Reviews

On the Nation and the Jewish People by Ernest Renan, Shlomo Sand

georgehunter's review

Go to review page

4.0

Fantastic little number, very accessible.

Shlomo Sand is lovely to contextualise Renan in the frame of Said villanising him as a key founder of race theory. He is generous is explaining that Said was not wrong, but only that Renan's views changed over time. In this way, Sand brings another progressive Palestinian voice into his hopeful dialectic.

Of course the only people who push the ridiculous and dangerous notion that Jews are a race are Nazis and UltraZionists. Here, with direct citation in original languages of antiquity is Renan demonstrating quite clearly this is not true. And together with Said and Sand we span almost 3000 years of history up to the present - an argument that can only bring hope for the kind of alliances and new formations that will be necessary to defeat racism and ensure mutual communal flourishing for all in Palestine in the years ahead.

Shlomo Sand is an inspiration.
More...