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How I Stopped Being a Jew Hardcover – 22 October 2014
by Shlomo Sand (Author)
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Shlomo Sand was born in 1946 in a displaced persons camp in Austria, to a Jewish mother and non-Jewish father; the family later migrated to Palestine. During his life, Sand came to question his Jewish identity, even that as a 'secular Jew.' With this meditative and thoughtful mixture of essay and personal recollection, he articulates the problems at the centre of modern Jewish identity. How I Stopped Being a Jew discusses the negative effects of the Israeli exploitation of the 'chosen people' myth and its 'holocaust industry'. Sand criticises the fact that, in the current context, what 'Jewish' means is, above all, not being Arab and reflects on the possibility of a secular, non- exclusive Israeli identity, beyond the legends of Zionism.
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Publisher : Verso Trade; 1st edition (22 October 2014)
Language : English
Hardcover : 128 pages
Customer Reviews: 4.5 out of 5 stars 37 ratings
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Review
Praise for The Invention of the Jewish People
"Perhaps books combining passion and erudition don't change political situations, but if they did, this one would count as a landmark." --Eric Hobsbawm, Observer
"Sand's quiet earthquake of a book is shaking historical faith in the link between Judaism and Israel." --Rafael Behr, Observer
"No discussion of the region any longer seems complete without acknowledgement of this book." --Independent on Sunday, Best History Books of 2009
"A radical dismantling of a national myth." --Guardian
Book Description
An autobiographical essay on Jewish identity from the acclaimed author of The Invention of the Jewish People
About the Author
Shlomo Sand studied history at the University of Tel Aviv and at the Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales, in Paris. He currently teaches contemporary history at the University of Tel Aviv. His books include The Invention of the Land of Israel, The Invention of the Jewish People, and On the Nation and the Jewish People.
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How I Stopped Being a Jew
by Shlomo Sand, David Fernbach (Translation)
3.90 · Rating details · 272 ratings · 50 reviews
Shlomo Sand was born in 1946, in a displaced person’s camp in Austria, to Jewish parents; the family later migrated to Palestine. As a young man, Sand came to question his Jewish identity, even that of a “secular Jew.” With this meditative and thoughtful mixture of essay and personal recollection, he articulates the problems at the center of modern Jewish identity.
How I Stopped Being a Jew discusses the negative effects of the Israeli exploitation of the “chosen people” myth and its “holocaust industry.” Sand criticizes the fact that, in the current context, what “Jewish” means is, above all, not being Arab and reflects on the possibility of a secular, non-exclusive Israeli identity, beyond the legends of Zionism. (less)
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Hardcover, 112 pages
Published October 7th 2014 by Verso (first published 2013)
ISBN1781686149 (ISBN13: 9781781686140)
Edition LanguageEnglish
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كيف لم أعد يهوديا؟
كيف توقفت عن كوني يهوديا
Comment j'ai cessé d'être juif
Dlaczego przestałem być Żydem
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Michael Perkins
May 23, 2021Michael Perkins rated it it was amazing
fascinating and enlightening
something conveniently forgotten, or ignored, about the Balfour declaration
A letter of one hundred eighteen words signed by Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, committing His Majesty’s government to a Jewish homeland in Palestine at some indefinite future time, “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”
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Just got done watching this film, The Gate Keepers. The conclusion of six former heads of Shin Bet, the intelligence agency charged with defending against terrorism...
"we have become a cruel people"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdMjr...
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Just a reminder, Israel helped create Hamas....
https://www.dispropaganda.com/single-...
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Jim Coughenour
Oct 25, 2014Jim Coughenour rated it liked it
Shelves: politicalinsight, essaysforautodidacts
An illuminating, somewhat resigned, essay on the perils of identity politics, rather than a polemic. Shlomo Sand examines the myths of Jewish identity, specifically that of the "secular Jew" and predictably disturbs a few sacred cows. He dismisses the "Holocaust industry" – indicting Lanzmann's Shoah, Spielberg's Shindler's List and Elie Wiesel for their exclusive focus on Jews as the victims of Nazism.
It was not enough that the memory of the victims should be engraved in the consciousness of the West. What was demanded was the specificity, exclusiveness, and total national ownership of suffering.
He also questions the supposed univeralist ethic of Jews who historically side with the oppressed.
Anyone who seeks to establish a connection between Jewish morality and social justice, between Jewish tradition and human rights, must ask why the Jewish religious sphere has barely given rise to preachings against repeated Israeli attacks on human rights.
He asks what it means to be a Jew in Israel, and answers "in Israel, being a Jew means, fundamentally and before all else, not being an Arab," a position he has no difficulty naming as racism.
Is not the very fact of defining oneself as a Jew within the State of Israel an act of affiliation to a privileged caste which creates intolerable injustices around itself?… We must recognize that the key axis of a secular Jewish identity lies nowadays in perpetuating the individual's relationship to the State of Israel and in securing the individual's total support for it.
