Israel states that the Jewish people arose in the Land of Israel and was exiled from its homeland. Schoolchildren are taught that this happened during the period of Roman rule, in 70 CE. The nation remained loyal to its land, to which it began to return after two millennia of exile. Wrong, says the historian Shlomo Zand. There never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also never happened. Zand rejects most of the stories of national-identity formation in the Bible, including the exodus from Egypt and, most satisfactorily, the horrors of the conquest under Joshua. It's all fiction and myth that served as an excuse for the establishment of the State of Israel, he asserts. picked by 2manyusernames 6 months ago