What Israel can learn from its long history of sectarianism
According to conventional wisdom, David was a proper hero. He slew Goliath; he wrote beautiful psalms; he built Jerusalem. His celebrity prompted a jealous King Saul to try to kill him. The legend of David is just one of the myths debunked by Amotz Asa-El in this book. David was actually ‘a shrewd and violent usurper’, who behaved like ‘a Sicilian mafioso’ at the head of a Judean militia that consisted of ‘everyone who was in straits and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was desperate’ (1 Samuel xxii 2). Moreover, his proclamation of Judah’s secession from Israel accelerated a tradition of political folly that would blight the Jews’ entire future.
