Who and how invented the Jewish people

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

It should be remembered that, although nation states began to form even before the introduction of the universal compulsory education system, only with its help they were able to take root and gain strength. The top priority of state pedagogy from the very beginning was the dissemination of transplanted "National memory", and its heart is national historiography.

The cultivation of homogeneous collectives in the modern era requires, among other things, the construction of a long-term historical plot that demonstrates the continuous connection in time and space between today's members of these collectives and their ancient “forefathers”.

Since this strong cultural connection, reliably "functioning" in the body of every nation, has never existed in any society, professional Memory agents have to work hard to invent it.

The scientific evidence, amassed largely through the efforts of archaeologists, historians and anthropologists, has undergone a series of impressive cosmetic surgeries by historical novelists, essayists and journalists. As a result, the deeply wrinkled face of the past turns into a proud national portrait, shining with impeccable beauty.

Undoubtedly, no historical research is complete without myths, but in national historiography they play a particularly crude role. The stories of peoples and nations are built according to the same standards as the monuments in the capital squares: they must be large, powerful, directed towards the sky and emitting a heroic radiance.

Until the last quarter of the 20th century, the study of national historiography was like flipping through the pages of the sports section of a daily newspaper. Dividing the world into "we" and "they" was the most natural historiographic device. The creation of a collective "we" was the work of life for "national" historians and archaeologists licensed "Memory agents", for over 100 years.

Before national fragmentation began in Europe, many Europeans seriously believed that they were descendants of the Ancient Trojans. However, from the end of the 18th century mythology became scientific.

After the advent of fantasy-filled works created by professional researchers of the past, Greek and European, the citizens of modern Greece began to consider themselves both biological descendants of Socrates and Alexander the Great and (within a parallel narrative) the direct heirs of the Byzantine Empire.

"Ancient Romans", starting from the end of the XIX century, with the help of successful teaching aids began to be reborn into typical Italians.

The Gallic tribes, which rebelled against Rome during the time of Julius Caesar, turned into true French (though not at all Latin temperament). Other historians have argued that the adoption of Christianity by the Frankish king Clovis in the 5th century A. D. is the undoubted moment of the birth of the French nation.

Pioneers Romanian nationalism extended their current self-identification to the ancient Roman colony of Dacia. This majestic kinship prompted them to call their new language "Romanian".

In the 19th century, many people in Great Britain saw in Boudicca, the leader of the Celtic Icene tribe, who fought desperately against the Roman invaders, the first Englishwoman … Indeed, her revered image has been immortalized in a majestic London monument.

German authors tirelessly quoted the ancient work of Tacitus, telling about the tribes of Cherusci, led by Arminius, whom they considered the forefather of their ancient people.

Even Thomas Jefferson (Jefferson, 1743-1826), the third American president, who owned about a hundred black slaves, demanded that the state seal of the United States depict Hengist and Horsa, half-legendary leaders of the first Saxons who invaded Britain in the same century when Clovis was baptized. The basis for this original proposal was the following thesis: "We consider ourselves their descendants and implement their political principles and forms of government."

This was the case in the 20th century as well. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the citizens of the newly minted Turkey suddenly realized that they were actually white people, Aryans, and their distant ancestors were the Sumerians and Hittites.

A certain lazy British officer arbitrarily drew an almost completely straight line on the map of Asia - the border Iraq … People who unexpectedly became Iraqis soon learned from the "most authoritative" historians that they are simultaneously descendants of the ancient Babylonians and Arabs, great-grandchildren of the heroic soldiers of Salah ad-Din.

Many citizens Egypt they know for sure that the ancient pagan empire of the pharaohs was their first nation-state, which, of course, does not prevent them from remaining devout Muslims.

Indians, Algerians, indonesians, Vietnamese and Iranians to this day, they believe that their peoples have existed from time immemorial, and their children, from an early age, memorize millennial historical narratives in schools.