For Sand, his "Jewish" birth is accidental and not determinative; he wants to exit the "exclusive club."
The book is dedicated to the memory of Eric Hobsbawm, author of The Invention of Tradition. We are all a mixture of identities and it's fine to celebrate them, but when we find in them a reason to discriminate and oppress, it is right that they should be exposed as the fictions they are. A calm and courageous book.
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Salma Say
May 18, 2018Salma Say rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: palestine, philosophy, history, politics
اليهودية في الأصل هي ديانة، لكن الصهيونية حولتها إلى إثنية قومية عنصرية. تدعي أن اليهود كانوا يشكلون دوما كتلة واحدة متماسكة حافظت على نقاءها العرقي على مر القرون، وبالرغم من قلة الدلائل التاريخية (باستبعاد التوراة والتلمود: والتي لا يمكن الاعتماد عليها كمرجع تاريخي موثوق به)، باءت محاولاتهم لايجاد تركيبة جينية خاصة باليهود بالفشل. الفكر الصهيوني مادي استعماري حول الإنسان إلى مادة نفعية، فما المشكلة اذا تم حل المسألة اليهودية في شرق أوربا عن طريق نقل اليهود إلى أرض فلسطين، وتم حل مسألة اللاجئين الفلسطينية بنقلهم وتوطينهم في الدول العربية المجاورة. هذا الكيان الذي يدعي التحضر والتقدم ويتفاخر بكونه الديمقراطية الوحيدة في الشرق الأوسط قد أبخس من قدر الإنسان وتبجح لأبعد حد. واستغل الانهزامية العربية بقذف سهام الاتهامات على العرب والمسلمين، والتي تأثر بها العرب في المقابل وسعوا لدفع هذه التهم عنهم. الصهيونية تستغل الديانة اليهودية لتبرير جرائمها ولا أخلاقيتها.
كتاب مهم ويجب أن يقرأه كل عربي وبخاصة دعاة الانهزامية والتطبيع منهم..
وبالمناسبة فإن القارئ لدكتور عبدالوهاب المسيري سيجد أفكار الكاتبين متشابهة بشكل كبير. (less)
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Mustakim
May 18, 2021Mustakim rated it it was amazing
Loved this book. Worth reading <3
4.5/5
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Lucas
Jul 17, 2020Lucas rated it it was amazing
Shelves: otherness
Livro fantástico. Emocionante até.
Eu peguei esse livro para ler em função da meu interesse em questões de identidade étnica. Em particular, tenho interesse em entender como grupos étnicos que, em algum momento na história encaixaram-se na categoria de otherness — que, em um sentido marxista, são grupos que ocupam papeis marginais na esfera da produção e, por consequência, são representados na condição de inferioridade na política, cultura, arte, etc. —, deixaram esse papel.
Uma grande característica da otherness é que seu significado e materialidade são estritamente sociais. Desse modo, o sujeito pertencente ao grupo étnico em questão não tem agência sobre sua identidade. O negro em sociedades coloniais, por exemplo, é no imaginário social o feio, fedido, burro e preguiçoso (leia o maravilhoso ensaio de Umberto Eco Inventing the Enemy: Essays). E, embora o afrodescendente nessas sociedades possa desenvolver estratégias para lutar contra a memória coletiva que confere materialidade à sua identidade, a negação de sua identidade não estaria entre essas estratégias. Dizer "Eu não sou negro" não seria uma opção.
Foi por isso que o título desse ensaio me chamou tanto atenção. Como alguém pode decidir deixar de ser judeu?
O argumento do Sand na verdade é simples: a ideia de que é impossível deixar de ser judeu depende de se aceitar que existe algo chamado "judeu secular": uma cultura que existe independente de convicções religiosas. Essa cultura não existe hoje. Não existe língua judia-secular, não existe arte judia-secular e, mais importante, a memória judia secular está se desvanecendo.
Sand argumenta que o auge da Judeophobia no mundo Ocidental foi entre 1850 e 1950. O status de otherness dos judeus foi essencialmente extinto desde então e, embora seja sempre possível citar casos de antissemitismo eventuais, sua prática deixou de ser sistemática (exceção feita a alguns paises da Europa Oriental). Por essa razão a associação comunitária de judeus seculares, visando sobetudo a sobrevivência, perdeu em larga medida a razão de ser.
