the full extent of the research on Jewish demographics and origins, with its Chapter 10 (formerly numbered 11) sourcing the new genetic studies as well as the demographic and linguistic research of scholars like Alexander Beider.
My evidence disproves Sand’s book’s ideas about the origins of Ashkenazim and Sephardim, showing that the real story is that Ashkenazim and Sephardim have preserved a large amount of ancestry from ancient Israel to the present day.
To NowMDJD: Ashkenazim do have potential Khazar elements, in haplogroups in the Q and R divisions of Y-DNA, but those two total only about 16 or 17 percent of Ashkenazic paternal ancestry. Combined with one or two percent of genetics that may come from the Caucasus region, we come to no more than about 19 percent that could come from Khazars. On the maternal side it’s a little different story but still not majority Khazar.
November 25, 2009, 9:57 pmDilan Esper says:
By the way, I should mention– since Neuro is again implying I am an anti-semite (which seems to be his whole purpose in life), I should make clear that the post he links to makes very clear that while I don’t think that the process that went down in 1948 was fair to the Palestinians, I also think that the need to create a Jewish homeland was extremely compelling and that, once it was created, Israel has the right to exist and to defend itself against terrorist attacks, and whatever is done for the Palestinians needs to both protect Israel’s security and ensure the continued existence of a viable and vibrant Israel as an insurance policy against anti-semitism.
In other words, I am a strong supporter of Israel and think that the road to Palestinian rights has to include dropping demands that would result in the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state and stopping the terror attacks.
But Neuro is one of these guys who likes to pretend that anyone who expresses any sort of concern or sympathy to the Palestinians or who thinks that Israel should make any concessions at all or exercise any sort of restraint is an anti-Semite. And he uses selective quotation because he doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to spell out his arguments and thinks that smearing people is more effective.
So I just want that to be absolutely crystal clear.
November 25, 2009, 10:19 pmArthurKirkland says:
The book’s author is said to be aiming to use a reworking of “history” to discount Israel’s claims to its current land. That seems as dopey, to me, as the ‘defend and support Israel in every way, at whatever financial, moral or mortal cost’ approach.
In the context of addressing claims to land currently possessed by a country formed a few decades ago, who cares about sketchy history and outright myths stretching back many centuries? The problem is real — a situation that is expensive and unstable, especially over the long term — and requires a resolution, but I see little role for stale “evidence” and superstition in developing a solution.
I also don’t understand the role of a writer’s status as a left-winger in this context. If Israel is hitching its wagon to right-wingers to the exclusion of most Americans, that miscalculation might cause Israel’s days to be numbered, whatever the provenance of the numbering system. I doubt Israelis are that stupid, particularly given the makeup of the current hard-right element of American politics.
November 25, 2009, 10:53 pmneurodoc says:
Human Rights Watch Update comments (Nov 16-18)
http://volokh.com/2009/11/15/human-rights-watch-update/
****************
N.Y. Times on “The Invention of the Jewish People” comments (today)
http://volokh.com/2009/11/25/n-y-times-on-the-invention-of-the-jewish-people/
**********
I have neither said, nor implied at any time that Dilan is an antisemite. Rather, I have said plainly enough that I have no reason to think he is other than well-meaning. I do, however, see Dilan as uninformed and misinformed about things on which he presumes to pontificate, e.g., the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and thus a foolish bloviator.
November 25, 2009, 11:32 pmneurodoc says:
Read Edward Said to understand his theory of “orientalism,” a major left-winger meme. But that’s only one of the bases the left uses in its attempts to delegitimize the Jewish state of Israel.
Don’t worry, Israel isn’t.
November 25, 2009, 11:47 pmneurodoc says:
Oh, this too between neurodoc and Dilan from that other David Bernstein thread last week:
November 26, 2009, 12:18 amDilan Esper says:
Neuro, why don’t you quote the post where you compared my position to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? It might make people understand why I say you live to insinuate that I am an anti-semite.
November 26, 2009, 2:59 amneurodoc says:
You mean re-post that here so anyone who is interested can see for themselves what you claim was an accusation of antisemitism leveled against you? Dunno why you couldn’t do that yourself, but I’ll be happy to do so. I would just ask that the post be read in its entirety, and even better that it be read along with those of Ariel, Yankev in that same thread, and Leo Marvin. Each of them tried without success to tell you the same thing I tried to tell you, that is that your arguments were notably flawed, only to be met with your repeated protestations that you are a supporter of Israel and not an antisemite.
