Jewish Network for Palestine Zoom Webinar 4
Imagined Race – From Judeophobia to Zionism
Prof. Shlomo Sand. speaking about his book Imagined Race: A short History of Judeophobia, Followed by Q&A session.
Date: Sunday, 13th December, 17:00 London Time, Chaired by Prof. Haim Bresheeth-Zabner
Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87263820641?pwd=dG5FN2s1KzUvdm80Z0NRT05DU0FIZz09
Meeting ID: 872 6382 0641
Prof. Shlomo Sand
(Hebrew, Am Oved, 2002); The Invention of the Jewish People (Verso, 2009, 2020); Twilight of History (Verso, 2017); The End of the French Intellectual (Verso, 2017); The invention of the Land of Israel (Verso, 2014); and How I stopped Being A Jew (Verso, 2014); He has also published a Hebrew novel, To Live and Die in Tel Aviv, also published in a French edition (2019);
Imagined Race: A short History of Judeophobia (Hebrew, 2020)
By Shlomo Sand
Has racism always been the snobbism of the poor or a refined cultural product of intellectual elites? What is the source of Christian animosity towards Jews and why did it survive for such a long time? Why did the Judeophobia not disappear during the enlightenment and emancipation period? When did the racialisation of Jews start? Did this take place in the second part of the 19th century, when the term ‘antisemitism’ was coined, or does it date back to the start of a Christian civilisation in the ancient Mediterranean basin?
It is normal to assume that Christianity has emerged out of Judaism, but this book wishes to argue the opposite: It was Christianity, more than anything else, which is responsible for the formation of a fearful and isolated Judaism. It is also assumed that the Jews are some kind of people-race expelled from its country, became a ‘nomadic group’. Indeed, this is itself a Christian hostile myth, argues Shlomo Sand, one that was adopted by the victims and became one of the reasons for hatred towards them as a group. The fact that there is not even a single historical research text which which deals with the ‘expulsion of the Jewish people’ did nothing to weaken this mighty myth, which is still used as some focal point in the modern identity-politics discourse – both of the Judeophobic and the Zionist varieties.
To what extent did Zionism, born of the traumatic reaction to the repression of Jews, itself inherited and adopted the Judeophobic, racist world picture of its victimisers? This is the last, painful topic which this crucial book is dealing with.
Publications
Prof. Shlomo Sand (born 1946) is a world famous Israeli historian. Among the many research volumes he has published, which were translated into more than twenty languages, are Cinema as History