Unlike these explicit and undisguised mythologies, in the transplanted memory of each israeli and each israeli (of Jewish origin, of course) rooted a set of indisputable and absolute "truths."

All of them know for sure that immediately from the moment of the giving of the Torah, the Jewish people exist in Sinai and that they are its direct and only descendants (except, of course, ten knees, the location of which is still accurate not installed).

They are convinced that this people "came out" from Egypt, captured and colonized "Eretz Yisrael", which, as you know, was promised to him by the Almighty, founded the majestic kingdom of David and Solomon, and then split in half and created two kingdoms - Judah and Israel …

They are absolutely sure that this people was expelled from the "Land of Israel" after the completion of the flourishing of their statehood, and not once, but as many as two times: with the destruction of the First Temple in the VI century BC, and then in 70 AD., after the destruction of the Second Temple. Even before the last tragic event took place, this special people managed to create the Jewish kingdom of the Hasmoneans, which eradicated the influence of the evil Hellenized in their country.

They believe that this people, or rather, "Their people"According to the general belief, the people are extremely ancient, wandered in exile for almost two millennia and, despite such a long stay in the environment of non-Jews, brilliantly avoided mixing and assimilation. This nation is scattered all over the world.

In his arduous wanderings, he reached Yemen, Morocco, Spain, Germany, Poland and distant Russia. Nevertheless, he always managed to maintain strong bonds of blood that connected communities far from each other, so that the identity of the people did not suffer in the least.

Only at the end XIX For centuries, conditions have developed that gave rise to a unique historical chance: the ancient people awakened from long-term hibernation and prepared the ground for their second youth, that is, for returning to their ancient "homeland".

Indeed, a massive return began, accompanied by universal excitement. Many Israelis still believethat if it were not for the massacre perpetrated by the terrible butcher Hitler, the "Land of Israel" would have been inhabited for a short period by millions of Jews who arrived there with joy and enthusiasm. After all, they dreamed of this land for thousands of years!

Just as the wandering people needed their own territory, the desolate and uncultivated country longed for the return of the people, without which it could not flourish. True, uninvited guests managed to settle in this country, however, since “the people remained faithful to her in all the countries of the diaspora” for two millennia, this country belongs only to him, and not to the few “newcomers” devoid of historical roots and who came here by pure chance …

Therefore, all the wars that were waged by the wandering people with the aim of conquering the country were fair, and the resistance of the local population - criminal … And only thanks to Jewish (by no means Old Testament) mercy, strangers were allowed to continue to live side by side with the people, who returned to their delightful homeland and to their biblical language.

Nevertheless, in Israel these blockages of memory did not arise by themselves. They accumulated layer by layer, starting from the second half of the 19th century, thanks to the activities of talented historical "Restorers"who manipulated mainly the fragments of Jewish and Christian religious memory and fashioned from them with the help of their rich imagination a continuous lineage of the "Jewish people".

Cultivation technology collective "Memory" before that time it simply did not exist; oddly enough, since then it has not changed much. The academicization of Jewish history studies, which began with the founding of the Hebrew (Jerusalem) University in mandated Palestine, which later became Israel, and culminated in the creation of numerous departments of Jewish studies throughout the Western world, did not change anything. The concept of Jewish historical time has remained the same - integral and ethno-national.

Of course, there are different approaches in the extensive historiography devoted to Jewry and Jews. The factory, which is engaged in the production of "national" historical heritage, is constantly rocked by controversy and disagreement.

However, until now, practically no one has tried to challenge the basic ideas that formed and took root in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The most important processes that radically changed Western historical science at the end of the last century, as well as significant changes in the study of nations and nationalism, did not affect the departments of the "history of the Jewish people" in Israeli universities.

Surprisingly, they hardly influenced the scientific products supplied by the "Jewish" departments of American and European universities. If, from time to time, data were found that did not fit into the model of Jewish history as a continuous linear process, they practically did not deserve mention. However, when they nevertheless occasionally surfaced, they were quickly "forgotten" and hid in the abyss of oblivion.