November 26, 2009, 9:35 amJakeCollins says:
I don’t know anything about this book or this thesis, but the op’s “refutation” was hardly persuasive. If this book is a bunch of “thinly-veiled, ahistorical, politically motivated lies, contradicted by readily available evidence,” then how about linking to some of this evidence that debunks the book’s thesis?
November 26, 2009, 1:24 pmThis post did nothing to increase my knowledge, except to solidify my suspicions that David Bernstein is a hack who couldn’t argue his way out of a paper sack. But then I already knew that.
aeolius says:
I think this might be a good place to discuss the use of the term “antisemitic”, and try to differentiate it from say “antiZionistic”
November 26, 2009, 3:05 pmThe former relates to being against a religious group, the second involves the poliical claims of a group for land based upon some earlier ownership of that land.
Chinese claims on Tibet, Serbian claims to Kosovo, German claims to the Sudetenland are just a few examples.
(the last is a provocative item which may explore another (mis)use of antisemitism)
I claim the right to express criticism of Zionism or political acts of Israel without it necessarily being antisemitic. That is unless the Israeli cabinet is Divinely inspired.
Nobody Really says:
He does, in the first link of the post. Here it is, in case you missed it:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_03_08-2009_03_14.shtml#1236900840
November 26, 2009, 3:44 pmLeo Marvin says:
The blogosphere in six words.
November 26, 2009, 4:04 pmtheus says:
No one said you couldn’t. Why was the snark at the end necessary?
November 26, 2009, 9:33 pmneurodoc says:
Claim whatever you want, but most will readily grant that not all criticisms of the “political acts of Israel” amount to expressions of antisemitism. When, however, you start “criticizing” the aspirational goal of the Jewish people to a homeland, which is not about irredentism* like the examples you tossed out are (China and Tibet, Serbia and Kosovo, Germany and the Sudetenland, the former of which are all the “homeland” themselves), that opens the door to doubt. So, you must tell us what your “criticism” of Zionism is if we are to tell you whether or not it strikes us as smacking of antisemitism.
* for an example of true, unequivocal “irredentism,” look to those Muslims (e.g., Osama bin Laden) who imagine that the better part of Spain (Al-Andalus) is rightfully theirs, and would kill those who maintain otherwise.
November 27, 2009, 1:16 amJim S. says:
Rashi had an interesting take on Genesis 1. He thought that it was God’s preparation of “the Land”, i.e. Israel, and should not be understood as a description of God’s creation of the entire earth, much less the universe. See Chaim D. Shual, Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah. John Sailhamer, a Christian OT scholar has taken up his view recently: see his The Pentateuch as Narrative; Genesis Unbound; and Genesis in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary.
November 27, 2009, 7:48 amSammy Finkelman says:
Rashi doesn’t say that. How does anyone read that into Rashi?
Are we now going into allegorical misinteropretations of Rashi?
What Rashi says is that the PURPOSE of recounting the creation of the world – of starting with that rather than with Exodus XII – the first commandment given to the Jews – was to rebut the argument that the Jews are robbers who took by force the land from the 7 nations of Cannan. God created the earth and he can give it to whoever he pleases. First he gave it to them and then he took it from them and gave it to us. This comes out of the Yalkut. It is the first Rashi in the Torah.
I don’t think this is the right explanation for why the creation of thhe universe is in the Torah.
November 30, 2009, 12:18 amneurodoc says:
Is that more than family lore? My mother’s maiden name is Bernstein, so can I coat tail with you on this one?
November 30, 2009, 9:06 amYankev says:
Yet the court ignored that the entire controversy turns around allowing a religion to set its own standards for religious conversion. Because the mother’s conversion was not valid according to traditional Jewish standards and the student had never converted either, the school, applying the standards of the Jewish religion, deemed the student non-Jewish. The court seems to have ignored one important distinction, and one paradox that destroys the government’s case. ) South Africa had no mechanism for someone to convert to being “white”, whereas traditional Judaism does provide a mechanism for a non-Jew to become Jewish. As to the paradox, if the student sincerely believes that either her mother’s invalid conversion or her own belief in some of the tenets of the Jewish religion render her Jewish, then by definition she denies the single most important tenet of the Jewish religion — the Divine authority of the Oral Torah as transmitted by the Sages — and it is paradoxical to say that her self-identification and her supposed belief in the Jewish religion (which is obviously NOT the same Jewish religion that the school teachs) must force the school to accept her as Jewish.
L’havdil, if someone walked into a Catholic church and said “I was not born Catholic, was never baptized and don’t belief in the Trinity and in two of its components, but you must give me communion because I believe that my belief in one of them is enough to render me Catholic,” she would be laughed out of court for bringing a similar suit.
November 30, 2009, 11:35 am