How I Stopped Being a Jew, Shlomo Sand, SOAS University of London (Oct 14, 2014)

This event was co-hosted by the London Middle East Institute (LMEI) (http://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/) and the Centre for Jewish Studies at SOAS (http://www.soas.ac.uk/jewishstudies/). This book launch and discussion titled "How I Stopped Being a Jew" was given by Shlomo Sand at SOAS University of London on 14 October 2014. Discussant: Professor David Feldman, Director of the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck, University of London The event will be chaired by Professor Gilbert Achcar, SOAS. From the back-cover of his new book: 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.” How I Stopped Being a Jew is his first autobiographical meditation on the problems at the centre of modern Jewish identity and the negative effects of the Israeli exploitation of the “chosen people” myth. 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. Professor Sand studied History at the University of Tel Aviv and at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, in Paris. He currently teaches contemporary history at the University of Tel Aviv. His books include The Invention of the Jewish People, On the Nation and the Jewish People, and The Invention of the Land of Israel.