National needs were powerful censors, preventing the slightest deviation from the mainstream narratives. "Closed systems" exclusively engaged in the accumulation of information about the Jewish, Zionist and Israeli past (that is, the departments of the "History of the Jewish People", completely fenced off from the departments of general history and the history of the Middle East), also greatly contributed to this amazing paralysis, as well as to persistent unwillingness to accept new historiographic ideas that interpret the origin and identity of the Jews.

The fact that the practical question is: who exactly should be considered a Jew, from time to time, disturbed Israeli society, mainly because of the legal difficulties associated with it, also did not care about Israeli historians in the least. They had a ready answer: all the descendants of the people expelled two millennia ago are Jews!

The tumultuous controversy unleashed by the so-called new historians in the late 1980s seemed to undermine the foundations of Israel's collective memory for a while. However, the "licensed" researchers of the past took practically no part in it. Most of the few who have been involved in public debate come from other scientific disciplines or not at all from academia.

Sociologists, political scientists, orientalists, philologists, geographers, literary scholars, archaeologists and even independent essayists have presented their new considerations regarding Jewish, Zionist and Israeli of the past. They were joined by young scholars with doctoral degrees in history who had recently arrived from abroad and had not yet settled in Israeli academic institutions.

From the “history of the Jewish people” camp, who should have been at the forefront of the research breakthrough, there were only cautious conservative attacks spiced with apologetic rhetoric based on traditional consensus.

"Alternative historiography" of the 90s dealt mainly with the vicissitudes and results of the 1948 war. The moral results of this war have attracted the main attention.

Indeed, the significance of this controversy for understanding the morphology of Israel's collective memory is beyond doubt. "Syndrome 48 years old", which continues to trouble Israel's collective conscience, is essential to the future policy of the State of Israel. You can even say that it is an essential condition for its existence. Any meaningful compromise with the Palestinians, if ever reached, must take into account not only the Jewish past, but also the recent "foreign" history.

Alas, this important controversy has not led to significant research advances. And in the public consciousness, she took only an insignificant place. Representatives of the older generation categorically rejected the new data and the conclusions following from them. They failed to reconcile their professional responsibilities with the uncompromising morality that defined their historical path.

The younger generation of intellectuals was probably willing to confess to "Sins"committed during the creation of the state, however, its (not so stiff) morality easily swallowed "Some kinks".

Indeed, how can the Palestinian drama be compared to the Holocaust? How can one compare the suffering of Palestinian refugees, short and limited in scope, with the fate of a people who have wandered in painful exile for two millennia?

Sociohistorical studies devoted not so much to political events, in other words, "Sins"how much the lengthy developmental processes of the Zionist movement have received much less attention and, although written by Israelis, have never been published in Hebrew.

The few works that questioned the paradigms underlying national history have not received the slightest attention. Notable among them are Boaz Evron's daring essay "National Account", as well as an intriguing essay by Uri Ram entitled "History: Between Essence and Fiction." Both of these works posed a radical challenge to professional historiography dealing with the Jewish past, but the "licensed" producers of the past paid little attention to them.

The writing of this book became possible thanks to a scientific breakthrough made in the 80s and early 90s of the last century. The author would hardly have dared to radically revise the very roots of his self-identification and, moreover, he would not have been able to get over the rubble of memory that from childhood cluttered his ideas about the past, if not for the daring steps taken by Evron, Ram and other Israelis, and, most most importantly, if not for the huge contribution of "foreign" researchers of the national question, such as Ernst Gellner (Gellner) and Benedict Anderson (Anderson).

In the forest of national history, the crowns of many trees are so closely intertwined that behind them it is impossible to consider any broad perspective, and, consequently, to challenge the dominant "metanarrative". Professional specialization forces researchers to focus on specific fragments of the past, thereby thwarting any attempt to view the entire forest as a whole.

