Anshel Pfeffer’s critical review of Shlomo Sand’s book “How I Stopped Being a Jew”

• http://www.haaretz.com/life/books/.premium-1.626312
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Sand
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Sand#Criticism_of_gene_studies
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Sand#How_I_Ceased_to_Be_a_Jew –
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-2081278363
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1781686140

Here you find a few deliberate quotations from the book review (the 1st two are only ther because of the terms they use, which I find interesting):

This is classic Haredi thinking: Judaism and Jewishness only manifest in rabbinically prescribed religious practice – everything else is goyishe stuff.

 

…

 

In the absence of religion, he claims, there are only ersatz identities, such as clinging to memories of persecution, which has largely disappeared from the world.

 

…

 

Sand implores his readers to allow him not to be Jewish; that should be his right. But at the same time, he cedes the right to define who is a Jew to the rabbis. To win his freedom to define himself as he chooses, he wants to deprive the rest of us of our freedom to remain Jews on our own terms.

 

I personally sympathize with Shlomo Sand’s positions, I think the critics are a little harsh. The definition of an Israeli (citizen) is rather trivial, letting everybody set up his/her own definition of “being Jewish on our own terms” is … – find your own position! And please do not quote DNA for that, that’s in vain! We should definitely agree on that, before we procede.