Shlomo Sand's book The Invention of the Jewish People, which recently appeared in English translation, has continued to be attacked on this site as a piece of scurrilous nonsense.
Tony Judt has now joined the distinguished historians who have treated Sand's book with respect, in a favorable piece on the book in today's Financial Times, Israel must unpick its ethnic myth.
He repeats Simon Schama's take that most of the book is true, but obviously so, but counters this by recognizing that the book is chiefly intended for a nonlearned audience, which will not be aware of the facts Sand presents:
The story went like this. Jews, until the destruction of the Second Temple (in the First century), had been farmers in what is now Israel/Palestine. They had then been forced yet again into exile by the Romans and wandered the earth: homeless, rootless and outcast. Now at last "they" were "returning" and would once again farm the soil of their ancestors.
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