"Second, there is no contemporary evidence i.e., 1st and 2nd centuries c.e. that anything like an exile took place. The Romans put down two Jewish revolts in 66-70 c.e. and in 132-135 c.e. According to Josephus, the rebels were killed, and many of the Jews died of hunger. Some prisoners were sent to Rome, and others were sold in Libya. But nowhere does Josephus speak of Jews being taken into exile. As we shall see below, there is much evidence to the contrary. There was always Jewish emigration from the Land of Israel"..".
Similarly, in a post dated March 25, 2008 of the Jews Sans Frontieres, it was claimed that there are "a couple of pervasive racial myths upon which Zionism is founded. One is that of exile and the other is that of the common origin of the Jewish people""
Yet another learned critic of the Jewish Exile is Israel Jacob Yuval, director of the Interdisciplinary Research Center in Jewish Studies, Backenroth Senior Lecturer in Medieval Jewish Studies. In his book, The Myth of the Jewish Exile from the Land of Israel: A Demonstration of Irenic Scholarship, Jacob Yuval extended his sincere empathy to the Palestinians. "On the one hand, I am a Zionist loyal to awareness of the need for the existence of the State of Israel. On the other hand, I am deeply troubled by the price paid by the Palestinians for the fulfillment of this dream. Like many others, I desperately seek a fair solution that will minimize the pain and suffering for both sides"
All this leads one to ask by whom was this myth of exile concocted and why?
As already stated, the suggestion made by Sand is that the story of the exile was a myth promoted by early Christians to recruit Jews to the new faith.
This myth suited the Zionists exceedingly well.
Jerry Haber, in his post dated July 29, 2007, suggests that though the myth was not invented by the Zionists, they dropped the "punishment" part and used it and nurtured it, "in part, to justify the return of the Jews to their ancestral homeland. For the tacit assumption of the Zionists was that if the Jews had left the land willingly, if they had merely "emigrated' because they found opportunities beckoning in the Diaspora, then they would have betrayed their allegiance to the land, and their return would have been less justified".. it (the myth)dovetailed nicely with the historical view of the wandering Jew that finds no rest outside of his native place from which he was expelled".
In Sand's view, at a certain stage in the 19th century, intellectuals of Jewish origin in Germany, influenced by the folk character of German nationalism, took upon themselves the task of inventing a people "retrospectively," out of a thirst to create a modern Jewish people. From historian Heinrich Graetz on, Jewish historians began to draw the history of Judaism as the history of a nation that had been a kingdom, became a wandering people and ultimately turned around and went back to its birthplace.
The third chapter of Sand's book "The Invention of the Diaspora" starts with the quotation from the preamble to the Israeli Declaration of Independence: "After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people remained faithful to it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom" As we have seen, Sand argues that the
Jewish people's exile from its land never happened.
Sand goes on to state that the description of the Jews as a wandering and self-isolating nation of exiles, "who wandered across seas and continents, reached the ends of the earth and finally, with the advent of Zionism, made a U-turn and returned en masse to their orphaned homeland," is nothing but "national mythology." Like other national movements in Europe, which sought out a splendid Golden Age, through which they invented a heroic past - for example, classical Greece or the Teutonic tribes - to prove they have existed since the beginnings of history, "so, too, the first buds of Jewish nationalism blossomed in the direction of the strong light that has its source in the mythical Kingdom of David."
Sand asserts: "Zionism changed the idea of Jerusalem. Before, the holy places were seen as places to long for, not to be lived in. For 2,000 years Jews stayed away from Jerusalem not because they could not return but because their religion forbade them from returning until the messiah came."
These revelations about the oft asserted exile of the Jews being a myth are indeed revealing and shocking. They completely demolish the Jewish claim of their right to return to the Holy Land. But this is not all. Modern researchers and historians go further. They claim that the Jews never existed as a nation and that the vast majority of the present day Jews have no connection to the Biblical Jews or the Biblical Holy Land.
But that is another story. (Please watch for: "Was there a Jewish nation?")
Similarly, in a post dated March 25, 2008 of the Jews Sans Frontieres, it was claimed that there are "a couple of pervasive racial myths upon which Zionism is founded. One is that of exile and the other is that of the common origin of the Jewish people""
Yet another learned critic of the Jewish Exile is Israel Jacob Yuval, director of the Interdisciplinary Research Center in Jewish Studies, Backenroth Senior Lecturer in Medieval Jewish Studies. In his book, The Myth of the Jewish Exile from the Land of Israel: A Demonstration of Irenic Scholarship, Jacob Yuval extended his sincere empathy to the Palestinians. "On the one hand, I am a Zionist loyal to awareness of the need for the existence of the State of Israel. On the other hand, I am deeply troubled by the price paid by the Palestinians for the fulfillment of this dream. Like many others, I desperately seek a fair solution that will minimize the pain and suffering for both sides"
All this leads one to ask by whom was this myth of exile concocted and why?
This myth suited the Zionists exceedingly well.
Jerry Haber, in his post dated July 29, 2007, suggests that though the myth was not invented by the Zionists, they dropped the "punishment" part and used it and nurtured it, "in part, to justify the return of the Jews to their ancestral homeland. For the tacit assumption of the Zionists was that if the Jews had left the land willingly, if they had merely "emigrated' because they found opportunities beckoning in the Diaspora, then they would have betrayed their allegiance to the land, and their return would have been less justified".. it (the myth)dovetailed nicely with the historical view of the wandering Jew that finds no rest outside of his native place from which he was expelled".
In Sand's view, at a certain stage in the 19th century, intellectuals of Jewish origin in Germany, influenced by the folk character of German nationalism, took upon themselves the task of inventing a people "retrospectively," out of a thirst to create a modern Jewish people. From historian Heinrich Graetz on, Jewish historians began to draw the history of Judaism as the history of a nation that had been a kingdom, became a wandering people and ultimately turned around and went back to its birthplace.
The third chapter of Sand's book "The Invention of the Diaspora" starts with the quotation from the preamble to the Israeli Declaration of Independence: "After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people remained faithful to it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom" As we have seen, Sand argues that the
Jewish people's exile from its land never happened.
Sand goes on to state that the description of the Jews as a wandering and self-isolating nation of exiles, "who wandered across seas and continents, reached the ends of the earth and finally, with the advent of Zionism, made a U-turn and returned en masse to their orphaned homeland," is nothing but "national mythology." Like other national movements in Europe, which sought out a splendid Golden Age, through which they invented a heroic past - for example, classical Greece or the Teutonic tribes - to prove they have existed since the beginnings of history, "so, too, the first buds of Jewish nationalism blossomed in the direction of the strong light that has its source in the mythical Kingdom of David."
Sand asserts: "Zionism changed the idea of Jerusalem. Before, the holy places were seen as places to long for, not to be lived in. For 2,000 years Jews stayed away from Jerusalem not because they could not return but because their religion forbade them from returning until the messiah came."
These revelations about the oft asserted exile of the Jews being a myth are indeed revealing and shocking. They completely demolish the Jewish claim of their right to return to the Holy Land. But this is not all. Modern researchers and historians go further. They claim that the Jews never existed as a nation and that the vast majority of the present day Jews have no connection to the Biblical Jews or the Biblical Holy Land.
But that is another story. (Please watch for: "Was there a Jewish nation?")
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