941 Israel Shahak: Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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Israel Shahak

Jewish History,   Jewish Religion

The Weight of Three Thousand Years

Foreword by Gore Vidal

AAARGH

Internet

2005

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 2 —

First published 1994 by Pluto Press345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA,

United Kingdomand 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80301, USA

ISBN 0-7453-0818-X

ISBN 0 7453 0818 X

French edition by La Vieille Taupe and German edition, online

on the AAARGH website.

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Contents:

Foreword by Gore Vidal

A Closed Utopia?

Prejudice and Prevarication

Orthodoxy and Interpretation

The Weight of History

The Laws against Non-Jews

Political Consequences

Notes and References

Index

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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Foreword

Sometime in the late 1950s, that world-class gossip and occasional historian,

John F. Kennedy, told me how, in 1948, Harry S. Truman had been pretty much

abandoned by everyone when he came to run for president. Then an American

Zionist brought him two million dollars in cash, in a suitcase, aboard his whistle-stop

campaign train. 'That's why our recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast.' As

neither Jack nor I was an antisemite (unlike his father and my grandfather) we took

this to be just another funny story about Truman and the serene corruption of

American politics.

Unfortunately, the hurried recognition of Israel as a state has resulted in fortyfive years of murderous confusion, and the destruction of what Zionist fellow

travellers thought would be a pluralistic state - home to its native population of

Muslims, Christians and Jews, as well as a future home to peaceful European and

American Jewish immigrants, even the ones who affected to believe that the great

realtor in the sky had given them, in perpetuity, the lands of Judea and Sameria.

Since many of the immigrants were good socialists in Europe, we assumed that they

would not allow the new state to become a theocracy, and that the native Palestinians

could live with them as equals. This was not meant to be. I shall not rehearse the wars

and alarms of that unhappy region. But I will say that the hasty invention of Israel

has poisoned the political and intellectual life of the USA, Israel's unlikely patron.

Unlikely, because no other minority in American history has ever hijacked so

much money from the American taxpayers in order to invest in a 'homeland'. It is as

if the American taxpayer had been obliged to support the Pope in his reconquest of

the Papal States simply because one third of our people are Roman Catholic. Had this

been attempted, there would have been a great uproar and Congress would have said

no. But a religious minority of less than two per cent has bought or intimidated

seventy senators (the necessary two thirds to overcome an unlikely presidential veto)

while enjoying support of the media.

In a sense, I rather admire the way that the Israel lobby has gone about its

business of seeing that billions of dollars, year after year, go to make Israel a 'bulwark

against communism'. Actually, neither the USSR nor communism was ever much of a

presence in the region. What America did manage to do was to

[viii] turn the once friendly Arab world against us. Meanwhile, the misinformation

about what is going on in the Middle East has got even greater and the principal

victim of these gaudy lies - the American taxpayer to one side - is American Jewry, as

it is constantly bullied by such professional terrorists as Begin and Shamir. Worse,

with a few honorable exceptions, Jewish-American intellectuals abandoned

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liberalism for a series of demented alliances with the Christian (antisemtic) right and

with the Pentagon-industrial complex. In 1985 one of them blithely wrote that when

Jews arrived on the American scene they 'found liberal opinion and liberal politicians

more congenial in their attitudes, more sensitive to Jewish concerns' but now it is in

the Jewish interest to ally with the Protestant fundamentalists because, after all, "is

there any point in Jews hanging on dogmatically, hypocritically, to their opinions of

yesteryear?' At this point the American left split and those of us who criticised our

onetime Jewish allies for misguided opportunism, were promptly rewarded with the

ritual epithet 'antisemite' or 'self-hating Jew'.

Fortunately, the voice of reason is alive and well, and in Israel, of all places.

From Jerusalem, Israel Shahak never ceases to analyse not only the dismal politics of

Israel today but the Talmud itself, and the effect of the entire rabbinical tradition on a

small state that the right-wing rabbinate means to turn into a theocracy for Jews

only. I have been reading Shahak for years. He has a satirist's eye for the confusions

to be found in any religion that tries to rationalise the irrational. He has a scholar's

sharp eye for textual contradictions. He is a joy to read on the great Gentile-hating Dr

Maimonides.

Needless to say, Israel's authorities deplore Shahak. But there is not much to be

done with a retired professor of chemistry who was born in Warsaw in 1933 and

spent his childhood in the concentration camp at Belsen. In 1945, he came to Israel;

served in the Israeli military; did not become a Marxist in the years when it was

fashionable. He was - and still is - a humanist who detests imperialism whether in the

names of the God of Abraham or of George Bush. Equally, he opposes with great wit

and learning the totalitarian strain in Judaism. Like a highly learned Thomas Paine,

Shahank illustrates the prospect before us, as well as the long history behind us, and

thus he continues to reason, year after year. Those who heed him will certainly be

wiser and - dare I say? - better. He is the latest, if not the last, of the great prophets.

Gore Vidal

[1]

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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Chapter 1

A Closed Utopia?

I write here what I think is true, for the stories of the Greeks are

numerous and in my opinion ridiculous ;

Hecateus of Miletis, as quoted by Herodotus.

Amicus Plato sed magis amica veritas . — Plato is a friend but truth is

a greater friend.

Traditional paraphrase of a passage of Aristotele’s Ethics

In a free state every man can think what he wants and say what he

thinks

Spinoza

THIS BOOK, although written in English and addressed to people living

outside the State of Israel, is, in a way, a continuation of my political activities as an

Israeli Jew. Those activities began in 1965-6 with a protest which caused a

considerable scandal at the time: I had personally witnessed an ultra-religious Jew

refuse to allow his phone to be used on the Sabbath in order to call an ambulance for

a non-Jew who happened to have collapsed in his Jerusalem neighbourhood. Instead

of simply publishing the incident in the press, I asked for a meeting which is

composed of rabbis nominated by the State of Israel. I asked them whether such

behavior was consistent with their interpretation of the Jewish religion. They

answered that the Jew in question had behaved correctly, indeed piously, and backed

their statement by referring me to a passage in an authoritative compendium of

Talmudic laws, written in this century. I reported the incident to the main Hebrew

daily, Ha'aretz, whose publication of the story caused a media scandal.

The results of the scandal were, for me, rather negative. Neither the Israeli, nor

the diaspora, rabbinical authorities ever reversed their ruling that a Jew should not

violate the Sabbath in order to save the life of a Gentile. They added much

sanctimonious twaddle to the effect that if the consequence of such an act puts Jews

in danger, the violation of the Sabbath is permitted, for their sake. It became

apparent to me, as drawing on Talmudic laws governing the relations between Jews

and non-Jews, that neither Zionism, including its seemingly secular part,

[2] nor Israeli politics since the inception of the State of Israel, nor particularly the

policies of the Jewish supporters of Israel in the diaspora, could be understood unless

the deeper influence of those laws, and the worldview which they both create and

express is taken into account. The actual policies Israel pursued after the Six Day

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War, and in particular the apartheid character of the Israeli regime in the Occupied

Territories and the attitude of the majority of Jews to the issue of the rights of the

Palestinians, even in the abstract, have merely strengthened this conviction.

By making this statement I am not trying to ignore the political or strategic

considerations which may have also influenced the rulers of Israel. I am merely

saying that actual politics is an interaction between realistic considerations (whether

valid or mistaken, moral or immoral in my view) and ideological influences. The

latter tend to be more influential the less they are discussed and 'dragged into the

light'. Any form of racism, discrimination and xenophobia becomes more potent and

politically influential if it is taken for granted by the society which indulges in it. This

is especially so if its discussion is prohibited, either formally or by tacit agreement.

When racism, discrimination and xenophobia is prevalent among Jews, and directed

against non-Jews, being fueled by religious motivations, it is like its opposite case,

that of antisemitism and its religious motivations. Today, however, while the second

is being discussed, the very existence of the first is generally ignored, more outside

Israel than within it.

Defining the Jewish State

Without a discussion of the prevalent Jewish attitudes to non-Jews, even the

concept of Israel as 'a Jewish state', as Israel formally defines itself, cannot be

understood. The widespread misconception that Israel, even without considering its

regime in the Occupied Territories, is a true democracy arises from the refusal to

confront the significance of the term 'a Jewish state' for non-Jews. In my view, Israel

as a Jewish state constitutes a danger not only to itself and its inhabitants, but to all

Jews and to all other peoples and states in the Middle East and beyond. I also

consider that other Middle Eastern states or entities which define themselves as

'Arab' or 'Muslim', like the Israeli self-definition as being 'Jewish', likewise constitute

a danger. However, while this danger is widely discussed, the danger inherent in the

Jewish character of the State of Israel is not.

[3]

The principle of Israel as 'a Jewish state' was supremely important to Israeli

politicians from the inception of the state and was inculcated into the Jewish

population by all conceivable ways. When, in the early 1980s, a tiny minority of

Israeli Jews emerged which opposed this concept, a Constitutional Law (that is, a law

overriding provisions of other laws, which cannot be revoked except by a special

procedure) was passed in 1985 by an enormous majority of the Knesset. By this law

no party whose programme openly opposes the principle of 'a Jewish state' or

proposes to change it by democratic means, is allowed to participate in the elections

to the Knesset. I myself strongly oppose this constitutional principle. The legal

consequence for me is that I cannot belong, in the state of which I am a citizen, to a

party having principles with which I would agree and which is allowed to participate

in Knesset elections. Even this example shows that the State of Israel is not a

democracy due to the application of a Jewish ideology directed against all non-Jews

and those Jews who oppose this ideology. But the danger which this dominant

ideology represents is not limited to domestic affairs. It also influences Israeli foreign

policies. This danger will continue to grow, as long as two currently operating

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developments are being strengthened: the increase in the Jewish character of Israel

and the increase in its power, particularly in nuclear power. Another ominous factor

is that Israeli influence in the USA political establishment is also increasing. Hence

accurate information about Judaism, and especially about the treatment of non-Jews

by Israel, is now not only important, but politically vital as well.

Let me begin with the official Israeli definition of the term 'Jewish', illustrating

the crucial difference between Israel as 'a Jewish state' and the majority of other

states. By this official definition, Israel 'belongs' to persons who are defined by the

Israeli authorities as 'Jewish', irrespective of where they live, and to them alone. On

the other hand, Israel doesn't officially 'belong' to its non-Jewish citizens, whose

status is considered even officially as inferior. This means in practice that if members

of a Peruvian tribe are converted to Judaism, and thus regarded as Jewish, they are

entitled at once to become Israeli citizens and benefit from the approximately 70 per

cent of the West Bank land (and the 92 per cent of the area of Israel proper), officially

designated only for the benefit of Jews. All non-Jews ( not only all Palestinians) are

prohibited from benefiting from those lands. (The prohibition applies even to Israeli

Arabs who served in the Israeli army and reached a high rank.) The case involving

Peruvian converts to Judaism actually occurred a few years ago. The newly-created

Jews were settled in

[4] the West Bank, near Nablus, on land from which non-Jews are officially excluded.

All Israeli governments are taking enormous political risks, including the risk of war,

so that such settlements, composed exclusively of persons who are defined as 'Jewish'

(and not 'Israeli' as most of the media mendaciously claims) would be subject to only

'Jewish' authority.

I suspect that the Jews of the USA or of Britian would regard it as antisemitic if

Christians would propose that the USA or the United Kingdom should become a

'Christian state', belonging only to citizens officially defined as 'Christians'. The

consequence of such doctrine is that Jews converting to Christianity would become

full citizens because of their conversion. It should be recalled that the benefits of

conversions are well known to Jews from their own history. When the Christian and

the Islamic states used to discriminate against all persons not belonging to the

religion of the state, including the Jews, the discrimination against Jews was at once

removed by their conversion. But a non-Jew discriminated against by the State of

Israel will cease to be so treated the moment he or she converts to Judaism.This

simply shows that the same kind of exclusivity that is regarded by a majority of the

diaspora Jews as antisemitic is regarded by the majority of all Jews as Jewish. To

oppose both antisemitism and Jewish chauvinism is widely regarded among Jews as

a 'self-hatred', a concept which I regard as nonsensical.

The meaning of the term 'Jewish' and its cognates, including 'Judaism', thus

becomes in the context of Israeli politics as important as the meaning of 'Islamic',

when officially used by Iran, or 'communist' when it was officially used by the USSR.

However, the meaning of the term 'Jewish' as it is popularly used is not clear, either

in Hebrew or when translated into other languages, and so the term had to be defined

officially.

According to Israeli law a person is considered 'Jewish' if either their mother,

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother were Jewesses by

religion; or if the person was converted to Judaism in a way satisfactory to the Israeli

authorities, and on condition that the person has not converted from Judaism to

another religion, in which case Israel ceases to regard them as 'Jewish'. Of the three

conditions, the first represents the Talmudic definition of 'who is a Jew', a defintion

followed by Jewish Orthodoxy. The Talmud and post-Talmudic rabbinic law also

recognise the conversion of a non-Jew to Judaism (as well as the purchase of a nonJewish slave by a Jew followed by a different kind of conversion) as a method of

becoming Jewish, provided that the conversion is performed by authorised rabbis in

a proper manner. This 'proper manner'

[5] entails for females, their inspection by three rabbis while naked in a 'bath of

purification', a ritual which, although notorious to all readers of the Hebrew press, is

not often mentioned by the English media in spite of its undoubted interest for

certain readers. I hope that this book will be the beginning of a process which will

rectify this discrepancy.

But there is another urgent necessity for an official definitionof who is, and who

is not 'Jewish'. The State of Israel officially discriminates in favour of Jews and

against non-Jews in many domains of life, of which I regard three as being most

important: residency rights, the right to work and the right to equality before the law.

Discrimination in residency is based on the fact that about 92 per cent of Israel's land

is the property of the state and is administered by the Israel Land Authority

according to regulations issued by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), and affiliate of

the World Zionist Organization. In its regualtions the JNFdenies the right to reside,

to open a business, and often to work, to anyone who is not Jewish, only because he is

not Jewish. At the same time, Jews are not prohibited from taking residence or

opening businesses anywhere in Israel. If applied in another state against the Jews,

such discriminatory practice would instantly and justifiably be labelled antisemitism

and would no doubt spark massive public protests. When applied by Israel as a part

of its 'Jewish ideology', they are usually studiously ignored or excused when rarely

mentioned.

The denial of the right to work means that non-Jews are prohibited officially

from working on land administered by the Israel Land Authority according to the

JNF regulations. No doubt these regulations are not always, or even often, enforced

but they do exist. From time to time Israel attempts enforcement campaigns by state

authorities, as, for example, when the Agriculture Ministry acts against 'the pestilence

of letting fruit orchards belonging to Jews and situated on National Land [i.e., land

belonging to the State of Israel] be harvested by Arab labourers', even if the labourers

in question are citizens of Israel. Israel also strictly prohibits Jews settled on

'National Land' to sub-rent even a part of their land to Arabs, even for a short time;

and those who do so are punished, usually by heavy fines. There is no prohibitions on

non-Jews renting their land to Jews. This means, in my own case, that by virtue of

being a Jew I have the right to lease an orchard for harvesting its produce from

another Jew, but a non-Jew, whether a citizen of Israel or a resident alien, does not

have this right.

Non-Jewish citizens of Israel do not have the right to equality before the law.

This discimination is expressed in many

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[6] Israeli laws in which, presumably in order to avoid embarressment, the terms

'Jewish' and 'non-Jewish' are usually not explicitly stated, as they are in the crucial

Law of Return. According to that law only persons officially recognised as 'Jewish'

have an automatic right of entry to Israel and of settling in it. They automatically

receive an 'immigration certificate' which provides them on arrival with 'citizenship

by virtue of having returned to the Jewish homeland', and with the right to many

financial benefits, which vary somewhat according to the country from which they

emmigrated. The Jews who emigrate from the states of the former UUSR receive 'an

absorption grant' of more than $20,000 per family. All Jews immigrating to Israel

accordingthis law immediately acquire the right to vote in elections and to be elected

to the Knesset -- even if they do not speak a word of Hebrew.

Other Israeli laws substitute the more obtuse expressions 'anyone who can

immigrate in accordance with the Law of Return' and 'anyone who is not entitled to

immigrate in accordance with the law of Return'. Depending onthe law in questionm

benefits are them grantedto the first category and systematically denied to the

second. The routine means for enforcing discrimination in everyday life is the ID

card, which everyone is obliged to carry at all times. ID cards list the official

'nationality' of a person, which can be 'Jewish', 'Arab', 'Druze' and the like, witah the

significant exception of 'Israeli'. Attempts to force the Interior Minister to allow

Israelis wishing to be officially described as 'Israeli', or even as 'Israeli-Jew' in their

ID cards have failed. Those who have attempted to do so have a letter from the

Ministry of the Interior stating that 'it was decided not to recognise an Israeli

nationality'. The letter does not specify who made this decision or when.

There are so many laws and regulations in Israel which discriminate in favour of

the persons defined in Israel as those 'who can immigrate in accordance with the Law

of Return' that the subject demands seperate treatment. We can look here at one

example, seemingly trivial in comparison with residence restrictions, but

nevertheless important since it reveals the real intentions of the Israeli legislator.

Israeli citizens who left the country for a time but who are defined as those who 'can

immigrate in accordance with the Law of Return' are eligible on their return to

generous customs benefits, to receive subsidy for their children's high school

education, and to receive either a grant or a loan on easy terms for the purchase of an

apartment, as well as other benefits. Citizens who cannot be so defined, in other

words, the non-Jewish citizens of Israel, get none of these benefits. The obvious

intention of such discriminatory measures

[7] is to decrease the number of non-Jewish citizens of Israel, in order to make Israel

a more 'Jewish' state.

The Ideology of 'Redeemed' Land

Israel also propagates among its Jewish citizens an exclusivist ideology of the

Redemption of Land. Its official aim of minimizing the number of non-Jews can be

well perceived in this ideology , which is inculcated to Jewish schoolchildren in Israel.

They are taught that it is applicable to the entire extent of either the State of Israel or,

after 1967, to what is referred to as the Land of Israel. According to this ideology, the

land which has been 'redeemed' is the land which has passed from non-Jewish

ownership to Jewish ownership. The ownership can be either private, or belong to

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either the JNF or the Jewish state. The land which belongs to non-Jews is, on the

contrary, considered to be 'unredeemed'. Thus, if a Jew who committed the blackest

crimes which can be imagined buys a piece of land from a virtuous non-Jew, the

'unredeemed' land becomes 'redeemed' by such a transaction. However, if a virtuous

non-Jew purchases land from the worst Jew, the formerly pure and 'redeemed' land

becomes 'unredeemed' again. The logical conclusion of such an ideology is the

expulsion, called 'transfer', of all non-Jews from the area of land which has to be

'redeemed'. Therefore the Utopia of the 'Jewish ideology' adopted by the State of

Israel is a land which is wholly 'redeemed' and none of it is owned or worked by nonJews. The leaders of the Zionist labour movement expressed this utterly repellent

idea with the greatest clarity. Walter Laquer a devoted Zionist, tells in his History of

Zionism (1) how one of these spiritual fathers, A.D. Gordon, who died in 1919,

'objected to violence in principle and justified self defence only in extreme

circumstances. But he and his friends wanted every tree and bush in the Jewish

homeland to be planted by nobody else except Jewish pioneers'. This means that they

wanted everybody else to just go away and leave the land to be 'redeemed' by Jews.

Gordon's successors added more violence than he intended but the principle of

'redemption' and its consequences have remained.

In the same way, the kibbutz, widely hailed as an attempt to create a Utopia,

was and is an exclusivist Utopia; even if it is composed of atheists, it does not accent

Arab members on principle and demands that potential members from other

nationalities be first converted to Judaism. No wonder the kibbutz boys can be

regarded as the most militaristic segment of the Israeli jewish society.

It is this exclusivist ideology, rather than all the 'security

[8] needs' alleged by Israeli propaganda, which determines the takeovers of land in

Israel in the 1950s and again in the mid-1960s and in the Occupied Territories after

1967. This ideology also dictated official Israeli plans for 'the Judaizition of Galilee'.

This curious term means encouraging Jews to settle in Galilee by giving them

financial benefits. (I wonder what would be the reaction of US Jews if a plan for 'the

Christianization of New York' or even only of Brooklyn, would be proposed in their

country.) But the Redemption of the Land implies more than regional 'Judaization'.

In the entire area of Israel the JNF, vigorously backed by Israeli state agencies

(especially by the secret police) is spending great sums of public money in order to

'redeem' any land which non-Jews are willing to sell, and to preempt any attempt by a

Jew to sell his land to a non-Jew by paying him a higher price.

Israeli Expansionism

The main danger which Israel, as 'a Jewish state', poses to its own people, to

other Jews and to its neighbors, is its ideologically motivated pursuit of territorial

expansion and the inevitable series of wars resulting from this aim. The more Israel

becomes Jewish or, as one says in Hebrew, the more it 'returns to Judaism' (a process

which has been under way in Israel at least since 1967), the more its actual politics

are guided by Jewish ideological considerations and less by rational ones. My use of

the term 'rational' does not refer here to a moral evaluation of Israeli policies, or to

the supposed defence or security needs of Israel - even less so to the supposed needs

of 'Israeli survival'. I am referring here to Israeli imperial policies based on its

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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presumed interests. However morally bad or politically crass such policies are, I

regard the adoption of policies based on 'Jewish ideology', in all its different versions

as being even worse. The ideological defence of Israeli policies are usually based on

Jewish religious beliefs or, in the case of secular Jews, on the 'historical rights' of the

Jews which derive from those beliefs and retain the dogmatic character of religious

faith.

My own early political conversion from admirer of Ben-Gurion to his dedicated

opponent began exactly with such an issue. In 1956 I eagerly swallowed all of BenGurion's political and military reasons for Israel initiating the Suez War, until he (in

spite of being an atheist, proud of his disregard of the commandments of Jewish

religion) pronounced in the Knesset on the third day of that war, that the real reason

for it is 'the restoration of the kingdom of David and Solomon' to its Biblical borders.

At this point in his speech, almost every Knesset

[9] member spontaneously rose and sang the Israeli national anthem. To my

knowledge, no zionist politician has ever repudiated Ben-Gurion's idea that Israeli

policies must be based (within the limits of pragmatic considerations) on the

restoration of the Biblical borders as the borders of the Jewish state. Indeed, close

analysis of Israeli grand strategies and actual principles of foreign policy, as they are

expressed in Hebrew, makes it clear that it is 'Jewish ideology', more than any other

factor, which determines actual Israeli policies. The disregard of Judaism as it really

is and of 'Jewish ideology' makes those policies incomprehensible to foreign

observers who usually know nothing about Judaism exept crude apologetics.

Let me give a more recent illustration of the essential difference which exists

between Israeli imperial planning of the most inflated but secular type, and the

principles of 'Jewish ideology'. The latter enjoins that land which was either ruled by

any Jewish ruler in ancient times or was promised by God to the Jews, either in the

Bible or - what is actually more important politically - according to a rabbinic

interpretation of the Bible and the Talmud, should belong to Israel since it is a Jewish

state. No doubt, many Jewish 'doves' are of the opinion that such conquest should be

deferred to a time when Israel will be stronger than it is now, or that there would be,

hopefully, a 'peaceful conquest', that is , that the Arab rulers or peoples would be

'persuaded' to cede the land in question in return for benefits which the Jewish state

would then confer on them.

A number of discrepant versions of Biblical borders of the Land of Israel, which

rabbinical authorities interpret as ideally belonging to the Jewish state, are in

circulation. The most far-reaching among them include the following areas within

these borders: in the south, all of Sinai and a part of nothern Egypt up to the environs

of Cairo; in the east, all of Jordan and a large chunk of Saudi Arabia, all of Kuwait and

a part of Iraq south of the Euphrates; in the north, all of Lebanon and all of Syria

together with a huge part of Turkey (up to lake Van); and in the west, Cyprus. An

enormous body of research and learned discussion based on these borders, embodied

in atlases, books, articles and more popular forms of propaganda is being published

in Israel, often with state subsidies, or other forms of support. Certainly the late

Kahane and his followers, as will as influential bodies such as Gush Emunim, not only

desire the conquest of those territories by Israel, but regard it as a divinely

commanded act, sure to be successful since it will be aided by God. In fact, important

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 12 —

Jewish religious figures regard the Israeli refusal to undertake such a holy war, or

even

[10] worse, the return of Sinai to Egypt, as a national sin which was justly punished

by God. One of the more influential Gush Emunim rabbis, Dov Lior, the rabbi of

Jewish settlements of Kiryat Arba and of Hebron, stated repeatedly that the Israeli

failure to conquer Lebanon in 1982-5 was a well-merited divine punishment for its

sin of 'giving a part of Land of Israel', namely Sinai, to Egypt.

Although I have chosen an admittedly extreme example of the Biblical borders

of the Land of Israel which 'belong' to the 'Jewish state', those borders are quite

popular in national-religious circles. There are less extreme versions of Biblical

borders, sometimes also called 'historical borders'. It should however be emphasized

that within Israel and the community of its diaspora Jewish supporters, the validity

of the concept of either Biblical borders or historical borders as delineating the

bordrers of land which belongs to Jews by right is not denied on grounds of principle,

except by the tiny minority which opposes the concept of a Jewish state. Otherwise,

objections to the realisation of such borders by a war are purely pragmatical. One can

claim that Israel is now too weak to conquer all the land which 'belongs' to the Jews,

or that the loss of Jewish lives (but not of Arab lives!) entailed in a war of conquest of

such magnitude is more important than the conquest of the land, but in normative

Judaism one cannot claim that 'the Land of Israel', in whatever borders, does not

'belong' to all the Jews. In May 1993, Ariel Sharon formally proposed in the Likud

Convention that Israel should adopt the 'Biblical borders' concept as its official policy.

There were rather few objections to this proposal, either in the Likud or outside it,

and all were cased on pragmaic grounds. No one even asked Sharon where exactly are

the Biblical borders which he was urging that Israel should attain. Let us recall that

among those who call themselves Leninists there was no doubt that history follows

the principles laid out by Marx and Lenin. It is not only the belief itself, however

dogmatic, but the refusal that it should ever be doubted, by thwarting open

discussion, which creates a totalitarian cast of mind. Israeli-Jewish society and

diaspora Jews who are leading 'Jewish lives' and organised in purely Jewish

organisations, can be said therefore to have a strong streak of totalitarianism in their

character.

However, an Israeli grand strategy, not based on the tenets of 'Jewish ideology',

but based on purely strategic or imperial considerations had also developed since the

inception of the state. An authoriative and lucid description of the principles

governing such strategy was given by General (Reserves) Shlomo Gazit, a former

Military Intelligence commander. (2) According to Gazit,

[11]

"Israel's main task has not changed at all [since the demise of the USSR] and it

remains of crucial importance. The geographical location of Israel at the centre of

the Arab-Muslim Middle East predestines Israel to be a devoted guardian of stability

in all the countries surrounding it. Its [role] is to protect the existing regimes: to

prevent or halt the processes of radicalization, and to block the expansion of

fundamentalist religious zealtory.

For this purpose Israel will prevent changes occuring beyond Israel's borders

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 13 —

[which it] will regard as intolerable, to the point of feeling compelled to use all its

military power for the sake of their prevention or eradication."

In other words, Israel aims at imposing a hegemony on other Middle Eastern

states. Needless to say, according to Gazit, Israel has a benevolent concern for the

stability of the Arab regimes. In Gazit's view, by protecting Middle Eastern regimes,

Israel performs a vital service for 'the industrially advanced states, all of which are

keenly concerned with guaranteeing the stability in the Middle East'. He argues that

without Israel the existing regimes of the region would have collapsed long ago and

that they remain in existence only because of Israeli threats. While this view may be

hypocritical, one should recall in such contexts La Rochefoucault's maxim that

'hypocrisy is the tax which wickedness pays to virtue'. Redemption of the Land is an

attempt to evade paying any such tax.

Needless to say, I also oppose root and branch the Israeli non-ideological

policies as they are so lucidly and correctly explained by Gazit. At the same time, I

recognize that the dangers of the policies of Ben-Gurion of Sharon, motivated by

'Jewish ideology', are much worse than merely imperial policies, however criminal.

The results of policies of other ideologically motivated regimes point in the same

direction. The existence of an important component of Israeli policy, which is based

on 'Jewish ideology', makes its analysis politically imperative. This ideology is, in turn

based on the attitudes of historic Judaism to non-Jews, one of the main themes of

this book. Those attitudes necessarily influence many Jews, consciously or

unconciously. Our task here is to discuss historic Judaism in real terms.