Of course, the growing set of fragmentary narratives cannot but shake the "metanarrative" in the end. However, for this, historical science must exist within the framework of a pluralistic culture, which is not under the pressure of an armed national conflict and does not feel constant concern about its identity and its roots.

This statement may (by no means unfounded) seem pessimistic in light of the situation in which Israel found itself in 2008. Over the sixty years of Israel's existence, its national history has not matured too much, and it is difficult to imagine that it will begin to mature right now.

Therefore, the author does not indulge himself with illusions about how this book will be perceived. He only hopes that there will be at least a few people who are ready (already today) to risk, that is, to subject radical revision their national past. Such a revision can help to at least slightly undermine the indivisible identity under the pressure of which almost all Jewish Israelis reason and make decisions.

The book you are holding in your hands was written by a "professional" historian. However, the author has taken risks that are generally considered unacceptable in his profession. Clear rules of the game, adopted in scientific fields, oblige the researcher to stay on the track prepared for him, that is, in the field in which he is a “real” specialist.

But even a cursory glance at the list of chapters in this book clearly indicates that the range of topics explored in it goes far beyond any one "scientific" specialization. Biblical scholars, researchers of the Ancient World, archaeologists, medievalists and, in particular, "specialists" in the history of the Jewish people will be outraged by the behavior of an ambitious author who illegally invaded other people's research spaces.

Their claims have certain grounds, and the author is fully aware of this. It would be much better if this book were written by a group of researchers, and not by a lone historian. Unfortunately, this did not happen, for The "criminal" did not find "accomplices" … Therefore, it is quite possible that in this work there are certain inaccuracies. The author apologizes in advance for all his mistakes and calls on critics to help correct them.

Since the author in no way likens himself to Prometheus, who stole the fire of historical truth for the Israelites, does he at the same time fear that the almighty Zeus, in this case the corporation of Jewish historiographers, will send an eagle to peck out the theorizing organ - the liver? - from his body chained to a rock.

He only asks to pay attention to a well-known fact: staying outside the limits of a specific area of study and balancing on the boundaries separating such areas sometimes contribute to the emergence of non-standard outlook on things and allow you to discover unexpected connections between them. It is often thinking “from the outside” rather than “from within” that can enrich historical thought, despite all the weaknesses associated with a lack of specialization and an unusually high degree of speculativeness.

“Specialists” in Jewish history are not in the habit of asking fundamental questions, surprising at first glance, but at the same time elementary. From time to time it is worth doing this work for their sake and instead of them. For instance:

- Did the Jewish people really exist for millennia, while all the other "peoples" were dissolved and disappeared?

- How and why did the Bible, undoubtedly an impressive collection of theological works, the time of writing and editing of which no one really knows, turned into a reliable historical treatise describing the birth of a nation?

- To what extent can the Jewish kingdom of the Hasmoneans, whose multi-tribal subjects did not even speak a common language and most of them did not know how to read and write, can be considered a nation state?

- Were the inhabitants of Judea really expelled after the destruction of the Second Temple, or is this just a Christian myth, by no means accidentally adopted by the Jewish tradition?

- And if there was no expulsion, then what happened to the local population?

- And who were the millions of Jews who appeared on the historical arena in the most unexpected corners of the world?

- If the Jews scattered all over the world really form one people, what common features do the cultural and ethnographic characteristics of the Jews of Kiev and Marrakesh indicate - in addition to common religious beliefs and some cult practices?

- Maybe, contrary to everything that we have been told, Judaism is "just" exciting religionthat spread throughout the world before its competitors - Christianity and Islam - triumphed in it, and, despite persecution and humiliation, managed to hold out until our time?

- Does the concept that defines Judaism as the most important religious culture that has existed from antiquity to the present day, which has never been a single folk culture, diminish its importance, as the apologists of the Jewish national idea have constantly argued over the past one hundred and thirty years?

- If the various Jewish religious communities did not have a common secular cultural denominator, can we say that they were rallied and distinguished by "blood ties"?