Uma passagem do livro resume de forma bastante bonita esse último ponto. Enquanto Sand — que afirma em seus trabalhos que não há base genética comum entre judeus—, caminhava com seu pai por Paris, o último afirmara que é sempre possível identificar um judeu nas ruas. Diante do ceticismo do filho, o pai aponta para um homem e afirma, ao pé do ouvido de Sand que aquele homem era judeu. Para provar seu ponto o pai de San começa a fala Yiddish com o filho na expectativa do suposto judeu entrar na conversa. O que não acontece imediatamente, mas:
Suddenly the man my father had identified as a Jew, who was sitting in front of us, turned round and began to explain in Yiddish the origin of the column. It turned out that he came from Romania and had arrived in France before the Second World War. He was an engineer and lived in Montmartre. I was flabbergasted and speechless. When we got off the bus, I immediately asked my father how he’d been able to identity this man. ‘It’s because of the eyes,’ he replied. I found this hard to understand. ‘But he had blue eyes!’ I said. ‘It’s not the shape or the colour, it’s the look.’ ‘What look?’ ‘A fleeting and sad look, the mark of fear and deep apprehension,’ explained my father. ‘That’s how the German soldiers sometimes identified Jews in Poland.
Mais importante é a última frase dessa passagem:
But don’t worry, you don’t get that anymore with young Israelis!’
Mas se a necessidade de sobrevivência é menor, não significa que ela não existe. Ainda assim valeria a pena parar de ser judeu? Sand responde afirmativamente a essa pergunta, por uma razão simples: a persistência de identificação étnica entre judeus seculares serve apenas a propósitos etnocentristas do Estado de Israel. Essa identificação é nociva para as minorias que habitam o território israelense atualmente e estão condenadas à mesma otherness a que os judeus estiveram submetidos na Europa entre 1850 e 1950.
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Gostei muito pela coragem do texto e porque ele exala sinceridade, mas continuei com a pergunta que me fez procurar o livro pela primeira vez: é possivel abandonar o grupo étnico a que você pertence se esse grupo é um otherness? Se a otherness judaica acabou, creio que o Sand pode fazê-lo. Mas e as mulheres, negros, muçulmanos? (less)
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Susan
Nov 03, 2014Susan rated it did not like it
Shelves: books-read-in-2014, judasim, non-fiction-and-biography
Sholomo Sand's book, How I Stopped Being a Jew, which I received from NetGalley in exchange for a review, addresses the issues many modern Jews face in reconciling their Jewish heritage with their lack of identity with Judaism, and their rejection of a God that actually has power in their lives.
These are issues modern Jews and Israeli citizens face daily. And many of them struggle. Many modern Jews are happy being Jewish, and observing their faith as they choose to observe it.
Others, like Sand, reject the idea of a supreme being. There is nothing wrong with that. People who reject the idea of a supreme being are atheists, and I know several.
I am now probably going to offend those readers who give this book high ratings.
This book, however, is not about being an atheist. It is entitled How I Stopped Being a Jew for a reason. Sand not only rejects Judaism, he devotes his entire book to an apologia for his opinion.
Sand is a well-known, controversial professor and author. Personally, I found this book offensive. I found it offensive as a Jew, I found it offensive as an American citizen, and I found it offensive as a global citizen.
That I found it offensive as a Jew is my personal opinion and just as I choose to practice Judaism, Professor Sand does not. What I find offensive, is Sand's need to bash Israel, the country of which he is a citizen, and the notion of a Jewish identity. I am not offended that he has legitimate concerns and beliefs. I AM offended that he foisted them on unsuspecting readers.
I am offended as an American citizen because I find literature that bashes my country, written by my fellow citizens, offensive. I am not a flag - waver, and I don't support every action our political leadership takes. I willingly read diverse opinions. But when someone just decides to object, politically, to everything this country stands for, well, that's the limit for me. And that's what Sand does to his country.
I am offended as a global citizen because I think any citizen of any country owes at least some allegiance to their country (the exception being citizens of countries led by dictators; citizens who are oppressed constantly and not allowed to express their opinions). I can't tell if Sand has an identity as a citizen of Israel. He seems to find the fact that he is identified by the State of Israel as JEW. This is an unfortunate fact of living in Israel; matrilineal heritage defines you.
I found it almost impossible to read beyond the first page. I have no quarrel with Professor Sand's atheism. But I think he goes way too far in apologizing for how he came to this conclusion.
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Sara Salem
Jan 07, 2015Sara Salem rated it liked it
Some fascinating parts especially on how Zionism constructed Israeli identity.
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Tucker
Jul 12, 2015Tucker rated it really liked it
Shelves: existential
Sand is an Israeli citizen who criticizes what it means to be Jewish in Israel today. He acknowledges that, in a post-Holocaust world, there is good reason for an overall Jewish bond with the State of Israel. However, he finds it an odd coincidence of fate that the State of Israel marked him as “Jew” on his identity card simply because his mother is Jewish, something he had no control over, and did not make any inquiry whatsoever into things that might have been more relevant, such as his ability to speak Hebrew or his religious beliefs. (He doesn’t “believe in a supreme being,” which is all he has to say on that subject in this book, and nowhere does he suggest that secular Jews ought to become religious Jews.) The State of Israel thus treats Jewishness as a race, “as an eternal and ahistorical essence,” which he thinks is an unnecessary interpretation and also lends itself toward discriminatory treatment of people deemed to be non-Jews, particularly as it fuels the growing “politics of segregation that is inherent in the self-definition of the State of Israel” and the occupation of the territories since 1967.
