Shlomo Sand: The Invention of the Jewish People The Judaism is not a people, but only a religion! In the dealing with the history of the Judaism and above all with the Jewish understanding of the people - "the stateless people, the people among the people" - I, even a Jewish religious origin, came to the knowledge that the Judaism is not a people, but only a religion. The Jewish understanding of the people is based almost exclusively on its religion and thus the Judaism is the only religion that has declared itself to a people. But a purely folk-based concept of religion is wrong and, above all, out of date, because a people defines itself far more than just about the religion and its history. The today concept of the people is founded among i.a. to a state territory, to a nation (in the sense of a common cultural region) in which one has to be born, a common ancestry (which does not refer to the blood type, racial or ethnic understanding of ancestry, but the cultural), roots, to a homeland, to the culture, mentalities, traditions, rites and the way of life of this homeland, which, above all, also anthropological go far beyond of purely religious rituals as well as to the native language, with their linguistic peculiarities, expressions, synonyms and dialects. It is based on the political and social system and its history of development and on the history and developments of the own homeland, the own nation, which have shaped a people collectively and across the generations, and with the social issues, tasks and responsibilities that accompany it. A (people) identity, identity membership, an inner identity connection, an inner sense of identity, a national feeling, a national pride, a people's soul, are thus designed in a much more multi-dimensional way and, above all, because of this also with open development possibilities. But an understanding of the people purely based on the religion inevitably and always leads to a religious fundamenta- lism, which in Judaism is getting bigger and stronger. And a fundamentalism also inevitably and fundamentally always requires a counterfundamentalism, that is a spiritual or universal mechanism of action, and that is expressed in anti-semitism in Europe, Russia and the USA. A meanwhile (power-)politically abused term, which is why it should also be called correct, which expresses itself in a hostility to Jews. - But here it must be said that these two fundamentalisms for a long time nourish each other again and again in the negative. - In the political as well as in the societal, such an one-dimensional understanding of identity and people in its logical development promotes racism, fanaticism to fascism, the exclusion of other people and extreme abuse of power, which shows itself in the Judaism in Zionism and especially explicitly in the Israeli politics. These logical and therefore inevitable negative developments also promote the recurring (ethnic) isolation of the Jewish communities from their outer world. That means in the quintessence: As long as the Judaism adheres to this fundamentally false understanding of the people and from this understanding reduced only to religion reclaimed an ethnic special consideration and role (i.a. including within a nation), neither will the anti-semitism be defeated, nor will be able to give peace in the Israeli Middle East war conflicts. These directly conditioned interrelations led me to want to publish an essay, because a discussion about this understanding of the people in the Judaism is necessary and long overdue and must be conducted. My research then led me to this book by Prof. Dr. Shlomo Sand, born in 1946, an Israeli historian and intellectual who teaches at the University of Tel Aviv and that first appeared in France in 2009 and in Germany in 2011. In this book, he explores the question of whether there is a Jewish people and he says "NO!" and thus radically questions the founding myth of Israel. Sand proves, with many historical evidence, that the (Jewish) Bible is not a history and thus a fact book, as claimed by Judaism, but much more than a political-religious pamphlet to promote the Jewish monotheism and to consolidate the significance of Jerusalem as religious center must be considered. He further points out that a mass expulsion of the Jewish population (diaspora) can not be proven either under the Romans or among the Arabs - it simply can not find historical evidence for it - and that the Palestinians have much more Jewish-biblical roots in Israel than the Judaism. And in this context, it is intellectually unacceptable, even if today the non-Israel Jews are referred to as "Diaspora Jews", as is still done in some Jewish circles today. No, these people are just for example French-, German- or Russian-born French, Germans or Russians of Jewish denomination. He shows that the element of Judaism, which connects identity worldwide, is not a common ancestry, not even a common language, because in fact even only a minority of Jews can speak Hebrew, but only the religion is. He also shows that from the very beginning a very large proportion of the international Jewry has consisted of constantly new converts and continues to exist, so that of an original folk body, of a so-called true common blood and thus ethnic Judean / Jewish ancestry, what the Judaism invoked, can not be assumed and never could be assumed. That is why in Judaism the view is more often represented that one is regarded as a "real" Jew, if one belongs at least in the third generation of the Jewish religion or was born as a "Jew". And in the USA, this circumstance led to the official usage of those who speak, the new converts "who profess the Jewish faith" and those who are "born Jews" who "belong to the Jewish faith". And in this context, he also shows that the Jewish religion has been deliberately designed from the beginning to address as many potential converts as possible, and most importantly, to make the conversion itself very easy. His research shows that the claim of the "Jewish people" to the return to his supposedly "historically-ethnically-lawful" homeland of Israel as well as the right to a state of his own is historically unfounded and can not be justified. This book has led to fierce controversy in France and especially in Israel, but these are now over without result and resulting development. A discussion that was not even accepted in Germany and still not accepted. A discussion that remains topical and that Judaism must face. Because without accepting the truth that the Judaism is not a people but only a religion, there will be no (peaceful) solutions in the numerous Jewish and Israeli conflicts! Because a wrongly used, mystified and abused term in the manner described here, and especially the resulting negative developments, set in motion spiritual mechanisms of action that inevitably lead to negative overall developments! A review by Martin Besecke, June 2016 PS: These relationships and developments described here are known in principle in the leadership of the Judaism. But they do not want to clear up or redirect here, because the Jewish power structures and power interests do not allow this. Instead, every effort is being made to maintain the status quo and to create irreversible facts. But such thinking and acting is of course fundamentally never crowned with lasting success!