The influence on 'Jewish ideology' on many Jews will be stronger the more it is

hidden from public discussion. Such discussion will, it is hoped, lead people take the

same attitude towards Jewish chauvinism and the contempt displayed by so many

Jews towards non-Jews (which will be documented below) as that commonly taken

towards antisemitism and all other forms of xenophobia, chauvinism and racism. It is

justly

[12] assumed that only the full exposition, not only of antisemitism, but also of its

historical roots, can be the basis of struggle against it. Likewise I am assuming that

only the full exposition of Jewish chauvinism and religious fanaticism can be the

basis of struggle against those phenomena. This is especially true today when,

contrary to the situation prevailing fifty or sixty years ago, the political influence of

Jewish chauvinism and religious fanaticism is much greater than that of

antisemitism. But there is also another important consideration. I strongly believe

that antisemitism and Jewish chauvinism can only be fought simultaneously.

A Closed Utopia?

Until such attitudes are widely adopted, the actual danger of Israeli policies

based on 'Jewish ideology' remains greater than the danger of policies based on

purely strategic considerations. The difference between the two kinds of policies was

well expressed by Hugh Trevor-Roper in his essay Sir Thomas More and Utopia (3)

in which he termed them Platonic and Machiavellian:

"Machiavelli at least apologized for the methods which he thought necessary in

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 14 —

politics. He regretted the necessity of force and fraud and did not call them by any

other name. But Plato and More sanctified them, provided that they were used to

sustain their own Utopian republics."

In a similiar way true believers in that Utopia called the 'Jewish state', which

will strive to achieve the 'Biblical borders', are more dangerous than the grand

strategists of Gazit's type because their policies are being sanctified either by the use

of religion or, worse, by the use of secularized religious principles which retaim

absolute validity. While Gazit at least sees a need to argue that the Israel diktat

benefits the Arab regimes, Ben-Gurion did not pretend that the re-establishment of

the kingdom of David and Solomon will benefit anybody except the Jewish state.

Using the concepts of Platonism to analyse Israeli policies based on 'Jewish

ideology' should not seem strange. It was noticed by several scholars, of whom the

most important was Moses Hadas, who claimed that the foundations of 'classical

Judaism', that is, of Judaism as it was established by talmudic sages, are based on

Platonic influences and especially on the image of Sparta as it appears in Plato. (4)

According to Hadas, a crucial feature of the Platonic political system, adopted by

Judaism as early as the Maccabean period (142-63 BC), was 'that every phase of

human conduct be subject to religious sanctions which are in fact to be manipulated

by the ruler'.

[13] There can be no better definition of 'classical Judaism' and of the ways in which

the rabbis manipulated it than this Platonic definition. In particular, Hadas claims

that Judaism adopted what 'Plato himself summarized [as] the objectives of his

program', in the following well-known passage:

"The principle thing is that no one, man or woman, should ever be without an

officer set over him, and that none should get the mental habit of taking any step,

whether in earnest or in jest, on his individual responsibility. In peace as in war he

must live always with his eyes on his superior officer... In a word, we must train the

mind not to even consider acting as an invidual or know how to do it." (Laws, 942ab)

If the word 'rabbi' is substituted for 'an officer' we will have a perfect image of

classical Judaism. The latter is still deeply influencing Israeli-Jewish society and

determing to a large extent the Israeli policies.

It was the above quoted passage which was chosen by Karl Popper in The Open

Society and Its Enemies as describing the essence of 'a closed society'. Historical

Judaism and its two successors, Jewish Orthodoxy and Zionism, are both sworn

enemies of the concept of the open society as applied to Israel. A Jewish state,

whether based on its present Jewish ideology or, if it becomes even more Jewish in

character than it is now, on the principles of Jewish Orthodoxy, cannot ever contain

an open society. There are two choices which face Israeli-Jewish society. It can

become a fully closed and warlike ghetto, a Jewish Sparta, supported by the labour of

Arab helots, kept in existence by its influence on the US political establishment and

by threats to use its nuclear power, or it can try to become an open society. The

second choice is dependent on an honest examination of its Jewish past, on the

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 15 —

admission that Jewish chauvinism and exclusivism exist, and on an honest

examination of the attitudes of Judaism towards the non-Jews.

[14]

Chapter 2

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 16 —

Prejudice and Prevarication

The first difficulty in writing about this subject is that the term 'Jew' has been

used during the last 150 years with two rather different meanings. To understand

this, let us imagine ourselves in the year 1780. Then the universally accepted meaning

of the term 'Jew' basically coincided with what the Jews themselves understood as

constituting their own identity. This identity was primarily religious, but the precepts

of religion governed the details of daily behavior in all aspects of life, both social and

private, among the Jews themselves as well as in their relation to non-Jews. It was

then literally true that a Jew could not even drink a glass of water in the home of a

non-Jew. And the same basic laws of behavior towards non-Jews were equally valid

from Yemen to New York. Whatever the term by which the Jews of 1780 may be

described - and I do not wish to enter into a metaphysical dispute about terms like,

'nation' and 'people' (1) - it is clear that all Jewish communities at that time were

separate from the non-Jewish societies in the midst of which they were living.

However, all this was changed by two parallel processes - beginning in Holland

and England, continuing in revolutionary France and in countries which followed the

example of the French Revolution, and then in the modern monarchies of the 19th

century: the Jews gained a significant level of individual rights (in some cases full

legal equality), and the legal power of the Jewish community over its members was

destroyed. It should be noted that both developments were simultaneous, and that

the latter is even more important, albeit less widely known, than the former.

Since the time of the late Roman Empire, Jewish communities had considerable

legal powers over their members. Not only powers which arise through voluntary

mobilization of social pressure (for example refusal to have any dealing whatsoever

with an excommunicated Jew or even to bury his body), but a power of naked

coercion: to flog, to imprison, to expel - all this could be inflicted quite legally on an

individual Jew by the rabbinical courts for all kinds of offenses. In many countries -

Spain and Poland are notable examples - even capital punishment could be and was

inflicted, sometimes using particularly cruel methods such as flogging to death. All

this was not only

[15] permitted but positively encouraged by the state authorities in both Christian

and Muslim countries, who besides their general interest in preserving 'law and

order' had in some cases a more direct financial interest as well. For example, in

Spanish archives dating from the 13th and 14th centuries there are records of many

detailed orders issued by those most devout Catholic Kings of Castile and Aragon,

instructing their no less devout officials to co-operate with the rabbis in enforcing

observance of the Sabbath by the Jews. Why? Because whenever a Jew was fined by a

rabbinical court for violating the Sabbath, the rabbis had to hand nine tenths of the

fine over to the king - a very profitable and effective arrangement. Similarly, one can

quote from the responsa written shortly before 1832 by the famous Rabbi Moshe

Sofer of Pressburg (now Bratislava), in what was then the autonomous Hungarian

Kingdom in the Austrian Empire, and addressed to Vienna in Austria proper, where

the Jews had already been granted some considerable individual rights. (2) He

laments the fact that since the Jewish congregation in Vienna lost its powers to

punish offenders, the Jews there have become lax in matters of religious observance,

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 17 —

and adds: 'Here in Pressburg, when I am told that a Jewish shopkeeper dared to open

his shop during the Lesser Holidays, I immediately send a policeman to imprison

him.'

This was the most important social fact of Jewish existence before the advent of

the modern state: observance of the religious laws of Judaism, as well as their

inculcation through education, were enforced on Jews by physical coercion, from

which one could only escape by conversion to the religion of the majority, amounting

in the circumstances to a total social break and for that reason very impracticable,

except during a religious crisis. (3)

However, once the modern state had come into existence, the Jewish

community lost its powers to punish or intimidate the individual Jew. The bonds of

one of the most closed of 'closed societies', one of the most totalitarian societies in the

whole history of mankind were snapped. This act of liberation came mostly from

outside; although there were some Jews who helped it from within, these were at first

very few. This form of liberation had very grave consequences for the future. Just as

in the case of Germany (according to the masterly analysis of A.J.P. Taylor) it was

easy to ally the cause of reaction with patriotism, because in actual fact individual

rights and equality before the law were brought into Germany by the armies of the

French Revolution and of Napoleon, and one could brand liberty as 'un-German',

exactly so it turned out to be very easy among the Jews, particularly in Israel, to

mount a very effective

[16] attack against all the notions and ideals of humanism and the rule of law (not to

say democracy) as something 'un-Jewish' or 'anti-Jewish' - as indeed they are, in a

historical sense - and as principles which may be used in the 'Jewish interest', but

which have no validity against the 'Jewish interest', for example when Arabs invoke

these same principles. This has also led - again just as in Germany and other nations

of Mitteleuropa - to a deceitful, sentimental and ultra-romantic Jewish

historiography, from which all inconvenient facts have been expunged.

So one will not find in Hannah Arendt's voluminous writings, whether on

totalitarianism or on Jews, or on both, (4) the smallest hint as to what Jewish society

in Germany was really like in the 18th century: burning of books, persecution of

writers, disputes about the magic powers of amulets, bans on the most elementary

'non-Jewish' education such as the teaching of correct German or indeed German

written in the Latin alphabet. Nor can one find in the numerous English-language

'Jewish histories' the elementary facts about the attitude of Jewish mysticism (so

fashionable at present in certain quarters) to non-Jews: that they are considered to

be, literally, limbs of Satan, and that the few non-satanic individuals among them

(that is, those who convert to Judaism) are in reality 'Jewish souls' who got lost when

Satan violated the Holy Lady (Shekhinah or Matronit, one of the female components

of the Godhead, sister and wife of the younger male God according to the cabbala) in

her heavenly abode. The great authorities, such as Gershom Scholem, have lent their

authority to a system of deceptions in all the 'sensitive' areas, the more popular ones

being the most dishonest and misleading.

But the social consequence of this process of liberalization was that, for the first

time since about AD 200, (6) a Jew could be free to do what he liked, within the

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 18 —

bounds of his country's civil law, without having to pay for this freedom by converting

to another religion. The freedom to learn and read books in modern languages, the

freedom to read and write books in Hebrew not approved by the rabbis (as any

Hebrew or Yiddish book previously had to be), the freedom to eat non-kosher food,

the freedom to ignore the numerous absurd taboos regulating sexual life, even the

freedom to think - for 'forbidden thoughts' are among the most serious sins - all these

were granted to the Jews of Europe (and subsequently of other countries) by modern

or even absolutist European regimes, although the latter were at the same time

antisemitic and oppressive. Nicholas I of Russia was a notorious antisemite and

issued many laws against the Jews of his state. But he also strengthened the forces of

'law and order' in

[17] Russia - not only the secret police but also the regular police and the

gendarmerie - with the consequence that it became difficult to murder Jews on the

order of their rabbis, whereas in pre-1795 Poland it had been quite easy. 'Official'

Jewish history condemns him on both counts. For example, in the late 1830s a 'Holy

Rabbi' (Tzadik) in a small Jewish town in the Ukraine ordered the murder of a

heretic by throwing him into the boiling water of the town baths, and contemporary

Jewish sources note with astonishment and horror that bribery was 'no longer

effective' and that not only the actual perpetrators but also the Holy Man were

severely punished. The Metternich regime of pre-1848 Austria was notoriously

reactionary and quite unfriendly to Jews, but it did not allow people, even liberal

Jewish rabbis, to be poisoned. During 1848, when the regime's power was

temporarily weakened, the first thing the leaders of the Jewish community in the

Galician city of Lemberg (now Lvov) did with their newly regained freedom was to

poison the liberal rabbi of the city, whom the tiny non-Orthodox Jewish group in the

city had imported from Germany. One of his greatest heresies, by the way, was the

advocacy and actual performance of the Bar Mitzvah ceremony, which had recently

been invented.

Liberation from Outside

In the last 150 years, the term 'Jew' has therefore acquired a dual meaning, to

the great confusion of some well-meaning people, particularly in the Englishspeaking countries, who imagine that the Jews they meet socially are 'representative'

of Jews 'in general'. In the countries of east Europe as well as in the Arab world, the

Jews were liberated from the tyranny of their own religion and of their own

communities by outside forces, too late and in circumstances too unfavorable for

genuine internalized social change. In most cases, and particularly in Israel, the old

concept of society, the same ideology - especially as directed towards non-Jews - and

the same utterly false conception of history have been preserved. This applies even to

some of those Jews who joined 'progressive' or leftist movements. An examination of

radical, socialist and communist parties can provide many examples of disguised

Jewish chauvinists and racists, who joined these parties merely for reasons of 'Jewish

interest' and are, in Israel, in favor of 'anti-Gentile' discrimination. One need only

check how many Jewish 'socialists' have managed to write about the kibbutz without

taking the trouble to mention that it is a racist institution from which non-Jewish

citizens of Israel are rigorously excluded, to see that

[18] the phenomenon we are alluding to is by no means uncommon. (7)

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 19 —

Avoiding labels based on ignorance or hypocrisy, we thus see that the word

'Jewry' and its cognates describe two different and even contrasting social

groups, and because of current Israeli politics the continuum between the two is

disappearing fast. On the one hand there is the traditional totalitarian meaning

discussed above; on the other hand there are Jews by descent who have internalized

the complex of ideas which Karl Popper has called 'the open society'. (There are also

some, particularly in the USA, who have not internalized these ideas, but try to make

a show of acceptance.)

It is important to note that all the supposedly 'Jewish characteristics' - by which

I mean the traits which vulgar so-called intellectuals in the West attribute to 'the

Jews' - are modern characteristics, quite unknown during most of Jewish history, and

appeared only when the totalitarian Jewish community began to lose its power. Take,

for example, the famous Jewish sense of humor. Not only is humor very rare in

Hebrew literature before the 19th century (and is only found during few periods, in

countries where the Jewish upper class was relatively free from the rabbinical yoke,

such as Italy between the 14th and 17th centuries or Muslim Spain) but humor and

jokes are strictly forbidden by the Jewish religion - except, significantly, jokes against

other religions. Satire against rabbis and leaders of the community was never

internalized by Judaism, not even to a small extent, as it was in Latin Christianity.

There were no Jewish comedies, just as there were no comedies in Sparta, and for a

similar reason. (8) Or take the love of learning. Except for a purely religious learning,

which was itself in a debased and degenerate state, the Jews of Europe (and to a

somewhat lesser extent also of the Arab countries) were dominated, before about

1780, by a supreme contempt and hate for all learning (excluding the Talmud and

Jewish mysticism). Large parts of the Old Testament, all nonliturgical Hebrew

poetry, most books on Jewish philosophy were not read and their very names were

often anathematized. Study of all languages was strictly forbidden, as was the study of

mathematics and science. Geography, (9) history - even Jewish history - were

completely unknown. The critical sense, which is supposedly so characteristic of

Jews, was totally absent, and nothing was so forbidden, feared and therefore

persecuted as the most modest innovation or the most innocent criticism.

It was a world sunk in the most abject superstition, fanaticism and ignorance, a

world in which the preface to the first

[19] work on geography in Hebrew (published in 1803 in Russia) could complain that

very many great rabbis were denying the existence of the American continent and

saying that it is 'impossible'. Between that world and what is often taken in the West

to 'characterize' Jews there is nothing in common except the mistaken name.

However, a great many present-day Jews are nostalgic for that world, their lost

paradise, the comfortable closed society from which they were not so much liberated

as expelled. A large part of the Zionist movement always wanted to restore it - and

this part has gained the upper hand. Many of the motives behind Israeli politics,

which so bewilder the poor confused western 'friends of Israel', are perfectly

explicable once they are seen simply as reaction, reaction in the political sense which

this word has had for the last two hundred years: a forced and in many respects

innovative, and therefore illusory, return to the closed society of the Jewish past.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 20 —

Obstacles to Understanding

Historically it can be shown that a closed society is not interested in a

description of itself, no doubt because any description is in part a form of critical

analysis and so may encourage critical 'forbidden thoughts'. The more a society

becomes open, the more it is interested in reflecting, at first descriptively and then

critically, upon itself, its present working as well as its past. But what happens when a

faction of intellectuals desires to drag a society, which has already opened up to a

considerable extent, back to its previous totalitarian, closed condition? Then the very

means of the former progress - philosophy, the sciences, history and especially

sociology - become the most effective instruments of the 'treason of the intellectuals'.

They are perverted in order to serve as devices of deception, and in the process they

degenerate.

Classical Judaism (10) had little interest in describing or explaining itself to the

members of its own community, whether educated (in talmudic studies) or not. (11) It

is significant that the writing of Jewish history, even in the driest annalistic style,

ceased completely from the time of Josephus Flavius (end of first century) until the

Renaissance, when it was revived for a short time in Italy and in other countries

where the Jews were under strong Italian influence. (12) Characteristically, the rabbis

feared Jewish even more than general history, and the first modern book on history

published in Hebrew (in the 16th century) was entitled History of the Kings of

France and of the Ottoman Kings. It was followed by some histories dealing only

with the persecutions that

[20] Jews had been subjected to. The first book on Jewish history proper (13)

(dealing with ancient times) was promptly banned and suppressed by the highest

rabbinical authorities, and did not reappear before the 19th century. The rabbinical

authorities of east Europe furthermore decreed that all non-talmudic studies are to

be forbidden, even when nothing specific could be found in them which merits

anathema, because they encroach on the time that should be employed either in

studying the Talmud or in making money - which should be used to subsidize

talmudic scholars. Only one loophole was left, namely the time that even a pious Jew

must perforce spend in the privy. In that unclean place sacred studies are forbidden,

and it was therefore permitted to read history there, provided it was written in

Hebrew and was completely secular, which in effect meant that it must be exclusively

devoted to non-Jewish subjects. (One can imagine that those few Jews of that time

who - no doubt tempted by Satan - developed an interest in the history of the French

kings were constantly complaining to their neighbors about the constipation they

were suffering from ...) As a consequence, two hundred years ago the vast majority of

Jews were totally in the dark not only about the existence of America but also about

Jewish history and Jewry's contemporary state; and they were quite content to

remain so.

A Totalitarian History

There was however one area in which they were not allowed to remain selfcontented - the area of Christian attacks against those passages in the Talmud and

the talmudic literature which are specifically anti-Christian or more generally antiGentile. It is important to note that this challenge developed relatively late in the

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 21 —

history of Christian-Jewish relations - only from the 13th century on. (Before that

time, the Christian authorities attacked Judaism using either Biblical or general

arguments, but seemed to be quite ignorant as to the contents of the Talmud.) The

Christian campaign against the Talmud was apparently brought on by the conversion

to Christianity of Jews who were well versed in the Talmud and who were in many

cases attracted by the development of Christian philosophy, with its strong

Aristotelian (and thus universal) character. (14)

It must be admitted at the outset that the Talmud and the talmudic literature -

quite apart from the general anti-Gentile streak that runs through them, which will be

discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5 - contain very offensive statements and

precepts directed specifically against Christianity. For example, in addition to a series

of scurrilous sexual allegations

[21] against Jesus, the Talmud states that his punishment in hell is to be immersed in

boiling excrement - a statement not exactly calculated to endear the Talmud to

devout Christians. Or one can quote the precept according to which Jews are

instructed to burn, publicly if possible, any copy of the New Testament that comes

into their hands. (This is not only still in force but actually practiced today; thus on

23 March 1980 hundreds of copies of the New Testament were publicly and

ceremonially burnt in Jerusalem under the auspices of Yad Le'akhim, a Jewish

religious organization subsidized by the Israeli Ministry of Religions.)

Anyway, a powerful attack, well based in many points, against talmudic Judaism

developed in Europe from the 13th century. We are not referring here to ignorant

calumnies, such as the blood libel, propagated by benighted monks in small

provincial cities, but to serious disputations held before the best European

universities of the time and on the whole conducted as fairly as was possible under

medieval circumstances. (15)

What was the Jewish - or rather the rabbinical - response? The simplest one was

the ancient weapon of bribery and string-pulling. In most European countries, during

most of the time, anything could be fixed by a bribe. Nowhere was this maxim more

true than in the Rome of the Renaissance popes. The Editio Princeps of the complete

Code of Talmudic Law, Maimonides' Mishneh Torah - replete not only with the most

offensive precepts against all Gentiles but also with explicit attacks on Christianity

and on Jesus (after whose name the author adds piously, 'May the name of the

wicked perish') - was published unexpurgated in Rome in the year 1480 under Sixtus

IV, politically a very active pope who had a constant and urgent need for money. (A

few years earlier, the only older edition of The Golden Ass by Apuleius from which the

violent attack on Christianity had not been removed was also published in Rome.)

Alexander VI Borgia was also very liberal in this respect.

Even during that period, as well as before it, there were always countries in

which for a time a wave of anti-Talmud persecution set in. But a more consistent and

widespread onslaught came with the Reformation and Counter Reformation, which

induced a higher standard of intellectual honesty as well as a better knowledge of

Hebrew among Christian scholars. From the 16th century, all the talmudic literature,

including the Talmud itself, was subjected to Christian censorship in various

countries. In Russia this went on until 1917. Some censors, such as in Holland, were

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 22 —

more lax, while others were more severe; and the offensive passages were expunged

or modified.

[22]

All modern studies on Judaism, particularly by Jews, have evolved from that

conflict, and to this day they bear the unmistakable marks of their origin: deception,

apologetics or hostile polemics, indifference or even active hostility to the pursuit of

truth. Almost all the so-called Jewish studies in Judaism, from that time to this very

day, are polemics against an external enemy rather than an internal debate.

It is important to note that this was initially the character of historiography in

all known societies (except ancient Greece, whose early liberal historians were

attacked by later sophists for their insufficient patriotism!). This was true of the early

Catholic and Protestant historians, who polemicized against each other. Similarly, the

earliest European national histories are imbued with the crudest nationalism and

scorn for all other, neighboring nations. But sooner or later there comes a time when

an attempt is made to understand one's national or religious adversary and at the

same time to criticize certain deep and important aspects of the history of one's own

group; and both these developments go together. Only when historiography becomes

- as Pieter Geyl put it so well - 'a debate without end' rather than a continuation of

war by historiographic means, only then does a humane historiography, which strives

for both accuracy and fairness, become possible; and it then turns into one of the

most powerful instruments of humanism and self-education.

It is for this reason that modern totalitarian regimes rewrite history or punish

historians. (16) When a whole society tries to return to totalitarianism, a totalitarian

history is written, not because of compulsion from above but under pressure from

below, which is much more effective. This is what happened in Jewish history, and

this constitutes the first obstacle we have to surmount.

Defense Mechanisms

What were the detailed mechanisms (other than bribery) employed by Jewish

communities, in cooperation with outside forces, in order to ward off the attack on

the Talmud and other religious literature? Several methods can be distinguished, all

of them having important political consequences reflected in current Israeli policies.

Although it would be tedious to supply in each case the Beginistic or Labour-zionist

parallel, I am sure that readers who are somewhat familiar with the details of Middle

East politics will themselves be able to notice the resemblance.

The first mechanism I shall discuss is that of surreptitious defiance,

combined with outward compliance. As explained

[23] above, talmudic passages directed against Christianity or against non-Jews (17)

had to go or to be modified - the pressure was too strong. This is what was done: a

few of the most offensive passages were bodily removed from all editions printed in

Europe after the mid-16th century. In all other passages, the expressions 'Gentile',

'non-Jew', 'stranger' (goy, eino yehudi, nokhri) - which appear in all early

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 23 —

manuscripts and printings as well as in all editions published in Islamic countries -

were replaced by terms such as 'idolator', 'heathen' or even 'Canaanite' or 'Samaritan',

terms which could be explained away but which a Jewish reader could recognize as

euphemisms for the old expressions.

As the attack mounted, so the defence became more elaborate, sometimes with

lasting tragic results. During certain periods the Tsarist Russian censorship became

stricter and, seeing the above mentioned euphemisms for what they were, forbade

them too. Thereupon the rabbinical authorities substituted the terms 'Arab' or

'Muslim' (in Hebrew, Yishma'eli - which means both) or occasionally 'Egyptian',

correctly calculating that the Tsarist authorities would not object to this kind of

abuse. At the same time, lists of Talmudic Omissions were circulated in manuscript

form, which explained all the new terms and pointed out all the omissions. At times, a

general disclaimer was printed before the title page of each volume of talmudic

literature, solemnly declaring, sometimes on oath, that all hostile expressions in that

volume are intended only against the idolators of antiquity, or even against the longvanished Canaanites, rather than against 'the peoples in whose land we live'. After the

British conquest of India, some rabbis hit on the subterfuge of claiming that any

particularly outrageous derogatory expression used by them is only intended against

the Indians. Occasionally the aborigines of Australia were also added as whippingboys.

Needless to say, all this was a calculated lie from beginning to end; and

following the establishment of the State of Israel, once the rabbis felt secure, all the

offensive passages and expressions were restored without hesitation in all new

editions. (Because of the enormous cost which a new edition involves, a considerable

part of the talmudic literature, including the Talmud itself, is still being reprinted

from the old editions. For this reason, the above mentioned Talmudic Omissions

have now been published in Israel in a cheap printed edition, under the title

Hesronot Shas.) So now one can read quite freely - and Jewish children are actually

taught - passages such as that (18) which commands every Jew, whenever passing

near a cemetery, to utter a blessing if the cemetery is Jewish, but to curse the

[24] mothers of the dead (19) if it is non-Jewish. In the old editions the curse was

omitted, or one of the euphemisms was substituted for 'Gentiles'. But in the new

Israeli edition of Rabbi Adin Steinsalz (complete with Hebrew explanations and

glosses to the Aramaic parts of the text, so that schoolchildren should be in no doubt

as to what they are supposed to say) the unambiguous words 'Gentiles' and 'strangers'

have been restored.

Under external pressure, the rabbis deceptively eliminated or modified certain

passages - but not the actual practices which are prescribed in them. It is a fact which

must be remembered, not least by Jews themselves, that for centuries our totalitarian

society has employed barbaric and inhumane customs to poison the minds of its

members, and it is still doing so. (These inhumane customs cannot be explained away

as mere reaction to antisemitism or persecution of Jews: they are gratuitous

barbarities directed against each and every human being. A pious Jew arriving for the

first time in Australia, say, and chancing to pass near an Aboriginal graveyard, must -

as an act of worship of 'God' - curse the mothers of the dead buried there.) Without

facing this real social fact, we all become parties to the deception and accomplices to

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 24 —

the process of poisoning the present and future generations, with all the

consequences of this process.

The Deception Continues

Modern scholars of Judaism have not only continued the deception, but have

actually improved upon the old rabbinical methods, both in impudence and in

mendacity. I omit here the various histories of antisemitism, as unworthy of serious

consideration, and shall give just three particular examples and one general example

of the more modern 'scholarly' deceptions.

In 1962, a part of the Maimonidean Code referred to above, the so-called Book

of Knowledge, which contains the most basic rules of Jewish faith and practice, was

published in Jerusalem in a bilingual edition, with the English translation facing the

Hebrew text. (20) The latter has been restored to its original purity, and the

command to exterminate Jewish infidels appears in it in full: 'It is a duty to

exterminate them with one's own hands.' In the English translation this is somewhat

softened to: 'It is a duty to take active measures to destroy them.' But then the

Hebrew text goes on to specify the prime examples of 'infidels' who must be

exterminated: 'Such as Jesus of Nazareth and his pupils, and Tzadoq and Baitos (21)

and their pupils, may the name of the wicked rot'. Not one word of this appears in

[25] the English text on the facing page (78a). And, even more significant, in

spite of the wide circulation of this book among scholars in the English-speaking

countries, not one of them has, as far as I know, protested against this glaring

deception.

The second example comes from the USA, again from an English translation of

a book by Maimonides. Apart from his work on the codification of the Talmud, he

was also a philosopher and his Guide to the Perplexed is justly considered to be the

greatest work of Jewish religious philosophy and is widely read and used even today.

Unfortunately, in addition to his attitude towards non-Jews generally and Christians

in particular, Maimonides was also an anti-Black racist. Towards the end of the

Guide, in a crucial chapter (book III, chapter 51) he discusses how various sections of

humanity can attain the supreme religious value, the true worship of God. Among

those who are incapable of even approaching this are:

"Some of the Turks [i.e., the Mongol race] and the nomads in the North, and

the Blacks and the nomads in the South, and those who resemble them in our

climates. And their nature is like the nature of mute animals, and according to my

opinion they are not on the level of human beings, and their level among existing

things is below that of a man and above that of a monkey, because they have the

image and the resemblance of a man more than a monkey does."

