Shlomo Sand was born in 1946, in a
displaced person's camp in Austria, to Jewish parents; the family
later migrated to Palestine. As a young man, Sand came to question
his Jewish identity, even that of a "secular Jew." With
this meditative and thoughtful mixture of essay and personal
recollection, he articulates the problems at the center of modern
Jewish identity.
How
I Stopped Being a Jew
discusses the negative effects of the Israeli exploitation of the
"chosen people" myth and its "holocaust industry."
Sand criticizes the fact that, in the current context, what "Jewish"
means is, above all, not being Arab and reflects on the possibility
of a secular, non-exclusive Israeli identity, beyond the legends of
Zionism.
