Junts, Associació Catalana de Jueus i Palestins, a través
de éste comunicado manifiesta su solidaridad con el Profesor Shlomo Sand, a
quién se le prohibió, sin explicación alguna, dar una conferencia en la UNIA
(Universidad de Niza, Francia), el 19 de noviembre pasado, cuyo título era
“Actualidad del Conflicto entre Israel y Palestina”.
En un correo electrónico, Roger Guedj, profesor emérito de la Universidad de Niza Antipolis advertía a las “instancias” de la UNIA contra el hecho de invitar a un “historiador contestable y contestado sobre un tema particularmente sensible ligado al conflicto entre Israel y Palestina” y que “cuestiona la creación de la Estado de Israel”, y eso fue suficiente para que se cancelara dicha conferencia.
Shlomo Sand, que fue invitado en marzo del año pasado por JUNTS a Barcelona y que en esta ocasión dio una conferencia en la Universidad de Barcelona titulada “¿Que es una nación? Judaísmo y Sionismo”, es profesor e investigador de Historia por la Universidad de Tel Aviv y bien conocido por sus obras, principalmente por “¿Quién inventó el Pueblo Judío?” y “El invento de la tierra de Israel. De la Tierra Santa a la Madre Patria” –traducidas al castellano- en las que cuestiona la narrativa sionista oficial sobre la historia del pueblo judío, a través de un estudio riguroso y muy documentado de la historia judía de la Antigüedad hasta la época contemporánea. En ninguna de sus obras cuestiona la creación o existencia del Estado de Israel –del que es ciudadano- más bien pretende según sus palabras “desconstruir” mitos, como el del exilio o destierro del pueblo hebreo por el Imperio romano, la ausencia de proselitismo de la religión judía, o documentar la realidad del reino Kazhar en Crimea, lugar probable de origen de parte de los judíos del este de Europa, todo ello en un intento de encontrar la verdad histórica, aún a costa de la narrativa oficial sionista del retorno a Sion después de 2000 años de exilio del pueblo judío.
Además, queremos expresar nuestra preocupación e indignación por el claro atropello a la libertad de pensamiento, de expresión y sobre todo a la libertad de cuestionar las narrativas y versiones oficiales de la historia o de la realidad contemporánea, avaladas por los poderes y en este caso particular por la “intelligentsia” sionista francesa, que una vez más pretende identificar y descalificar cualquier crítica u oposición a la política israelí de ocupación, apartheid y opresión del pueblo palestino tachándola de antisemitismo.
Una vez más, JUNTS e IJAN (Red Internacional Judia Antisionista) denuncian éste enfoque pernicioso y peligroso. Esta connivencia entre intelectuales, académicos y políticos es particularmente grave en Francia y en la UE, en un momento en el que, después de la masacre de Gaza, la crisis humanitaria hace temer por la existencia física del pueblo palestino, llevando a parlamentarios europeos, en su afán de encontrar una salida a este drama humano, a solicitar un reconocimiento de un Estado palestino, sobre la base de un plan de retirada efectiva de los territorios conquistados en 1967.
Condenamos pues enérgicamente los atropellos contra la libertad de pensamiento y expresión, y junto a muchas voces de los medios universitarios y asociativos de Francia pedimos a la UNIA que rectifique y autorice dicha conferencia, y apelamos a los gobiernos de la UE para que tomen las medidas necesarias de presión sobre Israel hasta el pleno reconocimiento de los derechos del Pueblo Palestino, en acorde con la legalidad internacional.
Khazar theory debunked by a real historian
ResponderEliminarFrom Haaretz:
The claim that today’s Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Khazars who converted in the Middle Ages is a myth, according to new research by a Hebrew University historian.
The Khazar thesis gained global prominence when Prof. Shlomo Sand of Tel Aviv University published “The Invention of the Jewish People” in 2008. In that book, which became a best seller and was translated into several languages, Sand argued that the “Jewish people” is an invention, forged out of myths and fictitious “history” to justify Jewish ownership of the Land of Israel.
Now, another Israeli historian has challenged one of the foundations of Sand’s argument: his claim that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the people of the Khazar kingdom, who in the eighth century converted en masse on the instruction of their king. In an article published this month in the journal “Jewish Social Studies,” Prof. Shaul Stampfer concluded that there is no evidence to support this assertion.
“Such a conversion, even though it’s a wonderful story, never happened,” Stampfer said.
Stampfer, an expert in Jewish history, analyzed material from various fields, but found no reliable source for the claim that the Khazars – a multiethnic kingdom that included Iranians, Turks, Slavs and Circassians – converted to Judaism. “There never was a conversion by the Khazar king or the Khazar elite,” he said. “The conversion of the Khazars is a myth with no factual basis.”
ResponderEliminarAs a historian, he said he was surprised to discover how hard it is “to prove that something didn’t happen. Until now, most of my research has been aimed at discovering or clarifying what did happen in the past ... It’s a much more difficult challenge to prove that something didn’t happen than to prove it did.”
That’s because the proof is based primarily on the absence of evidence rather than its presence – like the fact that an event as unprecedented as an entire kingdom’s conversion to Judaism merited no mention in contemporaneous sources. “The silence of so many sources about the Khazars’ Judaism is very suspicious,” Stampfer said. “The Byzantines, the geonim [Jewish religious leaders of the sixth to eleventh centuries], the sages of Egypt – none of them have a word about the Jewish Khazars.”
In all probability Haaretz is not synopsizing Stampfer correctly (UPDATE: See comments, apparently Stampfer is saying that the entire story is a myth.) There are a couple of pieces of evidence of a debate/disputation in Khazar, and reports that at least some people converted. Wikipedia says:
At least some Khazar rabbinical students appear to have studied in Spain. Abraham ibn Daud of Toledo, in his Book of Tradition (1161), writes:
"You will find the communities of Israel spread abroad... as far as Dailam and the river Itil where live Khazar peoples who became proselytes. The Khazar king Joseph sent a letter to Hasdai ibn-Shaprut and informed him that he and all his people followed the rabbinical faith. We have seen descendants of the Khazars in Toledo, students of the wise, and they have told us that the remnant of them is of the rabbinical belief."
Other evidence is listed in the main Wikipedia Khazar article.
But evidence of conversion of the entire Khazar people, or even the bulk of them, is thin indeed. There is no archaeological evidence of synagogues or yeshivot in Khazaria despite the "Khazar correspondence" that claims many of them.
Whether or not some Khazars converted, that is a far different claim than saying that all Ashkenazic Jews are descended from Khazars, which is obviously absurd. As I have mentioned previously, Jews must keep track of who descends from Aaron (Kohens) and more generally Levi (Levites.) Converts obviously aren't Kohanim or Leviim, yet there are plenty of Ashkenazic families who trace back their lineage to those families. A Khazari synagogue would have a tough time finding a Kohen to bless the people on Jewish holidays! To say that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from converts means that there was also a vast yet unknown conspiracy to "convert" tens of thousands of them to Kohens and Levites, which is insane.
Moreover, such a mass conversion would have involved numerous Jewish legal responsa as the supposed new Jews spread throughout Europe. That lack of evidence is stunning - Judaism would not automatically accept the conversion of people forced to convert and the literature would certainly discuss the legal issues involved.
Shlomo Sand is not a historian of the time period - his courses are on "French Intellectual History, Political History of the 20th Century, Cinema and History, Nation and Nationalism, History and Theory." His books prove that he is an ideologue more than a researcher.
Stampfer, on the other hand, specializes in East European Jewry, Jewish demography, migration and education.
Sand is a fraud.