Someone born of a Jewish mother — anywhere in the world — can get a secondary residence in Israel and an identity card, without being obligated to work, pay taxes, serve in the army, or learn the history, geography, or language. They can also bring a non-Jewish spouse to Israel, where the spouse will also be entitled to Israeli citizenship. By contrast, an Arab Israeli is not allowed to bring a Palestinian spouse from the occupied territories into Israel. “To diminish the demographic weight of the Arabs, it is judged better to weaken the Jewish state through non-Jewish dilution, so long as the newcomers are white Europeans.”
He feels a “growing malaise in continuing to define myself as a secular Jew,” further asking: “How, in these conditions, can individuals who are not religious believers but are simply humanists, democrats and liberals, and endowed with minimum of honesty, continue to define themselves as Jews?” He is critical of the idea that there is a significant bond between secular Jews. The very possibility of secularism may be seen as a privilege of certain cultural backgrounds. In Israel, people of Yiddish backgrounds were likely to still be recognized as Jewish even if they were secular, while Jews of Arab backgrounds often felt the need to play up their religiosity so that others would affirm their Jewishness and not lump them together with Muslim Arabs. Today “in Israel, being a Jew means, fundamentally and before all else, not being an Arab.”
Furthermore, ideas of Jewish ethical differences from non-Jews — whether of Jewish “ill repute” or “moral superiority” — are narratives that are not factually based. “Nowhere to be found is there a way of life common to all so-called secular Jews,” and so “it is impossible to assert the existence either of a living, non-religious Jewish culture or of a possible common future, apart from vestiges handed down from a declining religious tradition.” The art, philosophy, history, and politics of people like Tristan Tzara, Harold Pinter, Stanley Kubrick, Henri Bergson, Marc Bloch, Arthur Koestler, and Serge Gainsbourg do not have anything significantly Jewish about them, despite these artists' personal origins in "a Jewish family background of one sort or another.” For some artists, like Franz Kafka, the noticeable absence of Jewish content in their work amounts to a deliberate distancing from their personal background.
Sand implies his approval, as an Israeli, of non-Israelis who protest “the Israeli policies of segregation and occupation,” insofar as the policies are indeed objectionable. He questions, however, how these non-Israelis can coherently identify as “secular Jews”; why they want to identify with “a Jewish ‘community’” in the first place; and why, therefore, they are talking about Israel at all. Although the secular Jew identity stance was “understandable on the part of the generation that immediately followed the genocide,” today it is “a temporary posture with little weight and no political future.”
Frustrated by the unconscious racism of Israeli society and by his recognition that his egalitarian ideals are seen as “exaggerated and impertinent,” he perceives “a moral obligation to break definitively with tribal Judeocentrism” and says he wishes to “resign” from a Jewish identity that, in contemporary Israel, aligns him with “a fictitious ethnos of persecutors and their supporters”. He no longer assumes that his Yiddish-speaking family background makes him a “genuinely secular Jew”. He feels rather “that such an imaginary characteristic lacks any specific basis or cultural perspective and that its existence is based on a hollow and ethnocentric view of the world.” (less)
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Carla
Feb 24, 2021Carla rated it it was amazing
Shelves: 2021
"To try to equate today's marginal anti-Semitism with the powerful, mainstream Judeophobia of the past amounts to greatly downplaying the impact of Jew-hatred in Western, Christian and modern civilization as expressed until the mid-twentieth century. Yet the conception that makes Jews a 'race' with mysterious qualities, transmitted by obscure routes, still blossoms. While in former times it was a matter of simple physiological characteristics, blood, or facial shape, today it is DNA or, for the more subtle, a paler substitute: the strong belief in a direct lineage down the chain of generations. In a distant past we were dealing with a mixture of fear, contempt, hatred of the other, and ignorance. Today, on the part of the 'post-Shoah goyim', we face a symbiosis of fears, guilty consciences and ignorance, while among "new Jews' we often find victimization, narcissism, pretentiousness, and likewise a crass ignorance."
[...]
In light of the recent tragedies of the first half of the twentieth century, the emotional connection felt by Jewish descendants towards Israel is both understandable and undeniable, and it would be foolish to criticize it. However, in no way does that undeniable connection also necessitate a close connection between the conception of Jewishness as an eternal and ahistorical essence, and the growing support a large number of those who identify themselves as Jews give to the politics of segregation that is inherent in the self-definition of the State of Israel, and to the regime of extended occupation and colonization that has been enforced in the territories conquered in 1967." (less)
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