Now, what does one do with such a passage in a most important and necessary

work of Judaism? Face the truth and its consequences? God forbid! Admit (as so

many Christian scholars, for example, have done in similar circumstances) that a very

important Jewish authority held also rabid anti-Black views, and by this admission

make an attempt at self-education in real humanity? Perish the thought. I can almost

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 25 —

imagine Jewish scholars in the USA consulting among themselves, 'What is to be

done?' - for the book had to be translated, due to the decline in the knowledge of

Hebrew among American Jews. Whether by consultation or by individual inspiration,

a happy solution' was found: in the popular American translation of the Guide by one

Friedlander, first published as far back as 1925 and since then reprinted in many

editions, including several in paperback, the Hebrew word Kushim, which means

Blacks, was simply transliterated and appears as 'Kushites', a word which means

nothing to those who have no knowledge of Hebrew, or to whom an obliging rabbi

will not give an oral explanation. (22) During all these years, not a word has been said

to point out the initial deception or the social facts underlying its continuation - and

this throughout the excitement of Martin Luther

[26] King's campaigns, which were supported by so many rabbis, not to mention

other Jewish figures, some of whom must have been aware of the anti-Black racist

attitude which forms part of their Jewish heritage. (23)

Surely one is driven to the hypothesis that quite a few of Martin Luther King's

rabbinical supporters were either anti-Black racists who supported him for tactical

reasons of 'Jewish interest' (wishing to win Black support for American Jewry and for

Israel's policies) or were accomplished hypocrites, to the point of schizophrenia,

capable of passing very rapidly from a hidden enjoyment of rabid racism to a

proclaimed attachment to an anti-racist struggle - and back - and back again.

The third example comes from a work which has far less serious scholarly intent

- but is all the more popular for that: The Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten. This lighthearted work - first published in the USA in 1968, and reprinted in many editions,

including several times as a Penguin paperback - is a kind of glossary of Yiddish

words often used by Jews or even non-Jews in English-speaking countries. For each

entry, in addition to a detailed definition and more or less amusing anecdotes

illustrating its use, there is also an etymology stating (quite accurately, on the whole)

the language from which the word came into Yiddish and its meaning in that

language. The entry Shaygets - whose main meaning is 'a Gentile boy or young man’ -

is an exception: there the etymology cryptically states 'Hebrew Origin', without giving

the form or meaning of the original Hebrew word. However, under the entry Shiksa -

the feminine form of Shaygets - the author does give the original Hebrew word,

sheqetz (or, in his transliteration, sheques) and defines its Hebrew meaning as

'blemish'. This is a bare-faced lie, as every speaker of Hebrew knows. The Megiddo

Modern Hebrew-English Dictionary, published in Israel, correctly defines shegetz as

follows: 'unclean animal; loathsome creature, abomination (colloquial - pronounced

shaygets) wretch, unruly youngster; Gentile youngster'.

My final, more general example is, if possible, even more shocking than the

others. It concerns the attitude of the Hassidic movement towards non-Jews.

Hassidism - a continuation (and debasement!) of Jewish mysticism - is still a living

movement, with hundreds of thousands of active adherents who are fanatically

devoted to their 'holy rabbis', some of whom have acquired a very considerable

political influence in Israel, among the leaders of most parties and even more so in

the higher echelons of the army.

What, then, are the views of this movement concerning non-Jews? As an

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 26 —

example, let us take the famous Hatanya,

[27] fundamental book of the Habbad movement, one of the most important

branches of Hassidism. According to this book, all non-Jews are totally satanic

creatures 'in whom there is absolutely nothing good'. Even a non-Jewish embryo is

qualitatively different from a Jewish one. The very existence of a non-Jew is

essential', whereas all of creation was created solely for the sake of the Jews.

This book is circulated in countless editions, and its ideas are further

propagated in the numerous 'discourses' of the present hereditary Führer of Habbad,

the so-called Lubavitcher rabbi, M.M. Schneerssohn, who leads this powerful worldwide organization from his New York headquarters. In Israel these ideas are widely

disseminated among the public at large, in the schools and in the army. (According to

the testimony of Shulamit Aloni, Member of the Knesset, this Habbad propaganda

was particularly stepped up before Israel's invasion of Lebanon in March 1978, in

order to induce military doctors and nurses to withhold medical help from 'Gentile

wounded'. This Nazi-like advice did not refer specifically to Arabs or Palestinians, but

simply to 'Gentiles', goyim.) A former Israeli President, Shazar, was an ardent

adherent of Habbad, and many top Israeli and American politicians - headed by

Prime Minister Begin - publicly courted and supported it. This, in spite of the

considerable unpopularity of the Lubavitcher rabbi - in Israel he is widely criticized

because he refuses to come to the Holy Land even for a visit and keeps himself in New

York for obscure messianic reasons, while in New York his anti-Black attitude is

notorious.

The fact that, despite these pragmatic difficulties, Habbad can be publicly

supported by so many top political figures owes much to the thoroughly disingenuous

and misleading treatment by almost all scholars who have written about the Hassidic

movement and its Habbad branch. This applies particularly to all who have written or

are writing about it in English. They suppress the glaring evidence of the old Hassidic

texts as well as the latter-day political implications that follow from them, which stare

in the face of even a casual reader of the Israeli Hebrew press, in whose pages the

Lubavitcher rabbi and other Hassidic leaders constantly publish the most rabid

bloodthirsty statements and exhortations against all Arabs.

A chief deceiver in this case, and a good example of the power of the deception,

was Martin Buber. His numerous works eulogizing the whole Hassidic movement

(including Habbad) never so much as hint at the real doctrines of Hassidism

concerning non-Jews. The crime of deception is all the greater in view of the fact that

Buber's eulogies of

[28] Hassidism were first published in German during the period of the rise of

German nationalism and the accession of Nazism to power. But while ostensibly

opposing Nazism, Buber glorified a movement holding and actually teaching

doctrines about non-Jews not unlike the Nazi doctrines about Jews. One could of

course argue that the Hassidic Jews of seventy or fifty years ago were the victims, and

a 'white lie' favoring a victim is excusable. But the consequences of deception are

incalculable. Buber's works were translated into Hebrew, were made a powerful

element of the Hebrew education in Israel, have greatly increased the power of the

blood-thirsty Hassidic leaders, and have thus been an important factor in the rise of

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 27 —

Israeli chauvinism and hate of all non-Jews. If we think about the many human

beings who died of their wounds because Israeli army nurses, incited by Hassidic

propaganda, refused to tend them, then a heavy onus for their blood lies on the head

of Martin Buber.

I must mention here that in his adulation of Hassidism Buber far surpassed

other Jewish scholars, particularly those writing in Hebrew (or, formerly, in Yiddish)

or even in European languages but purely for a Jewish audience. In questions of

internal Jewish interest, there had once been a great deal of justified criticism of the

Hassidic movement. Their mysogynism (much more extreme than that common to all

Jewish Orthodoxy), their indulgence in alcohol, their fanatical cult of their hereditary

'holy rabbis' who extorted money from them, the numerous superstitions peculiar to

them - these and many other negative traits were critically commented upon. But

Buber's sentimental and deceitful romantization has won the day, especially in the

USA and Israel, because it was in tune with the totalitarian admiration of anything

'genuinely Jewish' and because certain 'left' Jewish circles in which Buber had a

particularly great influence have adopted this position.

Nor was Buber alone in his attitude, although in my opinion he was by far the

worst in the evil he propagated and the influence he has left behind him. There was

the very influential sociologist and biblical scholar, Yehezkiel Kaufman, an advocate

of genocide on the model of the Book of Joshua, the idealist philosopher Hugo

Shmuel Bergman, who as far back as 1914-15 advocated the expulsion of all

Palestinians to Iraq, and many others. All were outwardly 'dovish', but employed

formulas which could be manipulated in the most extreme anti-Arab sense, all had

tendencies to that religious mysticism which encourages the propagation of

deceptions, and all seemed to be gentle persons who, even when advocating

expulsion, racism and genocide, seemed incapable of hurting a fly - and just for this

[29] reason the effect of their deceptions was the greater.

It is against the glorification of inhumanity, proclaimed not only by the rabbis

but by those who are supposed to be the greatest and certainly the most influential

scholars of Judaism, that we have to struggle; and it is against those modern

successors of the false prophets and dishonest priests that we have to repeat even in

the face of an almost unanimous opinion within Israel and among the majority of

Jews in countries such as the USA Lucretius' warning against surrendering one's

judgement to the declamations of religious leaders: Tantum religio potuit suadere

malorum - 'To such heights of evil are men driven by religion.' Religion is not always

(as Marx said) the opium of the people, but it can often be so, and when it is used in

this sense by prevaricating and misrepresenting its true nature, the scholars and

intellectuals who perform this task take on the character of opium smugglers.

But we can derive from this analysis another, more general conclusion about the

most effective and horrific means of compulsion to do evil, to cheat and to deceive

and, while keeping one's hands quite clean of violence, to corrupt whole peoples and

drive them to oppression and murder. (For there can no longer be any doubt that the

most horrifying acts of oppression in the West Bank are motivated by Jewish

religious fanaticism.) Most people seem to assume that the worst totalitarianism

employs physical coercion, and would refer to the imagery of Orwell's 1984 for a

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 28 —

model illustrating such a regime. But it seems to me that this common view is greatly

mistaken, and that the intuition of Isaac Asimov, in whose science fiction the worst

oppression is always internalized, is the more true to the dangers of human nature.

Unlike Stalin's tame scholars, the rabbis - and even more so the scholars attacked

here, and with them the whole mob of equally silent middlebrows such as writers,

journalists, public figures, who lie and deceive more than them - are not facing the

danger of death or concentration camp, but only social pressure; they lie out of

patriotism because they believe that it is their duty to lie for what they conceive to be

the Jewish interest. They are patriotic liars, and it is the same patriotism which

reduces them to silence when confronted with the discrimination and oppression of

the Palestinians.

In the present case we are also faced with another group loyalty, but one which

comes from outside the group, and which is sometimes even more mischievous. Very

many non- Jews (including Christian clergy and religious laymen, as well as some

marxists from all marxist groups) hold the curious

[30] opinion that one way to 'atone' for the persecution of Jews is not to speak out

against evil perpetrated by Jews but to participate in 'white lies' about them. The

crude accusation of 'antisemitism' (or, in the case of Jews, 'self-hate') against anybody

who protests at the discrimination of Palestinians or who points out any fact about

the Jewish religion or the Jewish past which conflicts with the 'approved version'

comes with greater hostility and force from non-Jewish 'friends of the Jews' than

from Jews. It is the existence and great influence of this group in all western

countries, and particularly in the USA (as well as the other English-speaking

countries) which has allowed the rabbis and scholars of Judaism to propagate their

lies not only without opposition but with considerable help.

In fact, many professed 'anti-stalinists' have merely substituted another idol for

their worship, and tend to support Jewish racism and fanaticism with even greater

ardor and dishonesty than were found among the most devoted stalinists in the past.

Although this phenomenon of blind and stalinistic support for any evil, so long as it is

'Jewish', is particularly strong from 1945, when the truth about the extermination of

European Jewry became known, it is a mistake to suppose that it began only then. On

the contrary, it dates very far back, particularly in social-democratic circles. One of

Marx's early friends, Moses Hess, widely known and respected as one of the first

socialists in Germany, subsequently revealed himself as an extreme Jewish racist,

whose views about the 'pure Jewish race' published in 1858 were not unlike

comparable bilge about the 'pure Aryan race'. But the German socialists, who

struggled against German racism, remained silent about their Jewish racism.

In 1944, during the actual struggle against Hitler, the British Labor Party

approved a plan for the expulsion of Palestinians from Palestine, which was similar to

Hitler's early plans (up to about 1941) for the Jews. This plan was approved under the

pressure of Jewish members of the party's leadership, many of whom have displayed

a stronger 'kith and kin' attitude to every Israeli policy than the Conservative 'kith

and kin' supporters of Ian Smith ever did. But stalinistic taboos on the left are

stronger in Britain than on the right, and there is virtually no discussion even when

the Labor Party supports Begin's government.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 29 —

In the USA a similar situation prevails, and again the American liberals are the

worst.

This is not the place to explore all the political consequences of this situation,

but we must face reality: in our

[31] struggle against the racism and fanaticism of the Jewish religion, our greatest

enemies will be not only the Jewish racists (and users of racism) but also those nonJews who in other areas are known - falsely in my opinion - as 'progressives'.

[32]

Chapter 3

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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Orthodoxy and Interpretation

This chapter is devoted to a more detailed description of the theologico-legal

structure of classical Judaism. (1) However, before embarking on that description it is

necessary to dispel at least some of the many misconceptions disseminated in almost

all foreign-language (that is, non-Hebrew) accounts of Judaism, especially by those

who propagate such currently fashionable phrases as 'the Judeo-Christian tradition'

or 'the common values of the monotheistic religions'.

Because of considerations of space I shall only deal in detail with the most

important of these popular delusions: that the Jewish religion is, and always was,

monotheistic. Now, as many biblical scholars know, and as a careful reading of the

Old Testament easily reveals, this ahistorical view is quite wrong. In many, if not

most, books of the Old Testament the existence and power of 'other gods' are clearly

acknowledged, but Yahweh (Jehovah), who is the most powerful god, (2) is also very

jealous of his rivals and forbids his people to worship them. (3) It is only very late in

the Bible, in some of the later prophets, that the existence of all gods other than

Yahweh is denied. (4)

What concerns us, however, is not biblical but classical Judaism; and it is quite

clear, though much less widely realized, that the latter, during its last few hundred

years, was for the most part far from pure monotheism. The same can be said about

the real doctrines dominant in present-day Orthodox Judaism, which is a direct

continuation of classical Judaism. The decay of monotheism came about through the

spread of Jewish mysticism (the cabbala) which developed in the 12th and 13th

centuries, and by the late 16th century had won an almost complete victory in

virtually all the centers of Judaism. The Jewish Enlightenment, which arose out of

the crisis of classical Judaism, had to fight against this mysticism and its influence

more than against anything else, but in latter-:lay Jewish Orthodoxy, especially

among the rabbis, the influence of the cabbala has remained predominant. (5) For

example, the Gush Emunim movement is inspired to a great extent by cabbalistic

ideas.

Knowledge and understanding of these ideas is therefore important for two

reasons. First, without it one cannot

[33] understand the true beliefs of Judaism at the end of its classical period.

Secondly, these ideas play an important contemporary political role, inasmuch as

they form part of the explicit system of beliefs of many religious politicians, including

most leaders of Gush Emunim, and have an indirect influence on many Zionist

leaders of all parties, including the zionist left.

According to the cabbala, the universe is ruled not by one god but by several

deities, of various characters and influences, emanated by a dim, distant First Cause.

Omitting many details, one can summarize the system as follows. From the First

Cause, first a male god called 'Wisdom' or 'Father' and then a female goddess called

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 31 —

'Knowledge' or 'Mother' were emanated or born. From the marriage of these two, a

pair of younger gods were born: Son, also called by many other names such as 'Small

Face' or 'The Holy Blessed One'; and Daughter, also called 'Lady' (or 'Matronit', a

word derived from Latin), 'Shekhinah', 'Queen', and so on. These two younger gods

should be united, but their union is prevented by the machinations of Satan, who in

this system is a very important and independent personage. The Creation was

undertaken by the First Cause in order to allow them to unite, but because of the Fall

they became more disunited than ever, and indeed Satan has managed to come very

close to the divine Daughter and even to rape her (either seemingly or in fact -

opinions differ on this). The creation of the Jewish people was undertaken in order to

mend the break caused by Adam and Eve, and under Mount Sinai this was for a

moment achieved: the male god Son, incarnated in Moses, was united with the

goddess Shekhinah. Unfortunately, the sin of the Golden Calf again caused disunity

in the godhead; but the repentance of the Jewish people has mended matters to some

extent. Similarly, each incident of biblical Jewish history is believed to be associated

with the union or disunion of the divine pair. The Jewish conquest of Palestine from

the Canaanites and the building of the first and second Temple are particularly

propitious for their. union, while the destruction of the Temples and exile of the Jews

from the Holy Land are merely external signs not only of the divine disunion but also

of a real 'whoring after strange gods': Daughter falls closely into the power of Satan,

while Son takes various female satanic personages to his bed, instead of his proper

wife.

The duty of pious Jews is to restore through their prayers and religious acts the

perfect divine unity, in the form of sexual union, between the male and female deities.

(6) Thus before most ritual acts, which every devout Jew has to perform many times

each day, the following cabbalistic formula is recited: 'For the

[34] sake of the [sexual] congress (7) of the Holy Blessed One and his Shekhinah... '

The Jewish morning prayers are also arranged so as to promote this sexual union, if

only temporarily. Successive parts of the prayer mystically correspond to successive

stages of the union: at one point the goddess approaches with her handmaidens, at

another the god puts his arm around her neck and fondles her breast, and finally the

sexual act is supposed to take place.

Other prayers or religious acts, as interpreted by the cabbalists, are designed to

deceive various angels (imagined as minor deities with a measure of independence)

or to propitiate Satan. At a certain point in the morning prayer, some verses in

Aramaic (rather than the more usual Hebrew) are pronounced. (8) This is supposed

to be a means for tricking the angels who operate the gates through which prayers

enter heaven and who have the power to block the prayers of the pious. The angels

only understand Hebrew and are baffled by the Aramaic verses; being somewhat dullwitted (presumably they are far less clever than the cabbalists) they open the gates,

and at this moment all the prayers, including those in Hebrew, get through. Or take

another example: both before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes his hands,

uttering a special blessing. On one of these two occasions he is worshiping God, by

promoting the divine union of Son and Daughter; but on the other he is worshiping

Satan, who likes Jewish prayers and ritual acts so much that when he is offered a few

of them it keeps him busy for a while and he forgets to pester the divine Daughter.

Indeed, the cabbalists believe that some of the sacrifices burnt in the Temple were

intended for Satan. For example, the seventy bullocks sacrificed during the seven

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 32 —

days of the feast of Tabernacles (9) were supposedly offered to Satan in his capacity

as ruler of all the Gentiles, (10) in order to keep him too busy to interfere on the

eighth day, when sacrifice is made to God. Many other examples of the same kind can

be given.

Several points should be made concerning this system and its importance for

the proper understanding of Judaism, both in its classical period and in its present

political involvement in Zionist practice.

First, whatever can be said about this cabbalistic system, it cannot be regarded

as monotheistic, unless one is also prepared to regard Hinduism, the late GraecoRoman religion, or even the religion of ancient Egypt, as 'monotheistic'.

Secondly, the real nature of classical Judaism is illustrated by the ease with

which this system was adopted. Faith and beliefs (except nationalistic beliefs) play an

extremely small

[35] part in classical Judaism. What is of prime importance is the ritual act, rather

than the significance which that act is supposed to have or the belief attached to it.

Therefore in times when a minority of religious Jews refused to accept the cabbala (as

is the case today), one could see some few Jews performing a given religious ritual

believing it to be an act of worship of God, while others do exactly the same thing

with the intention of propitiating Satan - but so long as the act is the same they would

pray together and remain members of the same congregation, however much they

might dislike each other. But if instead of the intention attached to the ritual washing

of hands anyone would dare to introduce an innovation in the manner of washing,

(11) a real schism would certainly ensue.

The same can be said about all sacred formulas of Judaism. Provided the

working is left intact, the meaning is at best a secondary matter. For example,

perhaps the most sacred Jewish formula, 'Hear 0 Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord

is one', recited several times each day by every pious Jew, can at the present time

mean two contrary things. It can mean that the Lord is indeed 'one'; but it can also

mean that a certain stage in the union of the male and female deities has been

reached or is being promoted by the proper recitation of this formula. However, when

Jews of a Reformed congregation recite this formula in any language other than

Hebrew, all Orthodox rabbis, whether they believe in unity or in the divine sexual

union, are very angry indeed.

Finally, all this is of considerable importance in Israel (and in other Jewish

centers) even at present. The enormous significance attached to mere formulas (such

as the 'Law of Jerusalem'); the ideas and motivations of Gush Emunim; the urgency

behind the hate for non-Jews presently living in Palestine; the fatalistic attitude

towards all peace attempts by Arab states - all these and many other traits of Zionist

politics, which puzzle so many well-meaning people who have a false notion about

classical Judaism, become more intelligible against this religious and mystical

background. I must warn, however, against falling into the other extreme and trying

to explain all zionist politics in terms of this background. Obviously, the latter's

influences vary in extent. Ben-Gurion was adept at manipulating them in a controlled

way for specific ends. Under Begin the past exerts a much greater influence upon the

present. But what one should never do is to ignore the past and its influences,

because only by knowing it can one transcend its blind power.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 33 —

[36]

Interpretation of the Bible

It will be seen from the foregoing example that what most supposedly wellinformed people think they know about Judaism may be very misleading, unless they

can read Hebrew. All the details mentioned above can be found in the original texts

or, in some cases, in modern books written in Hebrew for a rather specialized

readership. In English one would look for them in vain, even where the omission of

such socially important facts distorts the whole picture.

 There is yet another misconception about Judaism which is particularly

common among Christians, or people heavily influenced by Christian tradition and

culture. This is the misleading idea that Judaism is a 'biblical religion'; that the Old

Testament has in Judaism the same central place and legal authority which the Bible

has for Protestant or even Catholic Christianity.

Again, this is connected with the question of interpretation. We have seen that

in matters of belief there is great latitude. Exactly the opposite holds with respect to

the legal interpretation of sacred texts. Here the interpretation is rigidly fixed - but by

the Talmud rather than by the Bible itself. (12) Many, perhaps most, biblical verses

prescribing religious acts and obligations are 'understood' by classical Judaism, and

by present-:lay Orthodoxy, in a sense which is quite distinct from, or even contrary

to, their literal meaning as understood by Christian or other readers of the Old

Testament, who only see the plain text. The same division exists at present in Israel

between those educated in Jewish religious schools and those educated in 'secular'

Hebrew schools, where on the whole the plain meaning of the Old Testament is

taught.

This important point can only be understood through examples. It will be noted

that the changes in meaning do not all go in the same direction from the point of view

of ethics, as the term is understood now. Apologetics of Judaism claim that the

interpretation of the Bible, originated by the Pharisees and fixed in the Talmud, is

always more liberal than the literal sense. But some of the examples below show that

this is far from being the case.

1) Let us start with the Decalogue itself. The Eighth Commandment, Thou shalt

not steal' (Exodus, 20:15), is taken to be a prohibition against 'stealing' (that is,

kidnapping) a Jewish person. The reason is that according to the Talmud all acts

forbidden by the Decalogue are capital offenses. Stealing property is not a capital

offense (while kidnapping of Gentiles by Jews is allowed by talmudic law) - hence the

interpretation. A virtually identical

[37] sentence - 'Ye shall not steal' (Leviticus, 19:11) - is however allowed to have its

literal meaning.

2) The famous verse 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth' etc. (Exodus, 21:24) is taken to

mean 'eye-money for eye', that is payment of a fine rather than physical retribution.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 34 —

3) Here is a notorious case of turning the literal meaning into its exact opposite.

The biblical text plainly warns against following the bandwagon in an unjust cause:

thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to

decline after many to wrest judgment' (Exodus, 23:2). The last words of this sentence

- 'Decline after many to wrest judgment' - are torn out of their context and

interpreted as an injunction to follow the majority

4) The verse 'Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk' (Exodus, 23:19) is

interpreted as a ban on mixing any kind of meat with any milk or milk product. Since

the same verse is repeated in two other places in the Pentateuch, the mere repetition

is taken to be a treble ban, forbidding a Jew (i) to eat such a mixture, (ii) to cook it for

any purpose and (iii) to enjoy or benefit from it in any way. (13)

5 ) In numerous cases general terms such as 'thy fellow', 'stranger', or even

'man' are taken to have an exelusivist chauvinistic meaning. The famous verse 'thou

shalt love thy fellow (14) as thyself (Leviticus, 19:18) is understood by classical (and

present-day Orthodox) Judaism as an injunction to love one's fellow Jew, not any

fellow human. Similarly, the verse 'neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy

fellow' (ibid., 16) is supposed to mean that one must not stand idly by when the life

('blood') of a fellow Jew is in danger; but, as will be seen in Chapter 5, a Jew is in

general forbidden to save the life of a Gentile, because 'he is not thy fellow'. The

generous injunction to leave the gleanings of one's field and vineyard 'for the poor

and the stranger' (ibid., 9-10) is interpreted as referring exclusively to the Jewish

poor and to converts to Judaism. The taboo laws relating to corpses begin with the

verse 'This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent: all that come into the tent ... shall

be unclean seven days' (Numbers, 19:16). But the word 'man' (adam) is taken to

mean 'Jew', so that only a Jewish corpse is taboo (that is, both 'unclean' and sacred).

Based on this interpretation, pious Jews have a tremendous magic reverence towards

Jewish corpses and Jewish cemeteries, but have no respect towards non-Jewish

corpses and cemeteries. Thus hundreds of Muslim cemeteries have been utterly

destroyed in Israel (in one case in order to make room

[38] for the Tel-Aviv Hilton) but there was a great outcry because the Jewish

cemetery on the Mount of Olives was damaged under Jordanian rule. Examples of

this kind are too numerous to quote. Some of the inhuman consequences of this type

of interpretation will be discussed in Chapter 5.

6) Finally, consider one of the most beautiful prophetic passages, Isaiah's

magnificent condemnation of hypocrisy and empty ritual, and exhortation to

common decency. One verse (Isaiah, 1:15) in this passage is: 'And when ye spread

forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I

will not hear: your hands are full of blood.' Since Jewish priests 'spread their hands'

when blessing the people during service, this verse is supposed to mean that a priest

who commits accidental homicide is disqualified from 'spreading his hands' in

blessing (even if repentant) because they are 'full of blood'.

It is quite clear even from these examples that when Orthodox Jews today (or all

Jews before about 1780) read the Bible, they are reading a very different book, with a

totally different meaning, from the Bible as read by non-Jews or non-Orthodox Jews.

This distinction applies even in Israel, although both parties read the text in Hebrew.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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Experience, particularly since 1967, has repeatedly corroborated this. Many Jews in

Israel (and elsewhere), who are not Orthodox and have little detailed knowledge of

the Jewish religion, have tried to shame Orthodox Israelis (or right-wingers who are

strongly influenced by religion) out of their inhuman attitude towards the

Palestinians, by quoting at them verses from the Bible in their plain humane sense. It

was always found, however, that such arguments do not have the slightest effect on

those who follow classical Judaism; they simply do not understand what is being said

to them, because to them the biblical text means something quite different than to

everyone else.

If such a communication gap exists in Israel, where people read Hebrew and can

readily obtain correct information if they wish, one can imagine how deep is the

misconception abroad, say among people educated in the Christian tradition. In fact,

the more such a person reads the Bible, the less he or she knows about Orthodox

Judaism. For the latter regards the Old Testament as a text of immutable sacred

formulas, whose recitation is an act of great merit, but whose meaning is wholly

determined elsewhere. And, as Humpty Dumpty told Alice, behind the problem of

who can determine the meaning of words, there stands the real question: 'Which is to

be master?'

[39]

Structure of the Talmud

It should therefore be clearly understood that the source of authority for all the

practices of classical (and present-day Orthodox) Judaism, the determining base of

its legal structure, is the Talmud, or, to be precise, the so-called Babylonian Talmud;

while the rest of the talmudic literature (including the so~called Jerusalem or

Palestinian Talmud) acts as a supplementary authority.

We cannot enter here into a detailed description of the Talmud and talmudic

literature, but confine ourselves to a few principal points needed for our argument.

Basically, the Talmud consists of two parts. First, the Mishnah - a terse legal code

consisting of six volumes, each subdivided into several tractates, written in Hebrew,

redacted in Palestine around AD 200 out of the much more extensive (and largely

oral) legal material composed during the preceding two centuries. The second and by

far predominant part is the Gemarah - a voluminous record of discussions on and

around the Mishnah. There are two, roughly parallel, sets of Gemarah, one composed

in Mesopotamia ('Babylon') between about AD 200 and 500, the other in Palestine

between about AD 200 and some unknown date long before 500. The Babylonian

Talmud (that is, the Mishnah plus the Mesopotamian Gemarah) is much more

extensive and better arranged than the Palestinian, and it alone is regarded as

definitive and authoritative. The Jerusalem (Palestinian) Talmud is accorded a

decidedly lower status as a legal authority, along with a number of compilations,

known collectively as the 'talmudic literature', containing material which the editors

of the two Talmuds had left out.

Contrary to the Mishnah, the rest of the Talmud and talmudic literature is

written in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic, the latter language predominating in

the Babylonian Talmud. Also, it is not limited to legal matters. Without any apparent

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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order or reason, the legal discussion can suddenly be interrupted by what is referred

to as 'Narrative' (Aggadah) a medley of tales and anecdotes about rabbis or ordinary

folk, biblical figures, angels, demons, witchcraft and miracles. (15) These narrative

passages, although of great popular influence in Judaism through the ages, were

always considered (even by the Talmud itself) as having secondary value. Of greatest

importance for classical Judaism are the legal parts of the text, particularly the

discussion of cases which are regarded as problematic. The Talmud itself defines the

various categories of Jews, in ascending order, as follows, The lowest are the totally

ignorant, then come those who only know the Bible, then those who are familiar with

the Mishnah or Aggadah,

[40] and the superior class are those who have studied, and are able to discuss the

legal part of the Gemarah. It is only the latter who are fit to lead their fellow Jews in

all things.

