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.