The Fictional Land of Israel: from the Holy Land to the Homeland
by Q
About This Novel
What is "the land of Israel"? It is neither the contemporary state of Israel as a nation-state nor the historical Jewish kingdom that emerged from the Fertile Crescent. It is a historical concept that has been continuously accumulated and added to Zionism in different historical periods. Its borders are constantly floating, providing historical legitimacy for the territorial expansion of the contemporary State of Israel. After the publication of "The Fictional Jewish Nation", Schlomer Sander did not expect that in the early 21st century there would be so many critics citing historical rights to defend Zionist colonial activities. This book is a response to these questions. How was the "Land of Israel" fictionalized as a shifting territorial space that should be ruled by the Jewish people? To answer this question, Sander starts with historical evidence, details the Jewish exile myth from the Old Testament period to the establishment and expansion of the modern state of Israel, and deconstructs the Jewish concept of "historical rights" to the Land of Israel and related nationalist narratives. Sander believes that the purpose of the so-called legal-historical logic of the Jewish people is to construct the moral legitimacy of territorial seizure. I did not realize that my country had no borders since its founding, but only mobile modules that always provided the possibility of expansion... What unveiled the mystery of this land was not the death of God, but the nationalization of God, which turned the land into a soil that the new Jewish nation could trample and build as it pleased. --Shlomer Sander
What Readers Think
Rating
Community(0)
Rating
Community(0)