The legal system of the Talmud can be described as totally comprehensive,

rigidly authoritarian, and yet capable of infinite development, without however any

change in its dogmatic base. Every aspect of Jewish life, both individual and social, is

covered, usually in considerable detail, with sanctions and punishments provided for

every conceivable sin or infringement of the rules. The basic rules for every problem

are stated dogmatically and cannot be questioned. What can be and is discussed at

very great length is the elaboration and practical definition of these rules. Let me give

a few examples.

'Not doing any work' on the sabbath. The concept work is defined as comprising

exactly 39 types of work, neither more nor less. The criterion for inclusion in this list

has nothing to do with the arduousness of a given task; it is simply a matter of

dogmatic definition. One forbidden type of 'work' is writing. The question then arises:

How many characters must one write in order to commit the sin of writing on the

sabbath? (Answer: Two). Is the sin the same, irrespective of which hand is used?

(Answer: No). However, in order to guard against falling into sin, the primary

prohibition on writing is hedged with a secondary ban on touching any writing

implement on the sabbath.

Another prototypical work forbidden on the sabbath is the grinding of grain.

From this it is deduced, by analogy, that any kind of grinding of anything whatsoever

is forbidden. And this in turn is hedged by a ban on the practice of medicine on the

sabbath (except in cases of danger to Jewish life), in order to guard against falling

into the sin of grinding a medicament. It is in vain to point out that in modern times

such a danger does not exist (nor, for that matter, did it exist in many cases even in

talmudic times); for, as a hedge around the hedge, the Talmud explicitly forbids

liquid medicines and restorative drinks on the sabbath. What has been fixed remains

for ever fixed, however absurd. Tertullian, one of the early Church Fathers, had

written, 'I believe it because it is absurd.' This can serve as a motto for the majority of

talmudic rules, with the word 'believe' replaced by 'practice'.

The following example illustrates even better the level of absurdity reached by

this system. One of the prototypes of work forbidden on the sabbath is harvesting.

This is stretched, by analogy, to a ban on breaking a branch off a tree. Hence, riding a

horse (or any other animal) is forbidden, as a hedge against the temptation to break a

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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branch off a tree for flogging the beast. It is useless to argue that you have a readymade

[41] whip, or that you intend to ride where there are no trees. What is forbidden

remains forbidden for ever. It can, however, be stretched and made stricter: in

modern times, riding a bicycle on the sabbath has been forbidden, because it is

analogous to riding a horse.

My final example illustrates how the same methods are used also in purely

theoretical cases, having no conceivable application in reality. During the existence of

the Temple, the High Priest was only allowed to marry a virgin. Although during

virtually the whole of the talmudic period there was no longer a Temple or a High

Priest, the Talmud devotes one of its more involved (and bizarre) discussions to the

precise definition of the term 'virgin' fit to marry a High Priest. What about a woman

whose hymen had been broken by accident? Does it make any difference whether the

accident occurred before or after the age of three? By the impact of metal or of wood?

Was she climbing a tree? And if so, was she climbing up or down? Did it happen

naturally or unnaturally? All this and much else besides is discussed in lengthy detail.

And every scholar in classical Judaism had to master hundreds of such problems.

Great scholars were measured by their ability to develop these problems still further,

for as shown by the examples there is always scope for further development - if only

in one direction - and such development did actually continue after the final

redaction of the Talmud.

However, there are two great differences between the talmudic period (ending

around AD 500) and the period of classical Judaism (from about AD 800). The

geographical area reflected in the Talmud is confined, whereas the Jewish society

reflected in it is a 'complete' society, with Jewish agriculture as its basis. (This is true

for Mesopotamia as well as Palestine.) Although at that time there were Jews living

throughout the Roman Empire and in many areas of the Sassanid Empire, it is quite

evident from the talmudic text that its composition - over half a millennium - was a

strictly local affair. No scholars from countries other than Mesopotamia and Palestine

took part in it, nor does the text reflect social conditions outside these two areas.

Very little is known about the social and religious conditions of the Jews in the

intervening three centuries. But from AD 800 on, when more detailed historical

information is again available, we find that the two features mentioned above had

been reversed. The Babylonian Talmud (and to a much lesser degree the rest of the

talmudic literature) is acknowledged as authoritative, studied and developed in all

Jewish communities. At the same time, Jewish society had undergone

[42] a deep change: whatever and wherever it is, it does not include peasants.

The social system resulting from this change will be discussed in Chapter 4.

Here we shall describe how the Talmud was adapted to the conditions -

geographically much wider and socially much narrower, and at any rate radically

different - of classical Judaism. We shall concentrate on what is in my opinion the

most important method of adaptation, namely the dispensations.

 The Dispensations

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As noted above, the talmudic system is most dogmatic and does not allow any

relaxation of its rules even when they are reduced to absurdity by a change in

circumstances. And in the case of the Talmud - contrary to that of the Bible - the

literal sense of the text is binding, and one is not allowed to interpret it away. But in

the period of classical Judaism various talmudic laws became untenable for the

Jewish ruling classes - the rabbis and the rich. In the interest of these ruling classes, a

method of systematic deception was devised for keeping the letter of the law, while

violating its spirit and intention. It was this hypocritical system of 'dispensations'

(heterim) which, in my view, was the most important cause of the debasement of

Judaism in its classical epoch. (The second cause was Jewish mysticism, which

however operated for a much shorter period of time.) Again, some examples are

needed to illustrate how the system works.

(1) Taking of interest. The Talmud strictly forbids a Jew, on pain of severe

punishment, to take interest on a loan made to another Jew. (According to a majority

of talmudic authorities, it is a religious duty to take as much interest as possible on a

loan made to a Gentile.) Very detailed rules forbid even the most far-fetched forms in

which a Jewish lender might benefit from a Jewish debtor. All Jewish accomplices to

such an illicit transaction, including the scribe and the witnesses, are branded by the

Talmud as infamous persons, disqualified from testifying in court, because by

participating in such an act a Jew as good as declares that 'he has no part in the god

of Israel'. It is evident that this law is well suited to the needs of Jewish peasants or

artisans, or of small Jewish communities who use their money for lending to nonJews. But the situation was very different in east Europe (mainly in Poland) by the

16th century. There was a relatively big Jewish community, which constituted the

majority in many towns. The peasants, subjected to strict serfdom not far removed

from slavery, were hardly in a position

[43] to borrow at all, while lending to the nobility was the business of a few very rich

Jews. Many Jews were doing business with each other.

In these circumstances, the following arrangement (called heter 'isqa - 'business

dispensation') was devised for an interest-bearing loan between Jews, which does not

violate the letter of the law, because formally it is not a loan at all. The lender 'invests'

his money in the business of the borrower, stipulating two conditions. First, that the

borrower will pay the lender at an agreed future date a stated sum of money (in

reality, the interest in the loan) as the lender's 'share in the profits'. Secondly, that the

borrower will be presumed to have made sufficient profit to give the lender his share,

unless a claim to the contrary is corroborated by the testimony of the town's rabbi or

rabbinical judge, etc, - who, by arrangement, refuse to testify in such cases. In

practice all that is required is to take a text of this dispensation, written in Aramaic

and entirely incomprehensible to the great majority, and put it on a wall of the room

where the transaction is made (a copy of this text is displayed in all branches of

Israeli banks) or even to keep it in a chest - and the interest-bearing loan between

Jews becomes perfectly legal and blameless,

(2) The sabbatical year. According to talmudic law (based on Leviticus, 25)

Jewish-owned land in Palestine (16) must be left fallow every seventh ('sabbatical')

year, when all agricultural work (including harvesting) on such land is forbidden.

There is ample evidence that this law was rigorously observed for about one thousand

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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years, from the 5th century BC till the disappearance of Jewish agriculture in

Palestine. Later, when there was no occasion to apply the law in practice, it was kept

theoretically intact. However, in the 1880s, with the establishment of the first Jewish

agricultural colonies in Palestine, it became a matter of practical concern. Rabbis

sympathetic to the settlers helpfully devised a dispensation, which was later perfected

by their successors in the religious zionist parties and has become an established

Israeli practice.

This is how it works. Shortly before a sabbatical year, the Israeli Minister of

Internal Affairs gives the Chief Rabbi a document making him the legal owner of all

Israeli land, both private and public. Armed with this paper, the Chief Rabbi goes to a

non-Jew and sells him all the land of Israel (and, since 1967, the Occupied

Territories) for a nominal sum. A separate document stipulates that the 'buyer' will

'resell' the land back after the year is over. And this transaction is repeated every

seven years, usually with the same 'buyer'.

[44]

Non-zionist rabbis do not recognize the validity of this dispensation, (17)

claiming correctly that, since religious law for- bids Jews to sell land in Palestine to

Gentiles, the whole transaction is based on a sin and hence null and void. The zionist

rabbis reply, however, that what is forbidden is a real sale, not a fictitious one!

(3) Milking on the sabbath. This has been forbidden in post- talmudic

times, through the process of increasing religious severity mentioned above. The ban

could easily be kept in the diaspora, since Jews who had cows of their own were

usually rich enough to have non-Jewish servants, who could be ordered (using one of

the subterfuges described below) to do the milking. The early Jewish colonists in

Palestine employed Arabs for this and other purposes, but with the forcible

imposition of the Zionist policy of exclusive Jewish labor there was need for a

dispensation. (This was particularly important before the introduction of mechanized

milking in the late 1950s.) Here too there was a difference between zionist and nonzionist rabbis.

According to the former, the forbidden milking becomes permitted provided the

milk is not white but dyed blue. This blue Saturday milk is then used exclusively for

making cheese, and the dye is washed off into the whey. Non-zionist rabbis have

devised a much subtler scheme (which I personally witnessed operating in a religious

kibbutz in 1952). They discovered an old provision which allows the udders of a cow

to be emptied on the sabbath, purely for relieving the suffering caused to the animal

by bloated udders, and on the strict condition that the milk runs to waste on the

ground. Now, this is what is actually done: on Saturday morning, a pious kibbutznik

goes to the cowshed and places pails under the cows. (There is no ban on such work

in the whole of the talmudic literature.) He then goes to the synagogue to pray. Then

comes his colleague, whose 'honest intention' is to relieve the animals' pain and let

their milk run to the floor. But if, by chance, a pail happens to be standing there, is he

under any obligation to remove it? Of course not. He simply 'ignores' the pails, fulfills

his mission of mercy and goes to the synagogue. Finally a third pious colleague goes

into the cowshed and discovers, to his great surprise, the pails full of milk. So he puts

them in cold storage and follows his comrades to the synagogue. Now all is well, and

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 40 —

there is no need to waste money on blue dye.

(4) Mixed crops. Similar dispensations were issued by zionist rabbis in

respect of the ban (based on Leviticus, 19:19) against sowing two different species of

crop in the same field. Modern agronomy has however shown that in some cases

(especially in growing

[45] fodder) mixed sowing is the most profitable. The rabbis invented a dispensation

according to which one man sows the field length- wise with one kind of seed, and

later that day his comrade, who 'does not know' about the former, sows another kind

of seed crosswise. However, this method was felt to be too wasteful of labor, and a

better one was devised: one man makes a heap of one kind of seed in a public place

and carefully covers it with a sack or piece of board. The second kind of seed is then

put on top of the cover. Later, another man comes and exclaims, in front of witnesses,

'I need this sack (or board)' and removes it, so that the seeds mix 'naturally'. Finally, a

third man comes along and is told,'Take this and sow the field,' which he proceeds to

do. (18)

(5) Leavened substances must not be eaten or even kept in the possession of

a Jew during the seven (or, outside Palestine, eight) days of Passover. The concept

'leavened substances' was continually broadened and the aversion to so much as

seeing them during the festival approached hysteria. They include all kinds of flour

and even unground grain. In the original talmudic society this was bearable, because

bread (leavened or not) was usually baked once a week; a peasant family would use

the last of the previous year's grain to bake unleavened bread for the festival, which

ushers in the new harvest season. However, in the conditions of post-Talmudic

European Jewry the observance was very hard on a middle-class Jewish family and

even more so on a corn merchant. A dispensation was therefore devised, by which all

those substances are sold in a fictitious sale to a Gentile before the festival and

bought back automatically after it. The one thing that must be done is to lock up the

taboo substances for the duration of the festival. In Israel this fictitious sale has been

made more efficient. Religious Jews 'sell' their leavened substances to their local

rabbis, who in turn 'sell' them to the Chief Rabbis; the latter sell them to a Gentile,

and by a special dispensation this sale is presumed to include also the leavened

substances of non-practising Jews.

(6) Sabbath-Goy. Perhaps the most developed dispensations concern the 'Goy

(Gentile) of Sabbath'. As mentioned above, the range of tasks banned on the sabbath

has widened continually; but the range of tasks that must be carried out or supervised

to satisfy~ needs or to increase comfort also keeps widening. This is particularly true

in modern times, but the effect of technological change began to be felt long ago. The

ban against grinding on the sabbath was a relatively light matter for a Jewish peasant

or artisan, say in second-century Palestine, who used a hand mill for domestic

purposes. It was quite a different matter for a tenant of a water mill or windmill one

of the most common Jewish

[46] occupations in eastern Europe. But even such a simple human problem' as the

wish to have a hot cup of tea on a Saturday afternoon becomes much greater with the

tempting samovar, used regularly on weekdays, standing in the room. These are just

two examples out of a very large number of so-called 'problems of sabbath

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 41 —

observance'. And one can state with certainty that for a community composed

exclusively of Orthodox Jews they were quite insoluble, at least during the last eight

or ten centuries, without the 'help' of non-Jews. This is even more true today in the

'Jewish state', because many public services, such as water, gas and electricity, fall in

this category. Classical Judaism could not exist even for a whole week without using

some non-Jews.

But without special dispensations there is a great obstacle in employing nonJews to do these Saturday jobs; for talmudic regulations forbid Jews to ask a Gentile

to do on the sabbath any work which they themselves are banned from doing. (19) I

shall describe two of the many types of dispensation used for such purposes.

First, there is the method of 'hinting', which depends on the casuistic logic

according to which a sinful demand becomes blameless if it is phrased slyly. As rule,

the hint must be obscure', but in cases of extreme need a 'clear' hint is allowed. For

example, in a recent booklet on religious observance for the use of Israeli soldiers, the

latter are taught how to talk to Arab workers employed by the army as sabbath-Goy.

In urgent cases, such as when it is very cold and a fire must be lit, or when light is

needed for a religious service, a pious Jewish soldier may use a 'clear' hint and tell the

Arab: 'It is cold (or dark) here'. But normally an 'obscure' hint must suffice, for

example: 'It would be more pleasant if it were warmer here' (20) This method of

'hinting' is particularly repulsive and degrading inasmuch as it is normally used on

non-Jews who, due to their poverty or subordinate social position, are wholly in the

power of their Jewish employer. A Gentile servant (or employee of the Israeli army)

who does not train himself to interpret 'obscure hints' as orders will be pitilessly

dismissed.

The second method is used in cases where what the Gentile is required to do on

Saturday is not an occasional task or personal service, which can be 'hinted' at as the

need arises, but a routine or regular job without constant Jewish supervision.

According to this method - called 'implicit inclusion' (havla'ah) of the sabbath among

weekdays - the Gentile is hired 'for the whole week (or year)', without the sabbath

being so much as mentioned in the contract. But in reality work is only performed on

the sabbath. This method was used in the past in hiring a Gentile to put out the

candles

[47] in the synagogue after the sabbath-eve prayer (rather than wastefully

allowing them to burn out). Modern Israeli examples are: regulating the water supply

or watching over water reservoirs on Saturdays. (21)

A similar idea is used also in the case of Jews, but for a different end. Jews are

forbidden to receive any payment for work done on the sabbath, even if the work

itself is permitted. The chief example here concerns the sacred professions: the rabbi

or talmudic scholar who preaches or teaches on the sabbath, the cantor who sings

only on Saturdays and other holy days (on which similar bans apply), the sexton and

similar officials. In talmudic times, and in some countries even several centuries

after, such jobs were unpaid. But later, when these became salaried professions, the

dispensation of 'implicit inclusion was used, and they were hired on a 'monthly' or

'yearly' basis. In the case of rabbis and talmudic scholars the problem is particularly

complicated, because the Talmud forbids them to receive any payment for preaching,

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 42 —

teaching or studying talmudic matters even on weekdays. (22) For them an additional

dispensation stipulates that their salary is not really a salary at all but 'compensation

for idleness' (dmey batalah). As a combined result of these two fictions, what is in

reality payment for work done mainly, or even solely, on the sabbath is

transmogrified into payment for being idle on weekdays.

 Social Aspects of Dispensations

Two social features of these and many similar practices deserve special

mention.

First, a dominant feature of this system of dispensations, and of classical

Judaism inasmuch as it is based on them, is deception - deception primarily of God, if

this word can be used for an imaginary being so easily deceived by the rabbis, who

consider themselves cleverer than him. No greater contrast can be conceived than

that between the God of the Bible (particularly of the greater prophets) and of the

God of classical Judaism. The latter is more like the early Roman Jupiter, who was

likewise bamboozled by his worshipers, or the gods described in Frazer's Golden

Bough.

From the ethical point of view, classical Judaism represents a process of

degeneration, which is still going on; and this degeneration into a tribal collection of

empty rituals and magic superstitions has very important social and political

consequences. For it must be remembered that it is precisely the superstitions of

classical Judaism which have the greatest hold on the Jewish masses, rather than

those parts of the Bible or

[48] even the Talmud which are of real religious and ethical value. (The same can be

observed also in other religions which are now undergoing revival.) What is popularly

regarded as the most 'holy' and solemn occasion of the Jewish liturgical year,

attended even by very many Jews who are otherwise far from religion? It is the Kol

Nidrey prayer on the eve of Yom Kippur - a chanting of a particularly absurd and

deceptive dispensation. by which all private vows made to God in the following year

are declared in advance to be null and void. (23) Or, in the area of personal religion,

the Qadish prayer, said on days of mourning by sons for their parents in order to

elevate their departed souls to paradise - a recitation of an Aramaic text,

incomprehensible to the great majority. Quite obviously, the. popular regard given to

these, the most superstitious parts of the Jewish religion, is not given to its better

parts.

Together with the deception of God goes the deception of other Jews, mainly in

the interest of the Jewish ruling class. It is characteristic that no dispensations were

allowed in the specific interest of the Jewish poor. For example, Jews who were

starving but not actually on the point of death were never allowed by their rabbis

(who did not often go hungry themselves) to eat any sort of forbidden food, though

kosher food is usually more expensive.

The second dominant feature of the dispensations is that they are in large part

obviously motivated by the spirit of profit. And it is this combination of hypocrisy and

the profit motive which increasingly dominated classical Judaism. In Israel, where

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 43 —

the process goes on, this is dimly perceived by popular opinion, despite all the official

brainwashing promoted by the education system and the media. The religious

establishment - the rabbis and the religious parties - and, by association, to some

extent the Orthodox community as a whole, are quite unpopular in Israel. One of the

most important reasons for this is precisely their reputation for duplicity and

venality. Of course, popular opinion (which may often be prejudiced) is not the same

thing as social analysis; but in this particular case it is actually true that the Jewish

religious establishment does have a strong tendency to chicanery and graft, due to the

corrupting influence of the Orthodox Jewish religion. Because in general social life

religion is only one of the social influences, its effect on the mass of believers is not

nearly so great as on the rabbis and leaders of the religious parties. Those religious

Jews in Israel who are honest, as the majority of them undoubtedly are, are so not

because of the influence of their religion and rabbis, but in spite of it. On the other

hand, in those few areas of public

[49] life in Israel which are wholly dominated by religious circles, the level of

chicanery, venality and corruption is notorious, far surpassing the 'average' level

tolerated by general, non-religious Israeli society.

In Chapter 4 we shall see how the dominance of the profit motive in classical

Judaism is connected with the structure of Jewish society and its articulation with the

general society in the midst of which Jews lived in the 'classical' period. Here I merely

want to observe that the profit motive is not characteristic of Judaism in all periods of

its history. Only the platonist confusion which seeks for the metaphysical timeless

'essence' of Judaism, instead of looking at the historical changes in Jewish society,

has obscured this fact. (And this confusion has been greatly encouraged by zionism,

in its reliance on 'historical rights' ahistorically derived from the Bible.) Thus,

apologists of Judaism claim, quite correctly, that the Bible is hostile to the profit

motive while the Talmud is indifferent to it. But this was caused by the very different

social conditions in which they were composed. As was pointed out above, the

Talmud was composed in two well-defined areas, in a period when the Jews living

there constituted a society based on agriculture and consisting mainly of peasants -

very different indeed from the society of classical Judaism.

In Chapter 5 we shall deal in detail with the hostile attitudes and deceptions

practiced by classical Judaism against non-Jews. But more important as a social

feature is the profit- motivated deception practiced by the rich Jews against poor

fellow Jews (such as the dispensation concerning interest on loans). Here I must say,

in spite of my opposition to marxism both in philosophy and as a social theory, that

Marx was quite right when, in his two articles about Judaism, he characterized it as

dominated by profit-seeking - provided this is limited to Judaism as he knew it, that

is, to classical Judaism which in his youth had already entered the period of its

dissolution. True, he stated this arbitrarily, ahistorically and without proof. Obviously

he came to his conclusion by intuition; but his intuition in this case - and with the

proper historical limitation - was right.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 44 —

[50]

Chapter 3

The Weight of History

A great deal of nonsense has been written in the attempt to provide a social or

mystical interpretation of Jewry or Judaism 'as a whole'. This cannot be done, for the

social structure of the Jewish people and the ideological structure of Judaism have

changed profoundly through the ages. Four major phases can be distinguished:

(1) The phase of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah, until the destruction

the first Temple (587 BC) and the Babylonian exile. (Much of the Old Testament is

concerned with this period, although most major books of the Old Testament,

including the Pentateuch as we know it, were actually composed after that date.)

Socially, these ancient Jewish kingdoms were quite similar to the neighboring

kingdoms of Palestine and Syria; and - as a careful reading of the Prophets reveals -

the similarity extended to the religious cults practiced by the great majority of the

people. (1) The ideas that were to become typical of later Judaism - including in

particular ethnic segregationism and monotheistic exclusivism - were at this stage

confined to small circles of priests and prophets, whose social influence depended on

royal support.

(2) The phase of the dual centers, Palestine and Mesopotamia, from the first

'Return from Babylon' (537 BC) until about AD 500. It is characterized by the

existence of these two autonomous Jewish societies, both based primarily on

agriculture, on which the 'Jewish religion', as previously elaborated in priestly and

scribal circles, was imposed by the force and authority of the Persian empire. The Old

Testament Book of Ezra contains an account of the activities of Ezra the priest, 'a

ready scribe in the law of Moses', who was empowered by King Artaxerxes I of Persia

to 'set magistrates and judges' over the Jews of Palestine, so that 'whosoever will not

do the law of thy God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily

upon him, whether it be unto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or

to imprisonment’ (2) And in the Book of Neherniali - cupbearer to King Artaxerxes

who was appointed Persian governor of Judea, with even greater powers - we see to

what extent foreign (nowadays one would say 'imperialist') coercion was instrumental

in imposing the Jewish religion, with lasting results.

[51]

In both centers, Jewish autonomy persisted during most of this period and

deviations from religious orthodoxy were repressed. Exceptions to this rule occurred

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 45 —

when the religious aristocracy itself got 'infected' with Hellenistic ideas (from 300 to

166 BC and again under Herod the Great and his successors, from 50 BC to AD 70),

or when it was split in reaction to new developments (for example, the division

between the two great parties, the Pharisees and the Sadduceans, which emerged in

about 140 BC). However, the moment any one party triumphed, it used the coercive

machinery of the Jewish autonomy (or, for a short period, independence) to impose

its own religious views on all the Jews in both centers.

During most of this time, especially after the collapse of the Persian empire and

until about AD 200, the Jews outside the two centers were free from Jewish religious

coercion. Among the papyri preserved in Elephantine (in Upper Egypt) there is a

letter dating from 419 BC containing the text of an edict by King Darius II of Persia

which instructs the Jews of Egypt as to the details of the observance of Passover. (3)

But the Hellenistic kingdoms, the Roman Republic and early Roman Empire did not

bother with such things. The freedom that Hellenistic Jews enjoyed outside Palestine

allowed the creation of a Jewish literature written in Greek, which was subsequently

rejected in toto by Judaism and whose remains were preserved by Christianity. (4)

The very rise of Christianity was possible because of this relative freedom of the

Jewish communities outside the two centers. The experience of the Apostle Paul is

significant: in Corinth, when the local Jewish community accused Paul of heresy, the

Roman governor Galho dismissed the case at once, refusing to be a 'judge of such

matters'; (5) but in Judea the governor Festus felt obliged to take legal cognizance of

a purely religious internal Jewish dispute. (6)

This tolerance came to an end in about AD 200, when the Jewish religion, as

meanwhile elaborated and evolved in Palestine, was imposed by the Roman

authorities upon all the Jews of the Empire. (7)

(3) The phase which we have defined as classical Judaism and which will be

discussed below. (8)

(4) The modern phase, characterized by the breakdown of the totalitarian

Jewish community and its power, and by attempts to reimpose it, of which Zionism is

the most important. This phase begins in Holland in the 17th century, in France and

Austria (excluding Hungary) in the late 18th century, in most other European

countries in the middle of the 19th century, and

[52] in some Islamic countries in the 20th century. (The Jews of Yemen were still

living in the medieval 'classical' phase in 1948). Something concerning these

developments will be said later on.

Between the second phase and the third, that of classical Judaism, there is a gap

of several centuries in which our present knowledge of Jews and Jewish society is

very slight, and the scant information we do have is all derived from external (nonJewish) sources. In the countries of Latin Christendom we have absolutely no Jewish

literary records until the middle of the 10th century; internal Jewish information,

mostly from religious literature, becomes more abundant only in the 11th and

particularly the 12th century. Before that, we are wholly dependent first on Roman

and then on Christian evidence. In the Islamic countries the information gap is not

quite so big; still, very little is known about Jewish society before AD 800 and about

the changes it must have undergone during the three preceding centuries.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 46 —

Major Features of Classical Judaism

Let us therefore ignore those 'dark ages', and for the sake of convenience begin

with the two centuries 1000-1200, for which abundant information is available from

both internal and external sources on all the important Jewish centers, east and west.

Classical Judaism, which is clearly discernible in this period, has undergone very few

changes since then, and (in the guise of Orthodox Judaism) is still a powerful force

today.

How can that classical Judaism be characterized, and what are the social

differences distinguishing it from earlier phases of Judaism? I believe that there are

three such major features.

1) Classical Jewish society has no peasants, and in this it differs

profoundly from earlier Jewish societies in the two centers, Palestine and

Mesopotamia. It is difficult for us, in modern times, to understand what this means.

We have to make an effort to imagine what serfdom was like; the enormous

difference in literacy, let alone education, between village and town throughout this

period; the incomparably greater freedom enjoyed by all the small minority who were

not peasants - in order to realize that during the whole of the classical period the

Jews, in spite of all the persecutions to which they were subjected, formed an integral

part of the privileged classes. Jewish historiography, especially in English, is

misleading on this point inasmuch as it tends to focus on Jewish poverty and antiJewish discrimination. Both were real enough at times; but the poorest Jewish

craftsman, peddler, land-lord's steward or petty cleric was immeasurably better off

than a

[53] serf. This was particularly true in those European countries where serfdom

persisted into the 19th century, whether in a partial or extreme form: Prussia, Austria

(including Hungary), Poland and the Polish lands taken by Russia. And it is not

without significance that, prior to the beginning of the great Jewish migration of

modern times (around 1880), a large majority of all Jews were living in those areas

and that their most important social function there was to mediate the oppression of

the peasants on behalf of the nobility and the Crown.