- Are the Jews really a special "people-race", as the anti-Semites argued, who tried to convince all of us exactly of this, starting from the 19th century?

- Did Hitler, who suffered a military defeat in 1945, finally won an intellectual and psychological victory in the "Jewish" state?

- How can you defeat his teaching that Jews have special biological properties (in the past it was "Jewish blood", today - "Jewish gene"), if so many Israelis are sincerely convinced of its correctness?

Another ironic grimace of history: Europe knew a time when anyone who claimed that all Jews belonged to the same people of foreign origin would immediately qualify as anti-Semite.

Today, anyone who suggests that the people who make up the so-called Jewish diaspora (as opposed to modern Israelites-Jews) have never been and are now neither a people nor a nation, is instantly branded as hater of israel.

The adaptation of a very specific national concept by Zionism led to the fact that the state of Israel, from the very moment of its foundation, for sixty years now, is not inclined to consider itself a republic that exists for the sake of its citizens.

As you know, about a quarter of them are not considered Jews in Israel, so, in accordance with the spirit of Israeli laws, the state should not be affiliated with or belong to them. From the very beginning, it took away from these people the opportunity to join the new metaculture created on its territory.

Moreover, it purposefully pushed them out. At the same time, Israel refused and still refuses to be reborn into a federal democracy like Switzerland or Belgium or into a multicultural democracy like Britain or Holland, that is, into a state that approves and accepts the cultural diversity that has developed in it and considers itself obliged to equally serve to all its citizens.

Instead, Israel stubbornly considers itself the Jewish statebelonging to all the Jews of the world without exception, despite the fact that they are no longer persecuted refugees, but full citizens of those countries in which they live by their own choice.

The justification for such a gross violation of the fundamental principles of modern democracy and the preservation of an unrestrained ethnocracy, which severely discriminates against a part of its citizens, is still based on the actively exploited myth of the existence of an eternal people destined to return to their "historical homeland" in the future.

It is not easy to view Jewish history from a different angle, but still through the thick prism of Zionism: the light it refracts is constantly colored in bright ethnocentric tones.

Readers should take into account the following: this study, which puts forward the thesis that Jews at all times belonged to important religious communities that appeared and settled in different regions of the world, and not to an "ethnos" with a single origin and constantly wandering in exile, is not directly involved in the reconstruction of historical events.

Its main task is to criticize the established historiographic discourse. Along the way, the author involuntarily had to touch on some alternative historical narratives.

When he started writing this book, a question posed by the French historian Marcel Detienne sounded in his head: "How can we carry out the denationalization of national history?" How can you stop walking along the same roads, paved with materials that were once melted from national aspirations?

The invention of the concept of "nation" was an important stage in the development of historiography, as well as the process of modernization itself. Since the 19th century, many historians have made active contributions to it.

By the end of the last century, national "dreams" began to fade and fade. Researchers began to more and more often dissect and literally disassemble the majestic national legends, in particular the myths of a common origin, which openly interfered with historical research.

Needless to say, the secularization of history has developed under the hammer of cultural globalization, which is taking on the most unexpected forms in various parts of the Western world.

Yesterday's identity nightmares are not the same as tomorrow's identity dreams. Just as in every person many fluid and diverse identities coexist, so human history, among other things, is an identity in motion. The book offered to the reader makes an attempt to illuminate this individual and social aspect, hidden in the labyrinth of time.

The long excursion into Jewish history presented here differs from conventional narratives, but this does not mean that it lacks a subjective element or that the author considers himself free of ideological bias.

He deliberately tries to draw some outlines of a future alternative historiography, which, perhaps, will bring the emergence of transplanted memory of a different kind: memory, conscious relative the nature of the truth contained in it and trying to bring anew and together emerging local identities and a universal, critically meaningful picture of the past.

Fragment from the book of Shlomo Sand "Who and how invented the Jewish people"