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05/03/2008: "Jewish academic wishes Israel to be for everyone, not just Jews"
We find, then, that the members of a variety of peoples and races, blond and black, brown and yellow, became Jews in large numbers. According to Zand, the Zionist need to devise for them a shared ethnicity and historical continuity produced a long series of inventions and fictions, along with an invocation of racist theses. Some were concocted in the minds of those who conceived the Zionist movement, while others were offered as the findings of genetic studies conducted in Israel.
Prof. Zand teaches at Tel Aviv University. His book, "When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?" (published by Resling in Hebrew), is intended to promote the idea that Israel should be a "state of all its citizens" - Jews, Arabs and others - in contrast to its declared identity as a "Jewish and democratic" state. Personal stories, a prolonged theoretical discussion and abundant sarcastic quips do not help the book, but its historical chapters are well-written and cite numerous facts and insights that many Israelis will be astonished to read for the first time.
[ Jews should have a homeland. The Jews have an identity and their religion/identity is exclusive, not inclusive. Therefore they have a legitamate claim to be a people. They act as a group and have more cohesion than any other ethnicity. It what they have become that counts - not what their origins were. ]
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/959229.html