Everywhere, classical Judaism developed hatred and contempt for agriculture

as an occupation and for peasants as a class, even more than for other Gentiles - a

hatred of which I know no parallel in other societies. This is immediately apparent to

anyone who is familiar with the Yiddish or Hebrew literature of the 19th and 20th

centuries. (9)

Most east-European Jewish socialists (that is, members of exclusively or

predominantly Jewish parties and factions) are guilty of never pointing out this fact;

indeed, many were themselves tainted with a ferocious anti-peasant attitude

inherited from classical Judaism. Of course, Zionist 'socialists' were the worst in this

respect, but others, such as the Bund, were not much better. A typical example is

their opposition to the formation of peasant co-operatives promoted by the Catholic

clergy, on the ground that this was 'an act of antisemitism'. This attitude is by no

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 47 —

means dead even now; it could be seen very clearly in the racist views held by many

Jewish 'dissidents' in the USSR regarding the Russian people, and also in the lack of

discussion of this background by so many Jewish socialists, such as Isaac Deutscher.

The whole racist propaganda on the theme of the supposed superiority of Jewish

morality and intellect (in which many Jewish socialists were prominent) is bound up

with a lack of sensitivity for the suffering of that major part of humanity who were

especially oppressed during the last thousand years - the peasants.

2) Classical Jewish society was particularly dependent on kings or on

nobles with royal powers. In the next chapter we discuss various Jewish laws

directed against Gentiles, and in particular laws which command Jews to revile

Gentiles and refrain from praising them or their customs. These laws allow one and

only one exception: a Gentile king, or a locally powerful magnate (in Hebrew paritz,

in Yiddish pooretz). A king is praised and prayed for, and he is obeyed not only in

most civil matters but also in some religious ones. As we shall see Jewish doctors,

who are in general forbidden to save the lives of ordinary Gentiles on the Sabbath, are

commanded to do their utmost in healing magnates and rulers;

[54] this partly explains why kings and noblemen, popes and bishops often employed

Jewish physicians. But not only physicians. Jewish tax and customs collectors, or (in

eastern Europe) bailiffs of manors could be depended upon to do their utmost for the

king or baron, in a way that a Christian could not always be.

The legal status of a Jewish community in the period of classical Judaism was

normally based on a 'privilege' - a charter granted by a king or prince (or, in Poland

after the 16th century, by a powerful nobleman) to the Jewish community and

conferring on it the rights of autonomy - that is, investing the rabbis with the power

to dictate to the other Jews. An important part of such privileges, going as far back as

the late Roman Empire, is the creation of a Jewish clerical estate which, exactly like

the Christian clergy in medieval times, is exempt from paying taxes to the

sovereign and is allowed to impose taxes on the people under its control - the Jews -

for its own benefit. It is interesting to note that this deal between the late Roman

Empire and the rabbis antedates by at least one hundred years the very similar

privileges granted by Constantine the Great and his successors to the Christian clergy.

From about AD 200 until the early 5th century, the legal position of Jewry in the

Roman Empire was as follows. A hereditary Jewish Patriarch (residing in Tiberias in

Palestine) was recognized both as a high dignitary in the official hierarchy of the

Empire and as supreme chief of all the Jews in the Empire. (10) As a Roman official,

the Patriarch was vir illustris, of the same high official class which included the

consuls, the top military commanders of the Empire and the chief ministers around

the throne (the Sacred Consistory), and was out-ranked only by the imperial family.

In fact, the Illustrious Patriarch (as he is invariably styled in imperial decrees) outranked the provincial governor of Palestine. Emperor Theodosius I, the Great, a pious

and orthodox Christian, executed his governor of Palestine for insulting the

Patriarch.

At the same time, all the rabbis - who had to be designated by the Patriarch -

were freed from the most oppressive Roman taxes and received many official

privileges, such as exemption from serving on town councils (which was also one of

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 48 —

the first privileges later granted to the Christian clergy). In addition, the Patriarch

was empowered to tax the Jews and to discipline them by imposing fines, flogging

and other punishments. He used this power in order to suppress Jewish heresies and

(as we know from the Talmud) to persecute Jewish preachers who accused him of

taxing the Jewish poor for his personal benefit.

We know from Jewish sources that the tax-exempt rabbis

[55] used excommunication and other means within their power to enhance the

religious hegemony of the Patriarch. We also hear, mostly indirectly, of the hate and

scorn that many of the Jewish peasants and urban poor in Palestine had for the

rabbis, as well as of the contempt of the rabbis for the Jewish poor (usually expressed

as contempt for the 'ignorant'). Nevertheless, this typical colonial arrangement

continued, as it was backed by the might of the Roman Empire.

Similar arrangements existed, within each country, during the whole period of

classical Judaism. Their social effects on the Jewish communities differed, however,

according to the size of each community. Where there were few Jews, there was

normally little social differentiation within the community, which tended to be

composed of rich and middle~lass Jews, most of whom had considerable rabbinicaltalmudic education. But in countries where the number of Jews increased and a big

class of Jewish poor appeared, the same cleavage as the one described above

manifested itself, and we observe the rabbinical class, in alliance with the Jewish rich,

oppressing the Jewish poor in its own interest as well as in the interest of the state -

that is, of the Crown and the nobility.

This was, in particular, the situation in pre-1795 Poland. The specific

circumstances of Polish Jewry will be outlined below. Here I only want to point out

that because of the formation of a large Jewish community in that country, a deep

cleavage between the Jewish upper class (the rabbis and the rich) and the Jewish

masses developed there from the 18th century and continued throughout the 19th

century. So long as the Jewish community had power over its members, the incipient

revolts of the poor, who had to bear the main brunt of taxation, were suppressed by

the combined force of the naked coercion of Jewish 'self-rule' and religious sanction.

Because of all this, throughout the classical period (as well as in modern times)

the rabbis were the most loyal, not to say Zealous, supporters of the powers that be;

and the more reactionary the regime, the more rabbinical support it had.

3) The society of classical Judaism is in total opposition to the

surrounding non-Jewish society, except the king (or the nobles, when

they take over the state). This is amply illustrated in Chapter 5.

The consequences of these three social features, taken together, go a long way

towards explaining the history of classical Jewish communities both in Christian and

in Muslim countries.

The position of the Jews is particularly favorable under strong regimes which

have retained a feudal character, and in which national consciousness, even at a

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 49 —

rudimentary level, has

[56] not yet begun to develop. It is even more favorable in countries such as pre-1795

Poland or in the Iberian kingdoms before the latter half of the 15th century, where the

formation of a nationally based powerful feudal monarchy was temporarily or

permanently arrested. In fact, classical Judaism flourishes best under strong regimes

which are dissociated from most classes in society, and in such regimes the Jews

fulfill one of the functions of a middle class - but in a permanently dependent form.

For this reason they are opposed not only by the peasantry (whose opposition is then

unimportant, except for the occasional and rare popular revolt) but more importantly

by the non-Jewish middle class (which was on the rise in Europe), and by the

plebeian part of the clergy; and they are protected by the upper clergy and the

nobility. But in those countries where, feudal anarchy having been curbed, the

nobility enters into partnership with the king (and with at least part of the

bourgeoisie) to rule the state, which assumes a national or protonational form, the

position of the Jews deteriorates.

This general scheme, valid for Muslim and Christian countries alike, will now be

illustrated briefly by a few examples.

England, France and Italy

Since the first period of Jewish residence in England was so brief, and coincided

with the development of the English national feudal monarchy, this country can serve

as the best illustration of the above scheme. Jews were brought over to England by

William the Conqueror, as part of the French-speaking Norman ruling class, with the

primary duty of granting loans to those lords, spiritual and temporal, who were

otherwise unable to pay their feudal dues (which were particularly heavy in England

and more rigorously exacted in that period than in any other European monarchy).

Their greatest royal patron was Henry II, and the Magna Carta marked the beginning

of their decline, which continued during the conflict of the barons with Henry III. The

temporary resolution of this conflict by Edward I, with the formation of Parliament

and of 'ordinary' and fixed taxation, was accompanied by the expulsion of the Jews.

Similarly, in France the Jews flourished during the formation of the strong

feudal principalities in the 11th and 12th centuries, including the Royal Domain; and

their best protector among the Capetian kings was Louis VII (1137-80).

notwithstanding his deep and sincere Christian piety. At that time the Jews of France

counted themselves as knights (in Hebrew, parashim) and the leading Jewish

authority in France, Rabbenu Tam, warns them never to accept an invitation by a

[57] feudal lord to settle on his domain, unless they are accorded privileges similar to

those of other knights. The decline in their position beings with Philip II Augustus,

originator of the political and military alliance of the Crown with the rising urban

commune movement, and plummets under Philip IV the Handsome, who convoked

the first Estates General for the whole of France in order to gain support against the

pope. The final expulsion of Jews from the whole of France is closely bound up with

the firm establishment of the Crown's rights of taxation and the national character of

the monarchy.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 50 —

Similar examples can be given from other European countries where Jews were

living during that period. Reserving Christian Spain and Poland for a more detailed

discussion, we remark that in Italy, where many city states had a republican form of

power, the same regularity is discernible. Jews flourished especially in the Papal

States, in the twin feudal kingdoms of Sicily and Naples (until their expulsion, on

Spanish orders, circa 1500) and in the feudal enclaves of Piedmont. But in the great

commercial and independent cities such as Florence their number was small and

their social role unimportant.

The Muslim World

The same general scheme applies to Jewish communities during the classical

period in Muslim countries as well, except for the important fact that expulsion of

Jews, being contrary to Islamic law, was virtually unknown there. (Medieval Catholic

canon law, on the other hand, neither commands nor forbids such expulsion.)

Jewish communities flourished in the famous, but socially misinterpreted,

Jewish Golden Age in Muslim countries under regimes which were particularly

dissociated from the great majority of the people they ruled, and whose power rested

on nothing but naked force and a mercenary army. The best example is Muslim

Spain, where the very real Jewish Golden Age (of Hebrew poetry, grammar,

philosophy etc) begins precisely with the fall of the Spanish Umayyad caliphate after

the death of the de facto ruler, al-Mansur, in 1002, and the establishment of the

numerous ta'ifa (faction) kingdoms, all based on naked force. The rise of the famous

Jewish commander-in-chief and prime minister of the kingdom of Granada, Samuel

the Chief (Shmu'el Hannagid, died 1056), who was also one of the greatest Hebrew

poets of all ages, was based primarily on the fact that the kingdom which he served

was a tyranny of a rather small Berber military force over the Arabic-speaking

inhabitants. A similar situation obtained in the other ta'ifa

[58] Arab-Spanish kingdoms. The position of the Jews declined somewhat with the

establishment of the Almoravid regime (in 1086-90) and became quite precarious

under the strong and popular Almohad regime (after 1147) when, as a result of

persecutions, the Jews migrated to the Christian Spanish kingdoms, where the power

of the kings was still very slight.

Similar observations can be made regarding the states of the Muslim East. The

first state in which the Jewish community reached a position of important political

influence was the Fatimid empire, especially after the conquest of Egypt in 969,

because it was based on the rule of an Isma'ili-shi'ite religious minority. The same

phenomenon can be observed in the Seljuk states - based on feudal-type armies,

mercenaries and, increasingly, on slave troops (mamluks) - and in their successor

states. The favor of Saladin to the Jewish communities, first in Egypt, then in other

parts of this expanding empire, was based not only on his real personal qualities of

tolerance, charity and deep political wisdom, but equally on his rise to power as a

rebellious commander of mercenaries freshly arrived in Egypt and then as usurper of

the power of the dynasty which he and his father and uncle before him had served.

But perhaps the best Islamic example is the state where the Jews' position was

better than anywhere else in the East since the fall of the ancient Persian empire - the

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 51 —

Ottoman empire, particularly during its heyday in the 16th century. (11) As is well

known, the Ottoman regime was based initially on the almost complete exclusion of

the Turks themselves (not to mention other Muslims by birth) from positions of

political power and from the most important part of the army, the Janissary corps,

both of which were manned by the sultan's Christian-born slaves, abducted in

childhood and educated in special schools. Until the end of the 16th century no freeborn Turk could become a Janissary or hold any important government office. In

such a regime, the role of the Jews in their sphere was quite analogous to that of the

Janissaries in theirs. Thus the position of the Jews was best under a regime which

was politically most dissociated from the peoples it ruled. With the admission of the

Turks themselves (as well as some other Muslim peoples, such as the Albanians) to

the ruling class of the Ottoman empire, the position of the Jews declines. However,

this decline was not very sharp, because of the continuing arbitrariness and nonnational character of the Ottoman regime.

This point is very important, in my opinion, because the relatively good

situation of Jews under Islam in general, and under certain Islamic regimes in

particular, is used by many Palestinian and other Arab propagandists in a very

ignorant,

[59] albeit perhaps well-meaning, way. First, they generalize and reduce serious

questions of politics and history to mere slogans. Granted that the position of Jews

was, on average, much better under Islam than under Christianity - the important

question to ask is, under what regimes was it better or worse? We have seen where

such an analysis leads.

But, secondly and more importantly: in a pre-modern state, a 'better' position of

the Jewish community normally entailed a greater degree of tyranny exercised within

this community by the rabbis against other Jews. To give one example: certainly, the

figure of Saladin is one which, considering his period, inspires profound respect. But

together with this respect, I for one cannot forget that the enhanced privileges he

granted to the Jewish community in Egypt and his appointment of Maimonides as

their Chief (Nagid) immediately unleashed severe religious persecution of Jewish

'sinners' by the rabbis. For instance, Jewish 'priests' (supposed descendants of the

ancient priests who had served in the Temple) are forbidden to marry not only

prostitutes (12) but also divorcees. This latter prohibition, which has always caused

difficulties, was infringed during the anarchy under the last Fatimid rulers (circa

1130-80) by such 'priests' who, contrary to Jewish religious law, were married to

Jewish divorcees in Islamic courts (which are nominally empowered to marry nonMuslims). The greater tolerance towards 'the Jews' instituted by Saladin upon his

accession to power enabled Maimonides to issue orders to the rabbinical courts in

Egypt to seize all Jews who had gone through such forbidden marriages and have

them flogged until they 'agreed' to divorce their wives. (13) Similarly, in the Ottoman

empire the powers of the rabbinical courts were very great and consequently most

pernicious. Therefore the position of Jews in Muslim countries in the past should

never be used as a political argument in contemporary (or future) contexts.

Christian Spain

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 52 —

I have left to the last a discussion of the two countries where the position of the

Jewish community and the internal development of classical Judaism were most

important - Christian Spain (14) (or rather the Iberian peninsula, including Portugal)

and pre-1795 Poland.

Politically, the position of Jews in the Christian Spanish kingdoms was the

highest ever attained by Jews in any country (except some of the ta'ifas and under the

Fatimids) before the 19th century. Many Jews served officially as Treasurers General

[60] to the kings of Castile, regional and general tax collectors, diplomats

(representing their king in foreign courts, both Muslim and Christian, even outside

Spain), courtiers and advisers to rulers and great noblemen. And in no other country

except Poland did the Jewish community wield such great legal powers over the Jews

or used them so widely and publicly, including the power to inflict capital

punishment. From the 11th century the persecution of Karaites (a heretical Jewish

sect) by flogging them to death if unrepentant was common in Castile. Jewish women

who cohabited with Gentiles had their noses cut off by rabbis who explained that 'in

this way she will lose her beauty and her non-Jewish lover will come to hate her'.

Jews who had the effrontery to attack a rabbinical judge had their hands cut off.

Adulterers were imprisoned, after being made to run the gauntlet through the Jewish

quarter. In religious disputes, those thought to be heretics had their tongues cut out.

Historically, all this was associated with feudal anarchy and with the attempt of

a few 'strong' kings to rule through sheer force, disregarding the parliamentary

institutions, the Cortes, which had already come into existence. In this struggle, not

only the political and financial power of the Jews but also their military power (at

least in the most important kingdom, Castile) was very significant. One example will

suffice: both feudal mis- government and Jewish political influence in Castile reached

their peak under Pedro I, justly nick-named the Cruel. The Jewish communities of

Toledo, Burgos and many other cities served practically as his garrisons in the long

civil war between him and his half-brother, Henry of Trastamara, who after his

victory became Henry II (1369~79). (15) The same Pedro I gave the Jews of Castile

the right to establish a country-wide inquisition against Jewish religious deviants -

more than one hundred years before the establishment of the more famous Catholic

Holy Inquisition.

As in other western European countries, the gradual emergence of national

consciousness around the monarchy, which began under the house of Trastamara

and after ups and downs reached a culmination under the Catholic Kings Ferdinand

and Isabella, was accompanied first by a decline in the position of the Jews, then by

popular movements and pressures against them and finally by their expulsion. On the

whole the Jews were defended by the nobility and upper clergy. It was the more

plebeian sections of the church, particularly the mendicant orders, involved in the life

of the lower classes, which were hostile to them. The great enemies of the Jews,

Torquemada and Cardinal Ximenes, were also great reformers of the Spanish church,

making it much less corrupt and much more dependent

[61] on the monarchy instead of being the preserve of the feudal aristocracy.

Poland

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 53 —

The old pre-1795 Poland - a feudal republic with an elective king- is a converse

example; it illustrates how before the advent of the modern state the position of the

Jews was socially most important, and their internal autonomy greatest, under a

regime which was completely retarded to the point of utter degeneracy.

Due to many causes, medieval Poland lagged in its development behind

countries like England and France; a strong feudal-type monarchy - yet without any

parliamentary institutions - was formed there only in the 14th century, especially

under Casimir the Great (1333-70). Immediately after his death, changes of dynasty

and other factors led to a very rapid development of the power of the noble magnates,

then also of the petty nobility, so that by 1572 the process of reduction of the king to a

figure head and exclusion of all other non-noble estates from political power was

virtually complete. In the following two hundred years, the lack of government turned

into an acknowledged anarchy, to the point where a court decision in a case affecting

a nobleman was only a legal license to wage a private war to enforce the verdict (for

there was no other way to enforce it) and where feuds between great noble houses in

the 18th century involved private armies numbering tens of thousands, much larger

than the derisory forces of the official army of the Republic.

This process was accompanied by a debasement in the position of the Polish

peasants (who had been free in the early Middle Ages) to the point of utter serfdom,

hardly distinguishable from outright slavery and certainly the worst in Europe. The

desire of noblemen in neighboring countries to enjoy the power of the Polish pan over

his peasants (including the power of life and death without any right of appeal) was

instrumental in the territorial expansion of Poland. The situation in the 'eastern'

lands of Poland (Byelorussia and the Ukraine) - colonized and settled by newly

enserfed peasants - was worst of all. (16)

A small number of Jews (albeit in important positions) had apparently been

living in Poland since the creation of the Polish state. A significant Jewish

immigration into that country began in the 13th century and increased under Casimir

the Great, with the decline in the Jewish position in western and then in central

Europe. Not very much is known about Polish Jewry in

[62] that period. But with the decline of the monarchy in the 16th century -

particularly under Sigismund I the Old (1506-45) and his son Sigismund II Augustus

(1548-72) - Polish Jewry burst into social and political prominence accompanied, as

usual, with a much greater degree of autonomy. It was at this time that Poland's Jews

were granted their greatest privileges, culminating in the establishment of the famous

Committee of Four Lands, a very effective autonomous Jewish organ of rule and

jurisdiction over all the Jews in Poland's four divisions. One of its many important

functions was to collect all the taxes from Jews all over the country, deducting part of

the yield for its own use and for the use of local Jewish communities, and passing the

rest on to the state treasury.

What was the social role of Polish Jewry from the beginning of the 16th century

until 1795? With the decline of royal power, the king's usual role in relation to the

Jews was rapidly taken over by the nobility - with lasting and tragic results both for

the Jews themselves and for the common people of the Polish republic. All over

Poland the nobles used Jews as their agents to undermine the commercial power of

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 54 —

the Royal Towns, which were weak in any case. Alone among the countries of western

Christendom, in Poland a nobleman's property inside a Royal Town was exempt from

the town's laws and guild regulations. In most cases the nobles settled their Jewish

clients in such properties, thus giving rise to a lasting conflict. The Jews were usually

'victorious', in the sense that the towns could neither subjugate nor drive them off;

but in the frequent popular riots Jewish lives (and, even more, Jewish property) were

lost. The nobles still got the profits. Similar or worse consequences followed from the

frequent use of Jews as commercial agents of noblemen: they won exemption from

most Polish tolls and tariffs, to the loss of the native bourgeoisie.

But the most lasting and tragic results occurred in the eastern provinces of

Poland - roughly, the area east of the present border, including almost the whole of

the present Ukraine and reaching up to the Great-Russian language frontier. (Until

1667 the Polish border was far east of the Dnieper, so that Poltava, for example, was

inside Poland.) In those wide territories there were hardly any Royal Towns. The

towns were established by nobles and belonged to them - and they were settled

almost exclusively by Jews. Until 1939, the population of many Polish towns east of

the river Bug was at least 90 per cent Jewish, and this demographic phenomenon was

even more pronounced in that area of Tsarist Russia annexed from Poland and

Icnown as the Jewish Pale. Outside the towns very many Jews throughout Poland,

but especially in the east, were

[63] employed as the direct supervisors and oppressors of the enserfed peasantry - as

bailiffs of whole manors (invested with the landlord's full coercive powers) or as

lessees of particular feudal monopolies such as the corn mill, the liquor still and

public house (with the right of armed search of peasant houses for illicit stills) or the

bakery, and as collectors of customary feudal dues of all kinds. In short, in eastern

Poland, under the rule of the nobles (and of the feudalized church, formed exclusively

from the nobility) the Jews were both the immediate exploiters of the

peasantry and virtually the only town-dwellers.

No doubt, most of the profit they extracted from the peasants was passed on to

the landlords, in one way or another. No doubt, the oppression and subjugation of the

Jews by the nobles were severe, and the historical record tells many a harrowing tale

of the hardship and humiliation inflicted by noblemen on 'their' Jews. But, as we have

remarked, the peasants suffered worse oppression at the hands of both landlords and

Jews; and one may assume that, except in times of peasant uprisings, the full weight

of the Jewish religious laws against Gentiles fell upon the peasants. As will be seen in

the next chapter, these laws are suspended or mitigated in cases where it is feared

that they might arouse dangerous hostility towards Jews; but the hostility of the

peasants could be disregarded as ineffectual so long as the Jewish bailiff could shelter

under the 'peace' of a great lord.

The situation stagnated until the advent of the modern state, by which time

Poland had been dismembered. Therefore Poland was the only big country in western

Christendom from which the Jews were never expelled. A new middle class could not

arise out of the utterly enslaved peasantry; and the old bourgeoisie was

geographically limited and commercially weak, and therefore powerless. Overall,

matters got steadily worse, but without any substantial change.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 55 —

Internal conditions within the Jewish community moved in a similar course. In

the period 1500-1795, one of the most superstition-ridden in the history of Judaism,

Polish Jewry was the most superstitious and fanatic of all Jewish communities. The

considerable power of the Jewish autonomy was used increasingly to stifle all original

or innovative thought, to promote the most shameless exploitation of the Jewish poor

by the Jewish rich in alliance with the rabbis, and to justify~ the Jews' role in the

oppression of the peasants in the service of the nobles. Here, too, there was no way

out except by liberation from the outside. Pre-1795 Poland, where the social role of

the Jews was more important than in any other classical diaspora, illustrates better

than any other country the bankruptcy of classical Judaism.

[64]

Anti-Jewish Persecutions

During the whole period of classical Judaism, Jews were often subjected to

persecutions (17) - and this fact now serves as the main 'argument' of the apologists of

the Jewish religion with its anti-Gentile laws and especially of Zionism. Of course, the

Nazi extermination of five to six million European Jews is supposed to be the

crowning argument in that line. We must therefore consider this phenomenon and its

contemporary aspect. This is particularly important in view of the fact that the

descendants of the Jews of pre-1795 Poland (often called east-European Jews' - as

opposed to Jews from the German cultural domain of the early 19th century,

including the present Austria, Bohemia and Moravia) now wield predominant

political power in Israel as well as in the Jewish communities in the USA and other

English-speaking countries; and, because of their particular past history, this mode.

of thinking is especially entrenched among them, much more than among other Jews.

We must, first, draw a sharp distinction between the persecutions of' Jews

during the classical period on the one hand, and the Nazi extermination on the other.

The former were popular movements, coming from below; whereas the latter was

inspired, organized and carried out from above: indeed, by state officials. Such acts as

the Nazi state- organized extermination are relatively rare in human history, although

other cases do exist (the extermination of the Tasmanians and several other colonial

peoples, for example). Moreover, the Nazis intended to wipe out other peoples

besides the Jews: Gypsies were exterminated like Jews, and the extermination of

Slavs was well under way, with the systematic massacre of millions of civilians and

prisoners of war. However, it is the recurrent persecution of Jews in so many

countries during the classical period which is the model (and the excuse) for the

zionist politicians in their persecution of the Palestinians, as well as the argument

used by apologists of Judaism in general; and it is this phenomenon which we

consider now.

It must be pointed out that in all the worst anti-Jewish persecutions, that is,

where Jews were killed, the ruling elite - the emperor and the pope, the kings, the

higher aristocracy and the upper clergy, as well as the rich bourgeoisie in the

autonomous cities - were always on the side of the Jews. The latter's enemies

belonged to the more oppressed and exploited classes and those close to them in daily

life and interests, such as the friars of the mendicant orders. (18) It is true that

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 56 —

[65] in most (but I think not in all) cases members of the elite defended the Jews

neither out of considerations of humanity nor because of sympathy to the Jews as

such, but for the type of reason used generally by rulers in justification of their

interests - the fact that the Jews were useful and profitable (to them), defense of 'law

and order', hatred of the lower classes and fear that anti-Jewish riots might develop

into general popular rebellion. Still, the fact remains that they did defend the Jews.

For this reason all the massacres of Jews during the classical period were part of a

peasant rebellion or other popular movements at times when the government was for

some reason especially weak. This is true even in the partly exceptional case of Tsarist

Russia. The Tsarist government, acting surreptitiously through its secret police, did

promote pogroms; but it did so only when it was particularly weak (after the

assassination of Alexander II in 1881, and in the period immediately before and after

the 1905 revolution) and even then took care to contain the break~down of 'law and

order'. During the time of its greatest strength - for example, under Nicholas I or in

the latter part of the reign of Alexander III, when the opposition had been smashed -

pogroms were not tolerated by the Tsarist regime, although legal discrimination

against Jews was intensified.

The general rule can be observed in all the major massacres of Jews in Christian

Europe. During the first crusade, it was not the proper armies of the knights,

commanded by famous dukes and counts, which molested the Jews, but the

spontaneous popular hosts composed almost exclusively of peasants and paupers in

the wake of Peter the Hermit. In each city the bishop or the emperor's representative

opposed them and tried, often in vain, to protect the Jews. (19) The anti-Jewish riots

in England which accompanied the third crusade were part of a popular movement

directed also against royal officials, and some rioters were punished by Richard I. The

massacres of Jews during the outbreaks of the Black Death occurred against the strict

orders of the pope, the emperor, the bishops and the German princes. In the free

towns, for example in Strasbourg, they were usually preceded by a local revolution in

which the oligarchic town council, which protected the Jews, was overthrown and

replaced by a more popular one. The great 1391 massacres of Jews in Spain took place

under a feeble regency government and at a time when the papacy, weakened by the

Great Schism between competing popes, was unable to control the mendicant friars.

Perhaps the most outstanding example is the great massacre of Jews during the

Chmielnicki revolt in the Ukraine

[66] (1648), which started as a mutiny of Cossack officers but soon turned into a

widespread popular movement of the oppressed serfs: 'The unprivileged, the

subjects, the Ukrainians, the Orthodox [persecuted by the Polish Catholic church]

were rising against their Catholic Polish masters, particularly against their masters'

bailiffs, clergy and Jews. (20) This typical peasant uprising against extreme

oppression, an uprising accompanied not only by massacres committed by the rebels

but also by even more horrible atrocities and 'counter-terror' of the Polish magnates'

private armies, (21) has remained emblazoned in the consciousness of east-European

Jews to this very day - not, however, as a peasant uprising, a revolt of the oppressed,

of the real wretched of the earth, nor even as a vengeance visited upon all the servants

of the Polish nobility, but as an act of gratuitous antisemitism directed against Jews

as such. In fact, the voting of the Ukrainian delegation at the UN and, more generally,

Soviet policies on the Middle East, are often 'explained' in the Israeli press as 'a

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 57 —

heritage of Chmielnicki' or of his 'descendants'.

Modem Antisemitism

The character of anti-Jewish persecutions underwent a radical change in

modern times. With the advent of the modern state, the abolition of serfdom and the

achievement of minimal individual rights, the special socio-economic function of the

Jews necessarily disappears. Along with it disappear also the powers of the Jewish

community over its members; individual Jews in growing numbers win the freedom

to enter the general society of their countries. Naturally, this transition aroused a

violent reaction both on the part of Jews (especially their rabbis) and of those

elements in European society who opposed the open society and for whom the whole

process of liberation of the individual was anathema.

