My new book, The Jews: An Indigenous People, to be released on Feb. 27, is a definitive study on Jewish indigeneity.
I began writing this book—the finale of my Jewish Pride trilogy, which launched a modern movement in fostering Jewish pride—six months before the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Even then, I was thinking about the contribution it could make to the discourse on the Jewish connection to the land of Israel. By that point, the renormalization of Jew-hate, particularly in the form of anti-Zionism, had already reached frightening levels. But we had no idea what was to come.
The 500-plus days since Hamas and their Palestinian civilian collaborators committed genocide against Israel have been a waking nightmare. The aftershock of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust was met with a tsunami of Jew-hate, which, even now, shows no signs of abating.
Initially, I was hesitant to root my book too much in the events of Oct. 7. My first draft referenced it but didn’t make it the book’s core context. I explained to my editor that while Jewish pride is a form of resistance, I was wary of grounding my work in what is done to Jews. I wanted this discussion to stand apart from Jew-hate, centered instead on authentic Jewish connection and expression.
However, my editor helped me see that while this is an important conversation at all times, it took on new urgency after Oct. 7.
The aftermath represents yet another attack on Jewish truth and authenticity. For thousands of years, the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel was indisputable, even our enemies understood that Israel was the home of the Jews. This began to change after the Enlightenment but truly took hold when the Soviet Union launched its massive anti-Zionist campaign to delegitimize and demonize the modern-day Jewish state. By framing Jews as white, colonial imperialists, the Soviets—and those who continue to shill for them—attempted the unthinkable: to sever the connection between Jews and Israel.
This bastardization of the Jewish experience is what my book aims to fight. First, it must be stated unequivocally: Jews, and Jews alone, define Jewish experience. It is completely illegitimate for the non-Jewish world to dictate who we are. This is a truth all Jews must internalize. Secondly, defining our own identity is itself a form of resistance in a world that remains hostile to Jewish existence. To do this, Jews must re-engage with authentic notions of Jewishness.
Some may argue that indigeneity is not a Jewish concept. It’s true that the Torah has no word for “indigenous,” and historically, it has not been a descriptor adopted by the Jewish people or the State of Israel. However, it is an anthropological concept identifying a people’s connection to a specific land. And Jews are part of the world; we are not apart from it. Universal concepts, such as indigeneity, can therefore accurately describe the Jewish experience.
To prove Jewish indigeneity, I created my own depoliticized definition: “An indigenous people are a group whose collective identity began in one specific land, and it is in that land they remained rooted (physically, spiritually or culturally). This is their home and is where they originated, developed and continued to be fixed through a connection to the environment and natural resources, living systems, culture and practices as a people, irrespective of their sovereignty in the land.”
I also utilized criteria from the United Nations on indigeneity to analyze Jewish indigeneity. However, the post-colonial framework often strips agency from indigenous peoples. The U.N. criteria include:
- Self-identification as indigenous peoples at the individual level and acceptance by the community as members.
- Historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies.
- Strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources.
- Distinct social, economic or political systems.
- Distinct language, culture, and beliefs.
- Form non-dominant groups of society.
- Resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and communities.
The sixth criterion essentially states that an indigenous people must never engage in decolonization but remain a marginalized minority in their own land. This is outrageous.
My definition, along with six of the seven U.N. criteria, proves beyond doubt that Jews are indigenous to the Land of Israel. But proving it is just the beginning. As individual Jews, we must activate our indigeneity—recognizing how it manifests in our language, culture, traditions and our unbreakable connection to Eretz Yisrael, often without even realizing it. The State of Israel must declare that Eretz Yisrael is the indigenous land of the Jewish people—our home, always and forever. And we, as a people, must reject the lies imposed upon us. We must reclaim our truth, take back our story, and stand proud in the knowledge of exactly who we are.
This book is more than a study of Jewish indigeneity. It is a call to action—a toolkit for every Jew to understand, internalize and articulate our identity, history and rights. It arms us with the facts to counter the relentless distortions of our reality; more importantly, it gives us the confidence to own our identity on our terms.