Modern antisemitism appears first in France and Germany, then in Russia, after

about 1870. Contrary to the prevalent opinion among Jewish socialists, I do not

believe that its beginnings or its subsequent development until the present day can be

ascribed to 'capitalism'. On the contrary, in my opinion the successful capitalists in all

countries were on the whole remarkably free from antisemitism, and the countries in

which capitalism was established first and in its most extensive form - such as

England and Belgium - were also those where antisemitism was far less widespread

than elsewhere. (22)

Early modern antisemitism (1880-1900) was a reaction of bewildered men, who

deeply hated modern society in all its

[67] aspects, both good and bad, and who were ardent believers in the conspiracy

theory of history. The Jews were cast in the role of scapegoat for the breakup of the

old society (which anti-semitic nostalgia imagined as even more closed and ordered

than it had ever been in reality) and for all that was disturbing in modern times. But

right at the start the antisemites were faced with what was, for them, a difficult

problem: how to define this scapegoat, particularly in popular terms? What is to be

the supposed common denominator of the Jewish musician, banker, craftsman and

beggar - especially after the common religious features had largely dissolved, at least

externally? The 'theory' of the Jewish race was the modern antisemitic answer to this

problem.

In contrast, the old Christian, and even more so Muslim opposition to classical

Judaism was remarkably free from racism. No doubt this was to some extent a

consequence of the universal character of Christianity and Islam, as well as of their

original connection with Judaism (St Thomas More repeatedly rebuked a woman who

objected when he told her that the Virgin Mary was Jewish). But in my opinion a far

more important reason was the social role of the Jews as an integral part of the upper

classes. In many countries Jews were treated as potential nobles and, upon

conversion, were able immediately to intermarry with the highest nobility. The

nobility of 15th century Castile and Aragon or the aristocracy of 18th century Poland -

to take the two cases where intermarriage with converted Jews was widespread -

would hardly be likely to marry Spanish peasants or Polish serfs, no matter how

much praise the Gospel has for the poor.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 58 —

It is the modern myth of the Jewish 'race' - of outwardly hidden but supposedly

dominant characteristics of 'the Jews', independent of history, of social role, of

anything - which is the formal and most important distinguishing mark of modern

antisemitism. This was in fact perceived by some Church leaders when modern

antisemitism first appeared as a movement of some strength. Some French Catholic

leaders, for example, opposed the new racist doctrine expounded by E. Drumont, the

first popular modern French antisemite and author of the notorious book La France

Juive (1886), which achieved wide circulation. (23) Early modern German

antisemites encountered similar opposition.

It must be pointed out that some important groups of European conservatives

were quite prepared to play along with modern antisemitism and use it for their own

ends, and the antisemites were equally ready to use the conservatives when the

occasion offered itself, although at bottom there was little

[68] similarity between the two parties. 'The victims who were most harshly treated

[by the pen of the above-mentioned Drumont] were not the Rothschilds but the great

nobles who courted them. Drumont did not spare the Royal Family ... or the bishops,

or for that matter the Pope. (24) Nevertheless, many of the French great nobles,

bishops and conservatives generally were quite happy to use Drumont and

antisemitism during the crisis of the Dreyfus affair in an attempt to bring down the

republican regime.

This type of opportunistic alliance reappeared many times in various European

countries until the defeat of Nazism. The conservatives' hatred of radicalism and

especially of all forms of socialism blinded many of them to the nature of their

political bedfellows. In many cases they were literally prepared to ally themselves

with the devil, forgetting the old saying that one needs a very long spoon to sup with

him.

The effectiveness of modern antisemitism, and of its alliance with conservatism,

depended on several factors.

First, the older tradition of Christian religious opposition to Jews, which existed

in many (though by no means all) European countries, could, if supported or at least

unopposed by the clergy, be harnessed to the antisemitic bandwagon. The actual

response of the clergy in each country was largely determined by specific local

historical and social circumstances. In the Catholic Church, the tendency for an

opportunistic alliance with antisemitism was strong in France but not in Italy; in

Poland and Slovakia but not in Bohemia. The Greek Orthodox Church had notorious

antisemitic tendencies in Romania but took the opposite line in Bulgaria. Among the

Protestant Churches, the German was deeply divided on this issue, others (such as

the Latvian and Estonian) tended to be antisemitic, but many (for example the Dutch,

Swiss and Scandinavian) were among the earliest to condemn antisemitism.

Secondly, antisemitism was largely a generic expression of xenophobia, a desire

for a 'pure' homogeneous society. But in many European countries around 1900 (and

in fact until quite recently) the Jew was virtually the only 'stranger'. This was

particularly true of Germany. In principle, the German racists of the early 20th

century hated and despised Blacks just as much as Jews; but there were no Blacks in

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 59 —

Germany then. Hate is of course much more easily focused on the present than on the

absent, especially under the conditions of the time, when mass travel and tourism did

not exist and most Europeans never left their own country in peacetime.

Thirdly, the successes of the tentative alliance between conservatism and

antisemitism were inversely proportional to the

[69] power and capabilities of its opponents. And the consistent and effective

opponents of antisemitism in Europe are the political forces of liberalism and

socialism - historically the same forces that continue in various ways the tradition

symbolized by the War of Dutch Independence (1568-1648), the English Revolution

and the Great French Revolution. On the European continent the main shibboleth is

the attitude towards the Great French Revolution - roughly speaking. those who are

for it are against antisemitism; those who accept it with regret would be at least prone

to an alliance with the antisemites; those who hate it and would like to undo its

achievements are the milieu from which antisemitism develops.

Nevertheless, a sharp distinction must be made between conservatives and even

reactionaries on the one hand and actual racists and antisemites on the other.

Modern racism (of which antisemitism is part) although caused by specific social

conditions, becomes, when it gains strength, a force that in my opinion can only be

described as demonic. After coming to power, and for its duration, I believe it defies

analysis by any presently understood social theory or set of merely social

observations - and in particular by any known theory invoking interests, be they class

or state interests, or other than purely psychological 'interests' of any entity that can

be defined in the present state of human knowledge. But this I do not mean that such

forces are unknowable in principle; on the contrary, one must hope that with the

growth of human knowledge they will come to be understood. But at present they are

neither understood nor capable of being rationally predicted - and this applies to all

racism in all societies. (25) As a matter of fact, no political figure or group of any

political color in any country had predicted even vaguely the horrors of Nazism. Only

artists and poets such as Heine were able to glimpse some of what the future had in

store. We do not know how they did it; and besides, many of their other hunches were

wrong.

The Zionist Response

Historically, zionism is both a reaction to antisemitism and a conservative

alliance with it - although the Zionists, like other European conservatives, did not

fully realize with whom they were allying themselves.

Until the rise of modern antisemitism, the mood of European Jewry was

optimistic, indeed excessively so. This was manifested not only in the very large

number of Jews, particularly in western countries, who simply opted out of classical

Judaism, apparently without any great regret, in the first or

[70] second generation after this became possible, but also in the formation of a

strong cultural movement, the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah), which began in

Germany and Austria around 1780, was then carried into eastern Europe and by

1850-70 was making itself felt as a considerable social force. I cannot enter here into

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 60 —

a discussion of the movement's cultural achievements, such as the revival of Hebrew

literature and the creation of a wonderful literature in Yiddish. However, it is

important to note that despite many internal differences, the movement as a whole

was characterized by two common beliefs: a belief in the need for a fundamental

critique of Jewish society and particularly of the social role of the Jewish religion in

its classical form, and the almost messianic hope for the victory of the 'forces of good'

in European societies. The latter forces were naturally defined by the sole criterion of

their support for Jewish emancipation.

The growth of antisemitism as a popular movement, and the many alliances of

the conservative forces with it, dealt a severe blow to the Jewish Enlightenment. The

blow was especially devastating because in actual fact the rise of antisemitism

occurred just after the Jews were emancipated in some European countries, and even

before they were freed in others. The Jews of the Austrian empire received fully equal

rights only in 1867. In Germany, some independent states emancipated their Jews

quite early, but others did not; notably, Prussia was grudging and tardy in this

matter, and final emancipation of the Jews in the German empire as a whole was only

granted by Bismarck in 1871. In the Ottoman empire the Jews were subject to official

discrimination until 1909, and in Russia (as well as Romania) until 1917. Thus

modern antisemitism began within a decade of the emancipation of the Jews in

central Europe and long before the emancipation of the biggest Jewish community at

that time, that of the Tsarist empire.

It is therefore easy for the Zionists to ignore half of the relevant facts, revert to

the segregationist stance of classical Judaism, and claim that since all Gentiles always

hate and persecute all Jews, the only solution would be to remove all the Jews bodily

and concentrate them in Palestine or Uganda or wherever. (26) Some early Jewish

critics of zionism were quick to point out that if one assumes a permanent and

ahistorical incompatibility between Jews and Gentiles an assumption shared by both

zionists and antisemites! - then to concentrate the Jews in one place would simply

bring upon them the hatred of the Gentiles in that part of the world (as indeed was to

happen, though for very different reasons). But as far as I know this logical argument

did not make any

[71] impression, just as all the logical and factual arguments against the myth of the

'Jewish race' made not the slightest difference to the antisemites.

In fact, close relations have always existed between Zionists and antisemites:

exactly like some of the European conservatives, the Zionists thought they could

ignore the 'demonic' character of antisemitism and use the antisemites for their own

purposes. Many examples of such alliances are well known. Herzl allied himself with

the notorious Count von Plehve, the antisemitic minister of Tsar Nicholas II; (27)

Jabotinsky made a pact with Petlyura, the reactionary Ukrainian leader whose forces

massacred some 100,000 Jews in 1918-21; Ben-Gurion's allies among the French

extreme right during the Algerian war included some notorious antisemites who

were, however, careful to explain that they were only against the Jews in France, not

in Israel.

Perhaps the most shocking example of this type is the delight with which some

Zionist leaders in Germany welcomed Hitler's rise to power, because they shared his

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 61 —

belief in the primacy of 'race' and his hostility to the assimilation of Jews among

'Aryans'. They congratulated Hitler on his triumph over the common enemy - the

forces of liberalism. Dr Joachim Prinz, a Zionist rabbi who subsequently emigrated to

the USA, where he rose to be vice-chairman of the World Jewish Congress and a

leading light in the World Zionist Organization (as well as a great friend of Golda

Meir), published in 1934 a special book, Wir Juden (We, Jews), to celebrate Hitler's

so- called German Revolution and the defeat of liberalism:

The meaning of the German Revolution for the German nation will eventually

be clear to those who have created it and formed its image. Its meaning for us must

be set forth here: the fortunes of liberalism are lost. The only form of political life

which has helped Jewish assimilation is sunk. (28)

The victory of Nazism rules out assimilation and mixed marriages as an option

for Jews. 'We are not unhappy about this,' said Dr Prinz. In the fact that Jews are

being forced to identify themselves as Jews, he sees 'the fulfillment of our desires'.

And further:

We want assimilation to be replaced by a new law: the declaration of

belonging to the Jewish nation and Jewish race. A state built upon the

principle of the purity of nation and race can only honored and respected by a Jew

who declares his belonging to his own kind. Having so declared himself, he will

never be capable of faulty loyalty towards a state. The state cannot want other Jews

but such as declare themselves as belonging to their nation. It will not want Jewish

flatterers and

[72]

 crawlers. It must demand of us faith and loyalty to our own interest. For only he

who honors his own breed and his own blood can have an attitude of honor towards

the national will of other nations. (29)

The whole book is full of similar crude flatteries of Nazi ideology, glee at the

defeat of liberalism and particularly of the ideas of the French Revolution (30) a and

great expectations that, in the congenial atmosphere of the myth of the Aryan race,

Zionism and the myth of the Jewish race will also thrive.

Of course, Dr Prinz, like many other early sympathizers and allies of Nazism,

did not realize where that movement (and modern antisemitism generally) was

leading. Equally, many people at present do not realize where zionism - the

movement in which Dr Prinz was an honored figure - is tending: to a combination of

all the old hates of classical Judaism towards Gentiles and to the indiscriminate and

ahistorical use of all the persecutions of Jews throughout history in order to justify

the zionist persecution of the Palestinians.

For, insane as it sounds, it is nevertheless plain upon close examination of the

real motives of the zionists, that one of the most deep-seated ideological sources of

the Zionist establishment's persistent hostility towards the Palestinians is the fact

that they are identified in the minds of many east-European Jews with the rebellious

east-European peasants who participated in the Chmielnicki uprising and in similar

revolts - and the latter are in turn identified ahistorically with modern antisemitism

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 62 —

and Nazism.

Confronting the Past

All Jews who really want to extricate themselves from the tyranny of the

totalitarian Jewish past must face the question of their attitude towards the popular

anti-Jewish manifestations of the past, particularly those connected with the

rebellions of enserfed peasants. On the other side, all the apologists of the Jewish

religion and of Jewish segregationism and chauvinism also take their stand - both

ultimately and in current debates - on the same question. The undoubted fact that the

peasant revolutionaries committed shocking atrocities against Jews (as well as

against their other oppressors) is used as an 'argument' by those apologists, in exactly

the same way that the Palestinian terror is used to justify the denial of justice to the

Palestinians.

Our own answer must be a universal one, applicable in principle to all

comparable cases. And, for a Jew who truly seeks liberation from Jewish

particularism and racism and from

[73] the dead hand of the Jewish religion, such an answer is not very difficult.

After all, revolts of oppressed peasants against their masters and their masters'

bailiffs are common in human history. A generation after the Chmielnicki uprising of

the Ukrainian peasants, the Russian peasants rose under the leadership of Stenka

Ryazin, and again. one hundred years later, in the Pugachev rebellion. In Germany

there was the Peasant War of 1525, in France the Jacquerie of 1357-8 and many other

popular revolts, not to mention the many slave uprisings in all parts of the world. All

of them - and I have intentionally chosen to mention examples in which Jews were

not targets - were attended by horrifying massacres, just as the Great French

Revolution was accompanied by appalling acts of terror. What is the position of true

progressives - and, by now, of most ordinary decent educated people be they Russian,

German or French - on these rebellions? Do decent English historians, even when

noting the massacres of Englishmen by rebellious Irish peasants rising against their

enslavement, condemn the latter as 'anti-English racists'? What is the attitude of

progressive French historians towards the great slave revolution in Santo Domingo,

where many French women and children were butchered? To ask the question is to

answer it. But to ask a similar question of many 'progressive' or even socialist' Jewish

circles is to receive a very different answer; here an enslaved peasant is transformed

into a racist monster, if Jews profited from his state of slavery and exploitation.

The maxim that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it

applies to those Jews who refuse to come to terms with the Jewish past: they have

become its slaves and are repeating it in Zionist and Israeli policies. The State of

Israel now fulfills towards the oppressed peasants of many countries - not only in the

Middle East but also far beyond it - a role not unlike that of the Jews in pre-1795

Poland: that of a bailiff to the imperial oppressor. It is characteristic and instructive

that Israel's major role in arming the forces of the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, and

those of Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and the rest has not given rise to any wide

public debate in Israel or among organized Jewish communities in the diaspora. Even

the narrower question of expediency - whether the selling of weapons to a dictatorial

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 63 —

butcher of freedom fighters and peasants is in the long term interest of Jews - is

seldom asked. Even more significant is the large part taken in this business by

religious Jews, and the total silence of their rabbis (who are very vocal in inciting

hatred against Arabs). It seems that Israel and Zionism are a throw-back to

[74] the role of classical Judaism - writ large, on a global scale, and under more

dangerous circumstances.

The only possible answer to all this, first of all by Jews, must be that given by all

true advocates of freedom and humanity in all countries, all peoples and all great

philosophies- limited though they sometimes are, as the human condition itself is

limited. We must confront the Jewish past and those aspects of the present which are

based simultaneously on lying about that past and worshiping it. The prerequisites

for this are, first, total honesty about the facts and, secondly, the belief (leading to

action, whenever possible) in universalist human principles of ethics and politics.

The ancient Chinese sage Mencius (4th century BC), much admired by Voltaire,

once wrote:

This is why I say that all men have a sense of commiseration: here is a man

who suddenly notices a child about to falI into a well. Invariably he will feel a sense

of alarm and compassion. And this is not for the purpose of gaining the favor of the

child's parents or of seeking the approbation of his neighbors and friends, or for fear

of blame should he fail to rescue it. Thus we see that no man is without a sense of

compassion or a sense of shame or a sense of courtesy or a sense of right and wrong.

The sense of compassion is the beginning of humanity, the sense of shame is the

beginning of righteousness, and sense of courtesy is the beginning of decorum, the

sense of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. Every man has within himself

these four beginnings, just as he has four limbs. Since everyone has these four

beginnings within him, the man who considers himself incapable of exercising them

is destroying himself.

We have seen above, and will show in greater detail in the next chapter how far

removed from this are the precepts with which the Jewish religion in its classical and

talmudic form is poisoning minds and hearts.

The road to a genuine revolution in Judaism - to making it humane, allowing

Jews to understand their own past, thereby re-educating themselves out of its

tyranny - lies through an unrelenting critique of the Jewish religion. Without fear or

favor, we must speak out against what belongs to our own past as Voltaire did against

his:

Écrasez l'infâme!

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 64 —

[75]

Chapter 5

The Laws Against Non-Jews

As explained in Chapter 3, the Halakhah, that is the legal system of classical

Judaism - as practiced by virtually all Jews from the 9th century to the end of the l8th

and as maintained to this very day in the form of Orthodox Judaism - is based

primarily on the Babylonian Talmud. However, because of the unwieldy complexity

of the legal disputations recorded in the Talmud, more manageable codifications of

talmudic law became necessary and were indeed compiled by successive generations

of rabbinical scholars. Some of these have acquired great authority and are in general

use. For this reasons we shall refer for the most part to such compilations (and their

most reputable commentaries) rather than directly to the Talmud. It is however

correct to assume that the compilation referred to reproduces faithfully the meaning

of the talmudic text and the additions made by later scholars on the basis of that

meaning.

The earliest code of talmudic law which is still of major importance is the

Mishneh Torah written by Moses Maimonides in the late 12th century. The most

authoritative code, widely used to date as a handbook, is the Shulhan 'Arukh

composed by R. Yosef Karo in the late 16th century as a popular condensation of his

own much more voluminous Beys Yosef which was intended for the advanced

scholar. The Shulhan 'Arukh is much commented upon; in addition to classical

commentaries dating from the 17th century, there is an important 20th century one,

Mishnah Berurah. Finally, the Talmudic Encyclopedia - a modern compilation

published in Israel from the 1950s and edited by the country's greatest Orthodox

rabbinical scholars - is a good compendium of the whole talmudic literature.

Murder and Genocide

According to the Jewish religion, the murder of a Jew is a capital offense and

one of the three most heinous sins (the other two being idolatry and adultery). Jewish

religious courts and secular authorities are commanded to punish, even beyond the

limits of the ordinary administration of justice, anyone guilty of murdering a Jew. A

Jew who indirectly causes the death of another Jew is, however, only guilty of what

talmudic law calls a sin against the 'laws of Heaven', to be punished by God rather

than by man.

[76]

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 65 —

When the victim is a Gentile, the position is quite different. A Jew who murders

a Gentile is guilty only of a sin against the laws of Heaven, not punishable by a court.

(1) To cause indirectly the death of a Gentile is no sin at all. (2)

Thus, one of the two most important commentators on the Shulhan Arukh

explains that when it comes to a Gentile, 'one must not lift one's hand to harm him,

but one may harm him indirectly, for instance by removing a ladder after he had

fallen into a crevice … there is no prohibition here, because it was not done directly’

(3) He points out, however, that an act leading indirectly to a Gentile's death is

forbidden if it may cause the spread of hostility towards Jews. (4)

A Gentile murderer who happens to be under Jewish jurisdiction must be

executed whether the victim was Jewish or not. However, if the victim was Gentile

and the murderer converts to Judaism, he is not punished. (5)

All this has a direct and practical relevance to the realities of the State of Israel.

Although the state's criminal laws make no distinction between Jew and Gentile, such

distinction is certainly made by Orthodox rabbis, who in guiding their flock follow the

Halakhah. Of special importance is the advice they give to religious soldiers.

Since even the minimal interdiction against murdering a Gentile outright

applies only to 'Gentiles with whom we [the Jews] are not at war', various rabbinical

commentators in the past drew the logical conclusion that in wartime all Gentiles

belonging to a hostile population may, or even should be killed. (6) Since 1973 this

doctrine is being publicly propagated for the guidance of religious Israeli soldiers.

The first such official exhortation was included in a booklet published by the Central

Region Command of the Israeli Army, whose area includes the West Bank. In this

booklet the Command's Chief Chaplain writes:

When our forces come across civilians during a war or in hot pursuit or in a

raid, so long as there is no certainty that those civilians are incapable of harming our

forces, then according to the Halakhah they may and even should be killed... Under

no circumstances should an Arab be trusted, even if he makes an impression of

being civilized ... In war, when our forces storm the enemy, they are allowed and

even enjoined by the Halakhah to kill even good civilians, that is, civilians who are

ostensibly good. (7)

The same doctrine is expounded in the following exchange of letters between a

young Israeli soldier and his rabbi, published in the yearbook of one of the country's

most prestigious religious

[77] colleges, Midrashiyyat No'am, where many leaders and activists of the National

Religious Party and Gush Emunim have been educated. (8)

Letter from the soldier Moshe to Rabbi Shim 'on Weiser '

With God's help, to His Honor, my dear Rabbi,

'First I would like to ask how you and your family are. I hope all is well. I

am, thank God, feeling well. A long time I have not written. Please forgive me.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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Sometimes I recall the verse "when shall I come and appear before God?' (9) I

hope, without being certain, that I shall come during one of the leaves. I must

do so.

'In one of the discussions in our group, there was a debate about the

"purity of weapons" and we discussed whether it is permitted to kill unarmed

men - or women and children? Or perhaps we should take revenge on the

Arabs? And then everyone answered according to his own understanding. I

could not arrive at a clear decision, whether Arabs should be treated like the

AmeIekites, meaning that one is permitted to murder [sic] them until their

remembrance is blotted out from under heaven, (10) or perhaps one should do

as in a just war, in which one kills only the soldiers?

'A second problem I have is whether I am permitted to put myself in

danger by allowing a woman to stay alive? For there have been cases when

women threw hand grenades. Or am I permitted to give water to an Arab who

put his hand up? For there may be reason to fear that he only means to deceive

me and will kill me, and such things have happened.

'I conclude with a warm greeting to the rabbi and all his family. - Moshe.'

Reply of. Shun 'on Weiser to Moshe

'With the help of Heaven. Dear Moshe, Greetings.

'I am starting this letter this evening although I know I cannot finish it

this evening, both because I am busy and because I would like to make it a

long letter, to answer your questions in full, for which purpose I shall have to

copy out some of the sayings of our sages, of blessed memory, and interpret

them. (11)

'The non-Jewish nations have a custom according to which war has its

own rules, like those of a game, like the rules of football or basketball. But

according to the sayings of our sages, of blessed memory, [...] war for us is

not a game but a vital necessity, and only by this standard must we decide

how to wage

[78]

it. On the one hand [...] we seem to learn that if a Jew murders a Gentile, he

is regarded as a murderer and, except for the fact that no court has the right

to punish him, the gravity of the deed is like that of any other murder. But we

find in the very same authorities in another place [...] that Rabbi Shim'on

used to say: "The best of Gentiles - kill him; the best of snakes dash out its

brains."

'It might perhaps be argued that the expression "kill" in the saying of R.

Shim'on is only figurative and should not be taken literally but as meaning

"oppress" or some similar attitude, and in this way we also avoid a

contradiction with the authorities quoted earlier. Or one might argue that

this saying, though meant literally, is [merely] his own personal opinion,

disputed by other sages [quoted earlier]. But we find the true explanation in

the Tosalot. (12) There [...] we learn the following comment on the talmudic

pronouncement that Gentiles who fall into a well should not be helped out,

but neither should they be pushed into the well to be killed, which means that

they should neither be saved from death nor killed directly. And the Tosafot

write as follows:

"And if it is queried [because] in another place it was said The best of

Gentiles - kill him, then the answer is that this [saying] is meant for

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 67 —

wartime." [...]

'According to the commentators of the Tosafot, a distinction must be

made between wartime and peace, so that although during peace time it is

forbidden to kill Gentiles, in a case that occurs in wartime it is a mitzvah

[imperative, religious duty] to kill them.[...]

'And this is the difference between a Jew and a Gentile: although the

rule "Whoever comes to kill you, kill him first" applies to a Jew, as was said in

Tractate Sanhedrin [of the Talmud], page 72a, still it only applies to him if

there is [actual] ground to fear that he is coming to kill you. But a Gentile

during wartime is usually to be presumed so, except when it is quite clear that

he has no evil intent. This is the rule of "purity of weapons" according to the

Halakhah - and not the alien conception which is now accepted in the Israeli

army and which has been the cause of many [Jewish] casualties. I enclose a

newspaper cutting with the speech made last week in the Knesset by Rabbi

Kalman Kahana, which shows in a very lifelike - and also painful - way how

this "purity of weapons" has caused deaths.

'I conclude here, hoping that you will not find the length of this letter

irksome. This subject was being discussed even without your letter, but your

letter caused me to write up the whole matter.

[79]

'Be in peace, you and all Jews, and [I hope to] see you soon, as you say.

Yours - Shim'on.

Reply of Moshe to R. Shim'on Weiser

'To His Honor, my dear Rabbi,

'First I hope that you and your family are in health and are all right.

'I have received your long letter and am grateful for your personal watch

over me, for I assume that you write to many, and most of your time is taken

up with your studies in your own program.

'Therefore my thanks to you are doubly deep.

'As for the letter itself, I have understood it as follows:

'In wartime I am not merely permitted, but enjoined to kill every Arab

man and woman whom I chance upon, if there is reason to fear that they help

in the war against us, directly or indirectly. And as far as I am concerned I

have to kill them even if that might result in an involvement with the military

law. I think that this matter of the purity of weapons should be transmitted to

educational institutions, at least the religious ones, so that they should have a

position about this subject and so that they will not wander in the broad

fields of "logic", especially on this subject; and the rule has to be explained as

it should be followed in practice. For, I am sorry to say, I have seen different

types of "logic" here even among the religious comrades. I do hope that you

shall be active in this, so that our boys will know the line of their ancestors

clearly and unambiguously.

'I conclude here, hoping that when the [training] course ends, in about a

month, I shall be able to come to the yeshivah [talmudic college]. Greetings -

Moshe.'

Of course, this doctrine of the Halakhah on murder clashes, in principle, not

only with Israel's criminal law but also - as hinted in the letters just quoted - with

official military standing regulations. However, there can be little doubt that in

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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practice this doctrine does exert an influence on the administration of justice,

especially by military authorities. The fact is that in all cases where Jews have, in a

military or paramilitary context, murdered Arab non-combatants - including cases of

mass murder such as that in Kafr Qasim in 1956 - the murderers, if not let off

altogether, received extremely light sentences or won far-reaching remissions,

reducing their punishment to next to nothing. (13)

[80]

Saving of Life

This subject - the supreme value of human life and the obligation of every

human being to do the outmost to save the life of a fellow human - is of obvious

importance in itself. It is also of particular interest in a Jewish context, in view of the

fact that since the second world war Jewish opinion has - in some cases justly, in

others unjustly - condemned 'the whole world' or at least all Europe for standing by

when Jews were being massacred. Let us therefore examine what the Halakhah has

to say on this subject.

According to the Halakhah, the duty to save the life of a fellow Jew is

paramount. (14) It supersedes all other religious obligations and interdictions,

excepting only the prohibitions against the three most heinous sins of adultery

(including incest), murder and idolatry.

As for Gentiles, the basic talmudic principle is that their lives must not be saved,

although it is also forbidden to murder them outright. The Talmud itself (15)

expresses this in the maxim 'Gentiles are neither to be lifted [out of a well] nor hauled

down [into it]'. Maimonides (16) explains:

"As for Gentiles with whom we are not at war ... their death must not be

caused, but it is forbidden to save them if they are at the point of death; if, for

example, one of them is seen falling into the sea, he should not be rescued,

for it is written: 'neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy fellow' (17) -

but [a Gentile] is not thy fellow."

In particular, a Jewish doctor must not treat a Gentile patient. Maimonides -

himself an illustrious physician - is quite explicit on this; in another passage (18) he

repeats the distinction between 'thy fellow' and a Gentile, and concludes: 'and from

this learn ye, that it is forbidden to heal a Gentile even for payment...'

However, the refusal of a Jew - particularly a Jewish doctor - to save the life of a

Gentile may, if it becomes known, antagonize powerful Gentiles and so put Jews in

danger. Where such danger exists, the obligation to avert it supersedes the ban on

helping the Gentile. Thus Maimonides continues: ' ... but if you fear him or his

hostility, cure him for payment, though you are forbidden to do so without payment.'

In fact, Maimonides himself was Saladin's personal physician. His insistence on

demanding payment - presumably in order to make sure that the act is not one of

human charity but an unavoidable duty - is however not absolute. For in another

passage he allows Gentile whose hostility is feared to be treated 'even gratis, if it is

unavoidable'.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 69 —

[81]

The whole doctrine - the ban on saving a Gentile's life or healing him, and the

suspension of this ban in cases where there is fear of hostility - is repeated (virtually

verbatim) by other major authorities, including the 14th century Arba'ah Turim and

Karo's Beyt Yosef and Shulhan 'Arukh. (19) Beyt Yosef adds, quoting Maimonides:

'And it is permissible to try out a drug on a heathen, if this serves a purpose'; and this

is repeated also by the famous R. Moses Isserles.

The consensus of halakhic authorities is that the term 'Gentiles' in the above

doctrine refers to all non-Jews. A lone voice of dissent is that of R. Moses Rivkes,

author of a minor commentary on the Shulhan Arukh, who writes. (20)

Our sages only said this about heathens, who in their day worshipped idols

and did not believe in the Jewish Exodus from Egypt or in the creation of the world

ex nihilo. But the Gentiles in whose [protective] shade we, the people of Israel, are

exiled and among whom we are scattered do believe in the creation of the world ex

nihilo and in the Exodus and in several principles of our own religion and they pray

to the Creator of heaven and earth ... Not only is there no interdiction against

helping them, but we are even obliged to pray for their safety.

This passage, dating from the second half of the 17th century, is a favorite quote

of apologetic scholars. (21) Actually, it does not go nearly as far as the apologetics

pretend, for it advocates removing the ban on saving a Gentile's life, rather than

making it mandatory as in the case of a Jew; and even this liberality extends only to

Christians and Muslims but not the majority of human beings. Rather, what it does

show is that there was a way in which the harsh doctrine of the Halakhah could

have been progressively liberalized. But as a matter of fact the majority of later

halakhic authorities, far from extending Rivkes' leniency to other human groups,

have rejected it altogether.

Desecrating the Sabbath to Save Life

Desecrating the Shabbath - that is, doing work that would otherwise be banned

on Saturday - becomes a duty when the need to save a Jew's life demands it.

The problem of saving a Gentile's life on the sabbath is not raised in the Talmud

as a main issue, since it is in any case forbidden even on a weekday; it does however

enter as a complicating factor in two connections.

First, there is a problem where a group of people are in danger, and it is possible

(but not certain) that there is at least one Jew among them: should the sabbath be

desecrated in

[82] order to save them? There is an extensive discussion of such cases. Following

earlier authorities, including Maimonides and the Talmud itself, the Shulhan ‘Arukh

(22) decides these matters according to the weight of probabilities. For example,

suppose nine Gentiles and one Jew live in the same building. One Saturday the

building collapses; one of the ten - it is not known which one - is away, but the other

nine are trapped under the rubble. Should the rubble be cleared, thus desecrating the

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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sabbath, seeing that the Jew may not be under it (he may have been the one that got

away)? The Shulhan 'Arukh says that it should, presumably because the odds that the

Jew is under the rubble are high (nine to one). But now suppose that nine have got

away and only one - again, it is not known which one - is trapped. Then there is no

duty to clear the rubble, presumably because this time there are long odds (nine to

one) against the Jew being the person trapped. Similarly: 'If a boat containing some

Jews is seen to be in peril upon the sea, it is a duty incumbent upon all to desecrate

the sabbath in order to save it.' However, the great R. 'Aqiva Eiger (died 1837)

comments that this applies only 'when it is known that there are Jews on board. But

... if nothing at all is known about the identity of those on board, [the sabbath] must

not be desecrated, for one acts according to [the weight of probabilities, and] the

majority of people in the world are Gentiles.’ (23) Thus, since there are very long odds

against any of the passengers being Jewish, they must be allowed to drown.

Secondly, the provision that a Gentile may be saved or cared for in order to

avert the danger of hostility is curtailed on the sabbath. A Jew called upon to help a

Gentile on a weekday may have to comply because to admit that he is not allowed, in

principle, to save the life of a non-Jew would be to invite hostility. But on Saturday

the Jew can use sabbath observance as a plausible excuse. A paradigmatic case

discussed at length in the Talmud (24) is that of a Jewish midwife invited to help a

Gentile woman in childbirth. The upshot is that the midwife is allowed to help on a

weekday 'for fear of hostility', but on the sabbath she must not do so, because she can

excuse herself by saying: 'We are allowed to desecrate the sabbath only for our own,

who observe the sabbath, but for your people, who do not keep the sabbath, we are

not allowed to desecrate it.' Is this explanation a genuine one or merely an excuse?

Maimonides clearly thinks that it is just an excuse, which can be used even if the task

that the midwife is invited to do does not actually involve any desecration of the

sabbath. Presumably, the excuse will work just as well even in this case, because

Gentiles are generally in the dark as to precisely which

[83] kinds of work are banned for Jews on the sabbath. At any rate, he decrees: 'A

Gentile woman must not be helped in childbirth on the sabbath, even for payment;

nor must one fear hostility, even when [such help involves] no desecration of the

sabbath.' The Shulhan 'Arukh decrees likewise. (25)

Nevertheless, this sort of excuse could not always be relied upon to do the trick

and avert Gentile hostility. Therefore certain important rabbinical authorities had to

relax the rules to some extent and allowed Jewish doctors to treat Gentiles on the

sabbath even if this involved doing certain types of work normally banned on that

day. This partial relaxation applied particularly to rich and powerful Gentile patients,

who could not be fobbed off so easily and whose hostility could be dangerous.

Thus, R. Yo'el Sirkis, author of Bayit Hadash and one of the greatest rabbis of

his time (Poland, 17th century), decided that 'mayors, petty nobles and aristocrats'

should be treated on the sabbath, because of the fear of their hostility which involves

'some danger'. But in other cases, especially when the Gentile can be fobbed off with

an evasive excuse, a Jewish doctor would commit 'an unbearable sin' by treating him

on the sabbath. Later in the same century, a similar verdict was given in the French

city of Metz, whose two parts were connected by a pontoon bridge. Jews are not

normally allowed to cross such a bridge on the sabbath, but the rabbi of Metz decided

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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that a Jewish doctor may nevertheless do so 'if he is called to the great governor':

since the doctor is known to cross the bridge for the sake of his Jewish patients, the

governor's hostility could be aroused if the doctor refused to do so for his sake. Under

the authoritarian rule of Louis XIV, it was evidently important to have the goodwill of

his intendant; the feelings of lesser Gentiles were of little importance. (26)

Hokhmat Shlomoh, a 19th century commentary on the Shulhan 'Arukh,

mentions a similarly strict interpretation of the concept 'hostility' in connection with

the Karaites, a small heretical Jewish sect. According to this view, their lives must not

be saved if that would involve desecration of the sabbath, 'for "hostility" applies only

to the heathen, who are many against us, and we are delivered into their hands .. But

the Karaites are few and we are not delivered into their hands, [so] the fear of

hostility does not apply to them at all.' (27) In fact, the absolute ban on desecrating

the sabbath in order to save the life of a Karaite is still in force today, as we shall see.

The whole subject is extensively discussed in the responsa of R. Moshe Sofer -

better known as 'Hatam Sofer' – the

[84] famous rabbi of Pressburg (Bratislava) who died in 1832. His conclusions are of

more than historical interest, since in 1966 one of his responsa was publicly endorsed

by the then Chief Rabbi of Israel as 'a basic institution of the Halakhah'. (28) The

particular question asked of Hatam Sofer concerned the situation in Turkey, where it

was decreed during one of the wars that in each township or village there should be

midwives on call, ready to hire themselves out to any woman in labor. Some of these

midwives were Jewish; should they hire themselves out to help Gentile women on

weekdays and on the sabbath?

In his responsum, (29) Hatam Sofer first concludes, after careful investigation,

that the Gentiles concerned - that is, Ottoman Christians and Muslims - are not only

idolators 'who definitely worship other gods and thus should "neither be lifted [out of

a well] nor hauled down",' but are likened by him to the Amalekites, so that the

talmudic ruling 'it is forbidden to multiply the seed of Amalek' applies to them. In

principle, therefore, they should not be helped even on weekdays. However, in

practice it is 'permitted' to heal Gentiles and help them in labor, if they have doctors

and midwives of their own, who could be called instead of the Jewish ones. For if

Jewish doctors and midwives refused to attend to Gentiles, the only result would be

loss of income to the former - which is of course undesirable. This applies equally on

weekdays and on the sabbath, provided no desecration of the sabbath is involved.

However, in the latter case the sabbath can serve as an excuse to 'mislead the heathen

woman and say that it would involve desecration of the sabbath'.

In connection with cases that do actually involve desecration of the sabbath,

Hatam Sofer - like other authorities - makes a distinction between two categories of

work banned on the sabbath. First, there is work banned by the Torah, the biblical

text (as interpreted by the Talmud); such work may only be performed in very

exceptional cases, if failing to do so would cause an extreme danger of hostility

towards Jews. Then there are types of work which are only banned by the sages who

extended the original law of the Torah; the attitude towards breaking such bans is

generally more lenient.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 72 —

Another responsum of Hatam Sofer (30) deals with the question whether it is

permissible for a Jewish doctor to travel by carriage on the sabbath in order to heal a

Gentile. After pointing out that under certain conditions traveling by horsedrawn

carriage on the sabbath only violates a ban imposed 'by the sages' rather than by the

Torah, he goes on to recall

[85] Maimonides' pronouncement that Gentile women in labor must not be helped

on the sabbath, even if no desecration of the sabbath is involved, and states that the

same principle applies to all medical practice, not just midwifery. But he then voices

the fear that if this were put into practice, 'it would arouse undesirable hostility,' for

'the Gentiles would not accept the excuse of sabbath observance,' and 'would say that

the blood of an idolator has little worth in our eyes'. Also, perhaps more importantly,

Gentile doctors might take revenge on their Jewish patients. Better excuses must be

found. He advises a Jewish doctor who is called to treat a Gentile patient out of town

on the sabbath to excuse himself by saying that he is required to stay in town in order

to look after his other patients, 'for he can use this in order to say, "I cannot move

because of the danger to this or that patient, who needs a doctor first, and I may not

desert my charge" … With such an excuse there is no fear of danger, for it is a

reasonable pretext, commonly given by doctors who are late in arriving because

another patient needed them first.' Only 'if it is impossible to give any excuse' is the

doctor permitted to travel by carriage on the sabbath in order to treat a Gentile.

In the whole discussion, the main issue is the excuses that should be made, not

the actual healing or the welfare of the patient. And throughout it is taken for granted

that it is all right to deceive Gentiles rather than treat them, so long as 'hostility' can

be averted. (31)

Of course, in modern times most Jewish doctors are not religious and do not

even know of these rules. Moreover, it appears that even many who are religious

prefer to their credit - to abide by the Hippocratic oath rather than by the precepts of

their fanatic rabbis. (32) However, the rabbis' guidance cannot fail to have some

influence on some doctors; and there are certainly many who, while not actually

following that guidance, choose not to protest against it publicly.

All this is far from being a dead issue. The most up- to-date halakhic position on

these matters is contained in a recent concise and authoritative book published in

English under the title Jewish Medical Law. (33) This book, which bears the imprint

of the prestigious Israeli foundation Mossad Harav Kook, is based on the responsa of

R. Eli'ezer Yehuda Waldenberg, Chief Justice of the Rabbinical District Court of

Jerusalem. A few passages of this work deserve special mention.

First, 'it is forbidden to desecrate the sabbath ... for a Karaite.' (34) This is stated

bluntly, absolutely and without any further qualification. Presumably the hostility of

this small sect makes no difference, so they should be allowed to die rather

[86] than be treated on the sabbath.

As for Gentiles: 'According to the ruling stated in the Talmud and Codes of

Jewish Law, it is forbidden to desecrate the Sabbath - whether violating Biblical or

rabbinic law - in order to save the life of a dangerously ill gentile patient. It is also

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 73 —

forbidden to deliver the baby of a gentile women on the Sabbath.' (35)

But this is qualified by a dispensation: 'However, today it is permitted to

desecrate the Sabbath on behalf of a Gentile by performing actions prohibited by

rabbinic law, for by so doing one prevents ill feelings from arising between Jew and

Gentile.' (36)

This does not go very far, because medical treatment very often involves acts

banned on the sabbath by the Torah itself, which are not covered by this

dispensation. There are, we are told, 'some' halakhic authorities who extend the

dispensation to such acts as well - but this is just another way of saying that most

halakhic authorities, and the ones that really count, take the opposite view. However,

all is not lost. Jewish Medical Law has a truly breathtaking solution to this difficulty.

The solution hangs upon a nice point of talmudic law. A ban imposed by the

Torah on performing a given act on the sabbath is presumed to apply only when the

primary intention in performing it is the actual outcome of the act. (For example,

grinding wheat is presumed to be banned by the Torah only if the purpose is actually

to obtain flour.) On the other hand, if the performance of the same act is merely

incidental to some other purpose (melakhah seh'eynah tzrikhah legufah) then the act

changes its status - it is still forbidden, to be sure, but only by the sages rather than by

the Torah itself. Therefore:

In order to avoid any transgression of the law, there is a legally acceptable

method of rendering treatment on behalf of a gentile patient even when dealing with

violation of Biblical Law. It is suggested that at the time that the physician is

providing the necessary care, his intentions should not primarily be to cure the

patient, but to protect himself and the Jewish people from accusations of religious

discrimination and severe retaliation that may endanger him in particular and the

Jewish people in general. With this intention, any act on the physician's part

becomes an act whose actual outcome is not its primary purpose' ... which is

forbidden on Sabbath only by rabbinic law. (37)

This hypocritical substitute for the Hippocratic oath is also proposed by a recent

authoritative Hebrew book. (38)

Although the facts were mentioned at least twice in the

[87] Israeli press, (39) the Israeli Medical Association has remained silent.

Having treated in some detail the supremely important subject of the attitude of

the Halakhah to a Gentile's very life, we shall deal much more briefly with other

halakhic rules which discriminate against Gentiles. Since the number of such rules is

very large, we shall mention only the more important ones.

Sexual Offenses

Sexual Intercourse between a married Jewish woman and any man other than

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 74 —

her husband is a capital offense for both parties, and one of the three most heinous

sins. The status of Gentile women is very different. The Halakhah presumes all

Gentiles to be utterly promiscuous and the verse 'whose flesh is as the flesh of asses,

and whose issue [of semen] is like the issue of horses' (40) is applied to them.

Whether a Gentile woman is married or not makes no difference, since as far as Jews

are concerned the very concept of matrimony does not apply to Gentiles ('There is no

matrimony for a heathen'). Therefore, the concept of adultery also does not apply to

intercourse between a Jewish man and a Gentile woman; rather, the Talmud (41)

equates such intercourse to the sin of bestiality. (For the same reason, Gentiles are

generally presumed not to have certain paternity.)

According to the Talmudic Encyclopedia: (42) 'He who has carnal knowledge of

the wife of a Gentile is not liable to the death penalty, for it is written: "thy fellow's

wife" (43) rather than the alien's wife; and even the precept that a man "shall cleave

unto his wife" (44) which is addressed to the Gentiles does not apply to a Jew, just

there is no matrimony for a heathen; and although a married Gentile woman is

forbidden to the Gentiles, in any case a Jew is exempted.'

This does not imply that sexual intercourse between a Jewish man and a Gentile

woman is permitted - quite the contrary. But the main punishment is inflicted on the

Gentile woman; she must be executed, even if she was raped by the Jew: 'If a Jew has

coitus with a Gentile woman, whether she be a child of three or an adult, whether

married or unmarried, and even if he is a minor aged only nine years and one day -

because he had willful coitus with her, she must be killed, as is the case with a beast,

because through her a Jew got into trouble' (45) The Jew, however, must be flogged,

and if he is a Kohen (member of the priestly tribe) he must receive double the

number of lashes, because he has committed a

[88] double offense: a Kohen must not have intercourse with a prostitute, and

all Gentile women are presumed to be prostitutes. (46)

Status

According to the Halakhah, Jews must not (if they can help it) allow a Gentile to

be appointed to any position of authority, however small, over Jews. (The two stock

examples are commander over ten soldiers in the Jewish army' and 'superintendent

of an irrigation ditch'.) Significantly, this particular rule applies also to converts to

Judaism and to their descendants (through the female line) for ten generations or 'so

long as the descent is known'.

Gentiles are presumed to be congenital liars, and are disqualified from testifying

in a rabbinical court. In this respect their position is, in theory, the same as that of

Jewish women, slaves and minors; but in practice it is actually worse. A Jewish

woman is nowadays admitted as a witness to certain matters of fact, when the

rabbinical court 'believes' her; a Gentile - never.

 A problem therefore arises when a rabbinical court needs to establish a fact for

which there are only Gentile witnesses. An important example of this is in cases

concerning widows: by Jewish religious law, a woman can be declared a widow - and

hence free to re-marry - only if the death of her husband is proven with certainty by

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means of a witness who saw him die or identified his corpse. However, the rabbinical

court will accept the hearsay evidence of a Jew who testifies to having heard the fact

in question mentioned by a Gentile eyewitness, provided the court is satisfied that the

latter was speaking casually (goy mesiah lefi tummo) rather than in reply to a direct

question; for a Gentile's direct answer to a Jew's direct question is presumed to be a

lie. (47) If necessary, a Jew (preferably a rabbi) will actually undertake to chat up the

Gentile eyewitness and, without asking a direct question, extract from him a casual

statement of the fact at issue.

Money and Property

(1) Gifts. The Talmud bluntly forbids giving a gift to a Gentile. However,

classical rabbinical authorities bent this rule because it is customary among

businessmen to give gifts to business contacts. It was therefore laid down that a Jew

may give a gift to a Gentile acquaintance, since this is regarded not as a true gift but

as a sort of investment, for which some return is expected. Gifts to 'unfamiliar

Gentiles' remain forbidden. A broadly similar rule

[89] applies to almsgiving. Giving alms to a Jewish beggar is an important religious

duty. Alms to Gentile beggars are merely permitted for the sake of peace. However

there are numerous rabbinical warnings against allowing the Gentile poor to become

'accustomed' to receiving alms from Jews, so that it should be possible to withhold

such alms without arousing undue hostility.

(2) Taking of interest. Anti-Gentile discrimination in this matter has become

largely theoretical, in view of the dispensation (explained in Chapter 3) which in

effect allows interest to be exacted even from a Jewish borrower. However, it is still

the case that granting an interest-free loan to a Jew is recommended as an act of

charity, but from a Gentile borrower it is mandatory to exact interest. In fact, many -

though not all - rabbinical authorities, including Maimonides, consider it mandatory

to exact as much usury as possible on a loan to a Gentile.

(3) Lost property. If a Jew finds property whose probable owner is Jewish,

the finder is strictly enjoined to make a positive effort to return his find by

advertising it publicly. In contrast, the Talmud and all the early rabbinical authorities

not only allow a Jewish finder to appropriate an article lost by a Gentile, but actually

forbid him or her to return it. (48) In more recent times, when laws were passed in

most countries making it mandatory to return lost articles, the rabbinical authorities

instructed Jews to do what these laws say, as an act of civil obedience to the state -

but not as a religious duty, that is without making a positive effort to discover the

owner if it is not probable that he is Jewish.

(4) Deception in business. It is a grave sin to practice any kind of deception

whatsoever against a Jew. Against a Gentile it is only forbidden to practice direct

deception. Indirect deception is allowed, unless it is likely to cause hostility towards

Jews or insult to the Jewish religion. The paradigmatic example is mistaken

calculation of the price during purchase. If a Jew makes a mistake unfavorable to

himself, it is one's religious duty to correct him. If a Gentile is spotted making such a

mistake, one need not let him know about it, but say 'I rely on your calculation', so as

to forestall his hostility in case he subsequently discovers his own mistake.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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(5) Fraud. It is forbidden to defraud a Jew by selling or buying at an

unreasonable price. However, 'Fraud does not apply to Gentiles, for it is written: "Do

not defraud each man his brother"; (49) but a Gentile who defrauds a Jew should be

compelled to make good the fraud, but should not be punished more severely than a

Jew [in a similar case].' (50)

(6) Theft and robbery. Stealing (without violence) is absolutely

[90] forbidden - as the Shulhan 'Arukh so nicely puts it: 'even from a Gentile'.

Robbery (with violence) is strictly forbidden if the victim is Jewish. However, robbery

of a Gentile by a Jew is not forbidden outright but only under certain circumstances

such as 'when the Gentiles are not under our rule', but is permitted 'when they are

under our rule'. Rabbinical authorities differ among themselves as to the precise

details of the circumstances under which a Jew may rob a Gentile, but the whole

debate is concerned only with the relative power of Jews and Gentiles rather than

with universal considerations of justice and humanity. This may explain why so very

few rabbis have protested against the robbery of Palestinian property in Israel: it was

backed by overwhelming Jewish power.

Gentiles in the Land of lsrael

In addition to the general anti-Gentile laws, the Halakhah has special laws

against Gentiles who live in the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisra'el) or, in some cases,

merely pass through it. These laws are designed to promote Jewish supremacy in that

country.

The exact geographical definition of the term 'Land of Israel' is much disputed

in the Talmud and the talmudic literature, and the debate has continued in modern

times between the various shades of zionist opinion. According to the maximalist

view, the Land of Israel includes (in addition to Palestine itself) not only the whole of

Sinai, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, but also considerable parts of Turkey. (51) The

more prevalent 'minimalist' interpretation puts the northern border 'only' about half

way through Syria and Lebanon, at the latitude of Homs. This view was supported by

Ben~Gurion. However, even those who thus exclude parts of Syria-Lebanon agree

that certain special discriminatory laws (though less oppressive than in the Land of

Israel proper) apply to the Gentiles of those parts, because that territory was included

in David's kingdom. In all talmudic interpretations the Land of Israel includes

Cyprus.

I shall now list a few of the special laws concerning Gentiles in the Land of

Israel. Their connection with actual zionist practice will be quite apparent.

The Halakhah forbids Jews to sell immovable property - fields and houses - in

the Land of Israel to Gentiles. In Syria, the sale of houses (but not of fields) is

permitted.

Leasing a house in the Land of Israel to a Gentile is permitted under two

conditions. First, that the house shall not be used for habitation but for other

purposes, such as storage. Second, that three or more adjoining houses shall not be so

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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leased.

These and several other rules are explained as follows: ... 'so

[91] that you shall not allow them to camp on the ground, for if they do not possess

land, their sojourn there will be temporary.' (52) Even temporary Gentile presence

may only be tolerated 'when the Jews are in exile, or when the Gentiles are more

powerful than the Jews,' but

 when the Jews are more powerful than the Gentiles we are forbidden to let an

idolator among us; even a temporary resident or itinerant trader shall not be allowed

to pass through our land unless he accepts the seven Noahide precepts, (53) for it is

written: 'they shall not dwell in thy land' (54) that is, not even temporarily. If he

accepts the seven Noahide precepts, he becomes a resident alien (ger toshav) but it

is forbidden to grant the status of resident alien except at times when the Jubilee is

held [that is, when the Temple stands and sacrifices are offered]. However, during

times when Jubilees are not held it is forbidden to accept anyone who is not a full

convert to Judaism (ger tzedeq). (55)

It is therefore clear that - exactly as the leaders and sympathizers of Gush

Emunim say - the whole question to how the Palestinians ought to be treated is,

according to the Halakhah, simply a question of Jewish power: if Jews have sufficient

power, then it is their religious duty to expel the Palestinians.

All these laws are often quoted by Israeli rabbis and their zealous followers. For

example, the law forbidding the lease of three adjoining houses to Gentiles was

solemnly quoted by a rabbinical conference held in 1979 to discuss the Camp David

treaties. The conference also declared that according to the Halakhah even the

'autonomy' that Begin was ready to offer to the Palestinians is too liberal. Such

pronouncements - which do in fact state correctly the position of the Halakhah - are

rarely contested by the Zionist 'left'.

In addition to laws such as those mentioned so far, which are directed at all

Gentiles in the Land of Israel, an even greater evil influence arises from special laws

against the ancient Canaanites and other nations who lived in Palestine before its

conquest by Joshua, as well as against the Amalekites. All those nations must be

utterly exterminated, and the Talmud and talmudic literature reiterate the genocidal

biblical exhortations with even greater vehemence. Influential rabbis, who have a

considerable following among Israeli army officers, identify the Palestinians (or even

all Arabs) with those ancient nations, so that commands like 'thou shalt save alive

nothing that breatheth'56 acquire a topical meaning. In fact, it is not uncommon for

reserve soldiers called up to do a tour of duty in the Gaza Strip to be given an

'educational lecture' in which they are told that the Palestinians of Gaza are 'like the

[92] Amalekites'. Biblical verses exhorting to genocide of the Midianite57 were

solemnly quoted by an important Israeli rabbi in justification of the Qibbiya

massacre, (58) and this pronouncement has gained wide circulation in the Israeli

army. There are many similar examples of bloodthirsty rabbinical pronouncements

against the Palestinians, based on these laws.

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Abuse

Under this heading I would like to discuss examples of halakhic laws whose

most important effect is not so much to prescribe specific anti-Gentile discrimination

as to inculcate an attitude of scorn and hatred towards Gentiles. Accordingly. in this

section I shall not confine myself to quoting from the most authoritative halakhic

sources (as I have done so far) but include also less fundamental works, which are

however widely used in religious instruction.

Let us begin with the text of some common prayers. In one of the first sections

of the daily morning payer, every devout Jew blesses God for not making him a

Gentile. (59) The concluding section of the daily prayer (which is also used in the

most solemn part of the service on New Year's day and on Yom Kippur) opens with

the statement: 'We must praise the Lord of all ... for not making us like the nations of

[all] lands ... for they bow down to vanity and nothingness and pray to a god that does

not help.' (60) The last clause was censored out of the prayer books. but in eastern

Europe it was supplied orally, and has now been restored into many Israeli-printed

prayer books. In the most important section of the weekday prayer - the 'eighteen

blessings' - there is a special curse, originally directed against Christians, Jewish

converts to Christianity and other Jewish heretics: 'And may the apostates' (61) have

no hope, and all the Christians perish instantly'. This formula dates from the end of

the 1st century, when Christianity was still a small persecuted sect. Some time before

the 14th century it was softened into: 'And may the apostates have no hope. and all

the heretics (62) perish instantly', and after additional pressure into: 'And may the

informers have no hope, and all the heretics perish instantly'. After the establishment

of Israel. the process was reversed, and many newly printed prayer books reverted to

the second formula, which was also prescribed by many teachers in religious Israeli

schools. After 1967, several congregations close to Gush Emunim have restored the

first version (so far only verbally, not in print) and now pray daily that the Christians

may perish instantly'. This process of reversion happened in the period when the

Catholic Church (under Pope John XXIII)

[93] removed from its Good Friday service a prayer which asked the Lord to have

mercy on Jews, heretics etc. This prayer was thought by most Jewish leaders to be

offensive and even antisemitic.

Apart from the fixed daily prayers, a devout Jew must utter special short

blessings on various occasions, both good and bad (for example, while putting on a

new piece of clothing. eating a seasonal fruit for the first time that year, seeing

powerful lightning, hearing bad news, etc.) Some of these occasional prayers serve to

inculcate hatred and scorn for all Gentiles, We have mentioned in Chapter 2 the rule

according to which a pious Jew must utter curse when passing near a Gentile

cemetery, whereas he must bless God when passing near a Jewish cemetery. A similar

rule applies to the living; thus, when seeing a large Jewish population a devout Jew

must praise God, while upon seeing a large Gentile population he must utter a curse.

Nor are buildings exempt: the Talmud lays down (63) that a Jew who passes near an

inhabited non-Jewish dwelling must ask God to destroy it, whereas if the building is

in ruins he must thank the Lord of Vengeance. (Naturally, the rules are reversed for

Jewish houses.) This rule was easy to keep for Jewish peasants who lived in their own

villages or for small urban communities living in all-Jewish townships or quarters.

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Under the conditions of classical Judaism, however, it became impracticable and was

therefore confined to churches and places of worship of other religions (except

Islam). (64) In this connection, the rule was further embroidered by custom: it

became customary to spit (usually three times) upon seeing a church or a crucifix, as

an embellishment to the obligatory formula of regret. (65) Sometimes insulting

biblical verses were also added. (66)

There is also a series of rules forbidding any expression of praise for Gentiles or

for their deeds, except where such praise implies an even greater praise of Jews and

things Jewish. This rule is still observed by Orthodox Jews. For example. the writer

Agnon, when interviewed on the Israeli radio upon his return from Stockholm, where

he received the Nobel Prize for literature, praised the Swedish Academy, but hastened

to add: 'I am not forgetting that it is forbidden to praise Gentiles, but here there is a

special reason for my praise' - that is, that they awarded the prize to a Jew.

Similarly, it is forbidden to join any manifestation of popular Gentile rejoicing,

except where failing to join in might cause 'hostility' towards Jews, in which case a

'minimal' show of joy is allowed.

In addition to the rules mentioned so far, there are many others whose effect is

to inhibit human friendship between

[94] Jew and Gentile. I shall mention two examples: the rule on 'libation wine' and

that on preparing food for a Gentile on Jewish holy days.

A religious Jew must not drink any wine in whose preparation a Gentile had any

part whatsoever. Wine in an open bottle, even if prepared wholly by Jews, becomes

banned if a Gentile so much as touches the bottle or passes a hand over it. The reason

given by the rabbis is that all Gentiles are not only idolators but must be presumed to

be malicious to boot, so that they are likely to dedicate (by a whisper, gesture or

thought) as 'libation' to their idol any wine which a Jew is about to drink. This law

applies in full force to all Christians, and in a slightly attenuated form also to

Muslims. (An open bottle of wine touched by a Christian must be poured away, but if

touched by a Muslim it can be sold or given away, although it may not be drunk by a

Jew.) The law applies equally to Gentile atheists (how can one be sure that they are

not merely pretending to be atheists?) but not to Jewish atheists.

The laws against doing work on the sabbath apply to a lesser extent on other

holy days. In particular, on a holy day which does not happen to fall on a Saturday it

is permitted to do any work required for preparing food to be eaten during the holy

days or days. Legally, this is defined as preparing a 'soul's food' (okhel nefesh); but

'soul' is interpreted to mean 'Jew', and 'Gentiles and dogs' are explicitly excluded.

(67) There is, however, a dispensation in favor of powerful Gentiles, whose hostility

can be dangerous: it is permitted to cook food on a holy day for a visitor belonging to

this category, provided he is not actively encouraged to come and eat.

An important effect of all these laws - quite apart from their application in

practice - is in the attitude created by their constant study which, as part of the study

of the Halakhah, is regarded by classical Judaism as a supreme religious duty. Thus

an Orthodox Jew learns from his earliest youth, as part of his sacred studies, that

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Gentiles are compared to dogs, that it is a sin to praise them, and so on and so forth.

As a matter of fact, in this respect textbooks for beginners have a worse effect than

the Talmud and the great talmudic codes. One reason for this is that such elementary

texts give more detailed explanations, phrased so as to influence young and

uneducated minds. Out of a large number of such texts, I have chosen the one which

is currently most popular in Israel and has been reprinted in many cheap editions,

heavily subsidized by the Israeli government. It is The Book of Education, written by

an anonymous rabbi in early 14th century Spain. It explains the 613 religious

[95] obligations (mitzvot) of Judaism in the order in which they are supposed to be

found in the Pentateuch according to the talmudic interpretation (discussed in

Chapter 3). It owes its lasting influence and popularity to the clear and easy Hebrew

style in which it is written.

A central didactic aim of this book is to emphasize the 'correct' meaning of the

Bible with respect to such terms as 'fellow', 'friend' or 'man' (which we have referred

to in Chapter 3). Thus §219, devoted to the religious obligation arising from the verse

'thou shalt love thy fellow as thyself', is entitled: 'A religious obligation to love Jews',

and explains:

To love every Jew strongly means that we should care for a Jew and his money

just as one cares for oneself and one's own money, for it is written: 'thou shalt love

thy fellow as thyself' and our sages of blessed memory said: 'what is hateful to you do

not do to your friend' ... and many other religious obligations follow from this,

because one who loves one's friend as oneself will not steal his money, or commit

adultery with his wife, or defraud him of his money, or deceive him verbally, or steal

his land, or harm him in any way. Also many other religious obligations depend on

this, as is known to any reasonable man.

In §322, dealing with the duty to keep a Gentile slave enslaved for ever

(whereas a Jewish slave must be set free after seven years), the following explanation

is given:

And at the root of this religious obligation [is the fact that] the Jewish people

are the best of the human species, created to know their Creator and worship Him,

and worthy of having slaves to serve them. And if they will not have slaves of other

peoples, they would have to enslave their brothers, who would thus be unable to

serve the Lord, blessed be He. Therefore we are commanded to possess those for our

service, after they are prepared for this and after idolatory is removed from their

speech so that there should not be danger in our houses, (68) and this is the

intention of the verse 'but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule

one over another with rigor', (69) so that you will not have to enslave your brothers,

who are all ready to worship God.

In §545, dealing with the religious obligation to exact interest on money lent to

Gentiles, the law is stated as follows: 'That we are commanded to demand interest

from Gentiles when we lend money to them, and we must not lend to them without

interest,' The explanation is:

And at the root of this religious obligation is that we should not do any act of

mercy except to the people who know God and worship Him; and when we refrain

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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from doing merciful

[96]

deed to the rest of mankind and do so only to the former, we are being tested that

the main part of love and mercy to them is because they follow the religion of God,

blessed be He. Behold, with this intention our reward [from God] when we withhold

mercy from the others is equal to that for doing [merciful deeds] to members of our

own people.

Similar distinctions are made in numerous other passages. In explaining the

ban against delaying a worker's wage (§238) the author is careful to point out that the

sin is less serious if the worker is Gentile. The prohibition against cursing (§239) is

entitled 'Not to curse any Jew, whether man or woman. Similarly, the prohibitions

against giving misleading advice, hating other people, shaming them or taking

revenge on them (§§240, 245, 246, 247) apply only to fellow-Jews.

The ban against following Gentile customs (§262) means that Jews must not

only 'remove themselves' from Gentiles, but also 'speak ill of all their behavior, even

of their dress'.

It must be emphasized that the explanations quoted above do represent

correctly the teaching of the Halakhah. The rabbis and, even worse, the apologetic

'scholars of Judaism' know this very well and for this reason they do not try to argue

against such views inside the Jewish community; and of course they never mention

them outside it. Instead, they vilify any Jew who raises these matters within earshot

of Gentiles, and they issue deceitful denials in which the art of equivocation reaches

its summit. For example, they state, using general terms, the importance which

Judaism attaches to mercy; but what they forget to point out is that according to the

Halakhah 'mercy' means mercy towards Jews.

Anyone who lives in Israel knows how deep and widespread these attitudes of

hatred and cruelty to towards all Gentiles are among the majority of Israeli Jews.

Normally these attitudes are disguised from the outside world, but since the

establishment of the State of Israel, the 1967 war and the rise of Begin, a significant

minority of Jews, both in Israel and abroad, have gradually become more open about

such matters. In recent years the inhuman precepts according to which servitude is

the 'natural' lot of Gentiles have been publicly quoted in Israel, even on TV, by Jewish

farmers exploiting Arab labor, particularly child labor. Gush Emunim leaders have

quoted religious precepts which enjoin Jews to oppress Gentiles, as a justification of

the attempted assassination of Palestinian mayors and as divine authority for their

own plan to expel all the Arabs from Palestine.

While many zionists reject these positions politically, their standard counterarguments are based on considerations of expediency and Jewish self-interest, rather

than on universally valid

[97] principles of humanism and ethics. For example, they argue that the exploitation

and oppression of Palestinians by Israelis tends to corrupt Israeli society, or that the

expulsion of the Palestinians is impracticable under present political conditions, or

that Israeli acts of terror against the Palestinians tend to isolate Israel internationally.

In principle, however, virtually all zionists - and in particular 'left' zionists - share the

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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deep anti-Gentile attitudes which Orthodox Judaism keenly promotes.

Attitudes to Christianity and Islam

In the foregoing, several examples of the rabbinical attitudes to these two

religions were given in passing. But it will be useful to summarize these attitudes

here.

Judaism is imbued with a very deep hatred towards Christianity, combined with

ignorance about it. This attitude was clearly aggravated by the Christian persecutions

of Jews, but is largely independent of them. In fact, it dates from the time when

Christianity was still weak and persecuted (not least by Jews), and it was shared by

Jews who had never been persecuted by Christians or who were even helped by them.

Thus, Maimonides was subjected to Muslim persecutions by the regime of the

Almohads and escaped from them first to the crusaders' Kingdom of Jerusalem, but

this did not change his views in the least. This deeply negative attitude is based on

two main elements.

First, on hatred and malicious slanders against Jesus. The traditional view of

Judaism on Jesus must of course be sharply distinguished from the nonsensical

controversy between antisemites and Jewish apologists concerning the

'responsibility' for his execution. Most modern scholars of that period admit that due

to the lack of original and contemporary accounts, the late composition of the

Gospels and the contradictions between them, accurate historical knowledge of the

circumstances of Jesus' execution is not available. In any case, the notion of collective

and inherited guilt is both wicked and absurd. However, what is at issue here is not

the actual facts about Jesus, but the inaccurate and even slanderous reports in the

Talmud and post-talmudic literature - which is what Jews believed until the 19th

century and many, especially in Israel, still believe. For these reports certainly played

an important role in forming the Jewish attitude to Christianity.

According to the Talmud, Jesus was executed by a proper rabbinical court for

idolatry, inciting other Jews to idolatry, and contempt of rabbinical authority. All

classical Jewish sources which mention his execution are quite happy to take

responsibility

[98] for it; in the talmudic account the Romans are not even mentioned.

The more popular accounts - which were nevertheless taken quite seriously -

such as the notorious Toldot Yeshu are even worse, for in addition to the above

crimes they accuse him of witchcraft. The very name 'Jesus' was for Jews a symbol of

all that is abominable, and this popular tradition still persists. (70) The Gospels are

equally detested, and they are not allowed to be quoted (let alone taught) even in

modern Israeli Jewish schools.

Secondly, for theological reasons, mostly rooted in ignorance, Christianity as a

religion is classed by rabbinical teaching as idolatry. This is based on a crude

interpretation of the Christian doctrines on the Trinity and Incarnation. All the

Christian emblems and pictorial representations are regarded as 'idols' - even by

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 83 —

those Jews who literally worship scrolls, stones or personal belongings of 'Holy Men'.

The attitude of Judaism towards Islam is, in contrast, relatively mild. Although

the stock epithet given to Muhammad is 'madman' (meshugga), this was not nearly

as offensive as it may sound now, and in any case it pales before the abusive terms

applied to Jesus. Similarly, the Qur'an - unlike the New Testament - is not

condemned to burning. It is not honored in the same way as Islamic law honors the

Jewish sacred scrolls, but is treated as an ordinary book. Most rabbinical authorities

agree that Islam is not idolatry (although some leaders of Gush Emunim now choose

to ignore this). Therefore the Halakhah decrees that Muslims should not be treated

by Jews any worse than 'ordinary' Gentiles. But also no better. Again, Maimonides

can serve as an illustration. He explicitly states that Islam is not idolatry, and in his

philosophical works he quotes, with great respect, many Islamic philosophical

authorities. He was, as I have mentioned before, personal physician to Saladin and

his family, and by Saladin's order he was appointed Chief over all Egypt's Jews. Yet,

the rules he lays down against saving a Gentile's life (except in order to avert danger

to Jews) apply equally to Muslims.

[99]

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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Chapter 6

Political Consequences

The persistent attitudes of classical Judaism toward non-Jews strongly

influence its followers, Orthodox Jews and those who can be regarded as its

continuators, Zionists. Through the latter it also influences the policies of the State of

Israel. Since 1967, as Israel becomes more and more 'Jewish', so its policies are

influenced more by Jewish ideological considerations than by those of a coldly

conceived imperial interest. This ideological influence is not usually perceived by

foreign experts, who tend to ignore or downplay the influence of the Jewish religion

on Israeli policies. This explains why many of their predictions are incorrect.

In fact, more Israeli government crises are caused by religious reasons, often

trivial, than by any other cause. The space devoted by the Hebrew press to discussion

of the constantly occurring quarrels between the various religious groups, or between

the religious and the secular, is greater than that given any other subject, except in

times of war or of security-related tension. At the time of writing, early August 1993,

some topics of major interest to readers of the Hebrew press are: whether soldiers

killed in action who are sons of non-Jewish mothers will be buried in a segregated

area in Israeli military cemeteries; whether Jewish religious burial associations, who

have a monopoly over the burial of all Jews except kibbutz members, will be allowed

to continue their custom of circumcising the corpses of non-circumcised Jews before

burying them (and without asking the family's permission); whether the import of

non-kosher meat to Israel, banned unofficially since the establishment of the state,

will be allowed or banned by law. There are many more issues of this kind which are

of a much greater interest to the Israeli- Jewish public than, let us say, the

negotiations with the Palestinians and Syria.

The attempts made by a few Israeli politicians to ignore the factors of 'Jewish

ideology' in favor of purely imperial interests have led to disastrous results. In early

1974, after its partial defeat in the Yom Kippur War, Israel had a vital interest in

stopping the renewed influence of the PLO, which had not yet been recognized by the

Arab states as the solely legitimate representative of the Palestinians. The Israeli

government conceived of a plan to support Jordanian influence in

[100] the West Bank, which was quite considerable at the time. When King Hussein

was asked for his support, he demanded a visible quid pro quo. It was arranged that

his chief West Bank supporter, Sheikh Jabri of Hebron, who ruled the southern part

of the West Bank with an iron fist and with approval of then Defense minister Moshe

Dayan, would give a party for the region's notables in the courtyard of his palatial

residence in Hebron. The party, in honor of the king's birthday, would feature the

public display of Jordanian flags and would begin a pro-Jordanian campaign. But the

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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religious settlers in the nearby Kiryat-Arba, who were only a handful at the time,

heard about the plan and threatened Prime Minister Golda Meir and Dayan with

vigorous protests since, as they put it, displaying a flag of a 'non-Jewish state' within

the Land of Israel contradicts the sacred principle which states that this land 'belongs'

only to Jews. Since this principle is accepted by all zionists, the government had to

bow to their demands and order Sheikh Jabri not to display any Jordanian flags.

Thereupon Jabri, who was deeply humiliated, canceled the party and, at the Fez

meeting of the Arab League which occurred soon after, King Hussein voted to

recognize the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinians. For the bulk of

Israeli-Jewish public the current negotiations about 'autonomy' are likewise

influenced more by such Jewish ideological considerations than by any others.

The conclusion from this consideration of Israeli policies, supported by an

analysis of classical Judaism, must be that analyses of Israeli policy-making which do

not emphasize the importance of its unique character as a 'Jewish state' must be

mistaken. In particular, the facile comparison of Israel to other cases of Western

imperialism or to settler states, is incorrect. During apartheid, the land of South

Africa was officially divided into 87 per cent which 'belonged' to the whites and 13 per

cent which was said officially to 'belong' to the Blacks. In addition, officially sovereign

states, embodied with all the symbols of sovereignty, the so-called Bantustans, were

established. But 'Jewish ideology' demands that no part of the Land of Israel can be

recognized as 'belonging' to non-Jews and that 110 signs of sovereignty, such as

Jordanian flags, can be officially allowed to be displayed. The principle of

Redemption of the Land demands that ideally all the land, and not merely, say, 87

per cent, will in time be 'redeemed', that is, become owned by Jews. 'Jewish ideology

prohibits that very convenient principle of imperialism, already known to Romans

and followed by so many secular empires, and best formulated by Lord Cromer: 'We

do not govern Egypt, we govern the governors of Egypt.' Jewish

[101] ideology forbids such recognition; it also forbids a seemingly respectful attitude

to any 'non-Jewish governors' within the Land of Israel. The entire apparatus of client

kings, sultans, maharajas and chiefs or, in more modern times, of dependent

dictators, so convenient in other cases of imperial hegemony, cannot be used by

Israel within the area considered part of the Land of Israel. Hence the fears,

commonly expressed by Palestinians, of being offered a 'Bantustan' are totally

groundless. Only if numerous Jewish lives are lost in war, as happened both in 1973

and in the 1983-5 war aftermath in Lebanon, is an Israeli retreat conceivable since it

can be justified by the principle that the sanctity of Jewish life is more important than

other considerations. What is not possible, as long as Israel remains a 'Jewish state',

is the Israeli grant of a fake, but nevertheless symbolically real sovereignty, or even of

real autonomy, to non-Jews within the Land of Israel for merely political reasons.

Israel, like some other countries, is an exclusivist state, but Israeli exclusivism is

peculiar to itself.

In addition to Israeli policies it may be surmised that the 'Jewish ideology'

influences also a significant part, maybe a majority, of the diaspora Jews. While the

actual implementation of Jewish ideology depends on Israel being strong, this in turn

depends to a considerable extent on the support which diaspora Jews, particularly US

Jews, give to Israel. The image of the diaspora Jews and their attitudes to non-Jews,

is quite different from the attitudes of classical Judaism, as described above. This

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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discrepancy is most obvious in English-speaking countries, where the greatest

falsifications of Judaism regularly occur. The situation is worst in the USA and

Canada, the two states whose support for Israeli policies, including policies which

most glaringly contradict the basic human rights of non-Jews, is strongest.

US support for Israel, when considered not in abstract but in concrete detail,

cannot be adequately explained only as a result of American imperial interests. The

strong influence wielded by the organized Jewish community in the USA in support

of all Israeli policies must also be taken into account in order to explain the Middle

East policies of American Administrations. This phenomenon is even more noticeable

in the case of Canada, whose Middle Eastern interests cannot be considered as

important, but whose loyal dedication to Israel is even greater than that of the USA In

both countries (and also in France, Britain and many other states) Jewish

organizations support Israel with about the same loyalty which communist parties

accorded to the USSR for so long. Also, many Jews who appear to be active in

defending human

[102] rights and who adopt non-conformist views on other issues do, in cases

affecting Israel, display a remarkable degree of totalitarianism and are in the

forefront of the defense of all Israeli policies. It is well known in Israel that the

chauvinism and fanaticism in supporting Israel displayed by organized diaspora Jews

is much greater (especially since 1967) than the chauvinism shown by an average

Israeli Jew. This fanaticism is especially marked in Canada and the USA but because

of the incomparably greater political importance of the USA, I will concentrate on the

latter. It should, however, be noted that we also find Jews whose views of Israeli

policies are not different from those held by the rest of the society (with due regard to

the factors of geography, income, social position and so on).

Why should some American Jews display chauvinism, some-times extreme, and

others not? We should begin by observing the social and therefore also the political

importance of the Jewish organizations which are of an exclusive nature: they admit

no non-Jews on principle. (This exclusivism is in amusing contrast with their hunt to

condemn the most obscure non-Jewish club which refuses to admit Jews.) Those who

can be called 'organized Jews', and who spend most of their time outside work hours

mostly in the company of other Jews, can be presumed to uphold Jewish exclusivism

and to preserve the attitudes of the classical Judaism to non-Jews. Under present

circumstances they cannot openly express these attitudes toward non-Jews in the

USA where non-Jews constitute more than 97 per cent of the population. They

compensate for this by ex- pressing their real attitudes in their support of the 'Jewish

state' and the treatment it metes to the non-Jews of the Middle East.

How else can we explain the enthusiasm displayed by so many American rabbis

in support of, let us say, Martin Luther King, compared with their lack of support for

the rights of Palestinians, even for their individual human rights? How else can we

explain the glaring contradiction between the attitudes of classical Judaism toward

non-Jews, which include the rule that their lives should not be saved except for the

sake of Jewish interest, with the support of the US rabbis and organized Jews for the

rights of the Blacks? After all, Martin Luther King and the majority of American

Blacks are non-Jews. Even if only the conservative and Orthodox Jews, who together

constitute the majority of organized American Jews, are considered to hold such

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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opinions about the non-Jews, the other part of organized US Jewry, the Reform, had

never opposed them, and, in my view, show themselves to be quite influenced by

them.

Actually the explanation of this apparent contradiction is

[103] easy. It should be recalled that Judaism, especially in its classical form, is

totalitarian in nature. The behavior of supporters of other totalitarian ideologies of

our times was not different from that of the organized American Jews. Stalin and his

supporters never tired of condemning the discrimination against the American or the

South African Blacks, especially in the midst of the worst crimes committed within

the USSR. The South African apartheid regime was tireless in its denunciations of the

violations of human rights committed either by communist or by other African

regimes, and so were its supporters in other countries. Many similar examples can be

given. The support of democracy or of human rights is there- fore meaningless or

even harmful and deceitful when it does not begin with self-critique and with support

of human rights when they are violated by one's own group. Any support of human

rights in general by a Jew which does not include the support of human rights of nonJews whose rights are being violated by the 'Jewish state' is as deceitful as the

support of human rights by a Stalinist. The apparent enthusiasm displayed by

American rabbis or by the Jewish organizations in the USA during the 1950s and the

1960s in support of the Blacks in the South, was motivated only by considerations of

Jewish self-interest, just as was the communist support for the same Blacks. Its

purpose in both cases was to try to capture the Black community politically, in the

Jewish case to an unthinking support of Israeli policies in the Middle East.

Therefore, the real test facing both Israeli and diaspora Jews is the test of their

self-criticism which must include the critique of the Jewish past. The most important

part of such a critique must be detailed and honest confrontation of the Jewish

attitude to non-Jews. This is what many Jews justly demand from non-Jews: to

confront their own past and so become aware of the discrimination and persecutions

inflicted on the Jews. In the last 40 years the number of non-Jews killed by Jews is by

far greater than the number of the Jews killed by non-Jews. The extent of the

persecution and discrimination against non-Jews inflicted by the 'Jewish state' with

the support of organized diaspora Jews is also enormously greater than the suffering

inflicted on Jews by regimes hostile to the~ Although the struggle against

antisemitism (and of all other forms of racism) should never cease, the struggle

against Jewish chauvinism and exclusivism, which must include a critique of classical

Judaism, is now of equal or greater importance.

Notes and References: Chapt. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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 Chapter 1: A Closed Utopia?

1 Walter Laquer, History of Zionism Schocken Publishers, Tel Aviv, 1974, in Hebrew.

2 See Yedioth Ahronot, 27 April 1992.

3 In Hugh Trevor-Roper, Renaissance Essays, Fontana Press, London, 1985.

4 See Moses Hadas, Hellenistic Culture, Fusion and Diffusion, Columbia University

Press, New York, 1959, especially chapters VII and XX.

Chapter 2: Prejudice and Prevarication

1 The Jews themselves universally described themselves as a religious community or,

to be precise, a religious nation. 'Our people is a people only because of the Torah

(Religious Law)'-this saying by one of the highest authorities, Rabbi Sa'adia Hagga'on

who lived in the 10th century, has become proverbial.

2 By Emperor Joseph II in 1782.

3 All this is usually omitted in vulgar Jewish historiography, in order to propagate the

myth that the Jews kept their religion by miracle or by some peculiar mystic force.

4 For example, in her Origins of Totalitarianism, a considerable part of which is

devoted to Jews.

5 Before the end of the 18th century, German Jews were allowed by their rabbis to

write German in Hebrew letters only, on pain of being excommunicated, flogged, etc.

6 When by a deal between the Roman Empire and the Jewish leaders (the dynasty of

the Nesi 'im) all the Jews in the Empire were subjected to the fiscal and disciplinary

authority of these leaders and their rabbinical courts, who for their part undertook to

keep order among the Jews.

7 I write this, being a non-socialist myself. But I will honor and respect people with

whose principles I disagree, if they make an honest effort to be true to their

principles. In contrast, there is nothing so despicable as the dishonest use of

universal principles, whether true or false, for the selfish ends of an individual or,

even worse, of a group.

8 In fact, many aspects of orthodox Judaism were apparently derived from Sparta,

through the baneful political influence of Plato. On this subject, see the excellent

comments of Moses Hadas, Hellenistic Culture, Fusion and Diffusion, Columbia

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 89 —

University Press, New York, 1959.

9 Including the geography of Palestine and indeed its very location. This is shown by

the orientation of all synagogues in countries such as Poland and Russia: Jews are

supposed to pray facing Jerusalem, and the European Jews, who had only a vague

idea where Jerusalem was, always assumed it was due east, whereas for them it was

in fact more nearly due south.

10 Throughout this chapter I use the term 'classical Judaism' to refer to rabbinical

Judaism as it emerged after about AD 800 and lasted up to the end of the 18th

century. I avoid the term 'normative Judaism', which many authors use with roughly

the same meaning, because in my view it has unjustified connotations.

11 The works of Hellenistic Jews, such as Philo of Alexandria, constitute an

exception. They were written before classical Judaism achieved a position of exclusive

hegemony. They were indeed subsequently suppressed among the Jews and survived

only because Christian monks found them congenial.

12 During the whole period from AD 100 to 1500 there were written two travel books

and one history of talmudic studies - a short, inaccurate and dreary book, written

moreover by a despised philosopher (Abraham ben-David, Spain, c. 1170).

13 Me'or 'Eynayi'n by 'Azarya de Rossi of Ferrara, Italy, 1574,

14 The best known cases were in Spain; for example (to use their adopted Christian

names) Master Alfonso of Valladolid, converted in 1320, and Paul of Santa Marja,

converted in 1390 and appointed bishop of Burgos in 1415. But many other cases can

be cited from all over west Europe.

15 Certainly the tone, and also the consequences, were very much better than in

disputations in which Christians were accused of heresy - for example those in which

Peter Abelard or the strict Franciscans were condemned.

16 The stalinist and Chinese examples are sufficiently well known. However, it is

worth mentioning that the persecution of honest historians in Germany began very

early. In 1874, H. Ewald, a professor at Goettingen, was imprisoned for expressing

'incorrect' views on the conquests of Frederick II, a hundred years earlier. The

situation in Israel is analogous: the worst attacks against me were provoked not by

the violent terms I employ in my condemnations of Zionism and the oppression of

Palestinians, but by an early article of mine about the role of Jews in the slave trade,

in which the latest case quoted dated from 1870. That article was published before

the 1967 war; nowadays its publication would be impossible.

17 In the end a few other passages also had to be removed, such as those which

seemed theologically absurd (for example, where God is said to pray to Himself or

physically to carry out some of the practices enjoined on the individual Jew) or those

which celebrated too freely the sexual escapades of ancient rabbis.

18 Tractate Berakhot, p. 58b.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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19 'Your mother shall be sore confounded; she that bare you shall be ashamed...',

Jeremiah, 50:12.

20 Published by Boys Town, Jerusalem, and edited by Moses Hyamson, one of the

most reputable scholars of Judaism in Britain.

21 The supposed founders of the Sadducean sect.

22 I am happy to say that in a recent new translation (Chicago University Press) the

word 'Blacks' does appear, but the heavy and very expensive volume is unlikely, as

yet, to get into the 'wrong' hands. Similarly, in early 19th century England, radical

books (such as Godwin's) were allowed to appear, provided they were issued in a very

expensive edition.

23 An additional fact can be mentioned in this connection. It was perfectly possible,

and apparently respectable, for a Jewish scholar of Islam, Bernard Lewis (who

formerly taught in London and is now teaching in the USA) to publish an article in

Encounter, in which he points out many passages in Islamic literature which in his

view are anti-Black, but none of which even approaches the passage quoted above. It

would be quite impossible for anyone now, or in the last thirty years, to discuss in any

reputable American publication the above passage or the many other offensive antiBlack talmudic passages. But without a criticism of all sides the attack on Islam alone

reduces to mere slander.

Chapter 3: Orthodoxy and Interpretation

1 As in Chapter 2, I use the term 'classical Judaism' to refer to rabbinical Judaism in

the period from about AD 800 up to the end of the 18th century. This period broadly

coincides with the Jewish Middle Ages, since for most Jewish communities medieval

conditions persisted much longer than for the west European nations, namely up to

the period of the French Revolution. Thus what I call 'classical Judaism' can be

regarded as medieval Judaism.

2 Exodus, 15:11.

3 Ibid., 20:3-6.

4 Jeremiah, 10; the same theme is echoed still later by the Second Isaiah, see Isaiah,

44.

5 The cabbala is of course an esoteric doctrine, and its detailed study was confined to

scholars. In Europe, especially after about 1750, extreme measures were taken to

keep it secret and forbid its study except by mature scholars and under strict

supervision. The uneducated Jewish masses of eastern Europe had no real knowledge

of cabbalistic doctrine; but the cabbala percolated to them in the form of superstition

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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and magic practices.

6 Many contemporary Jewish mystics believe that the same end may be

accomplished more quickly by war against the Arabs, by the expulsion of the

Palestinians, or even by establishing many Jewish settlements on the West Bank. The

growing movement for building the Third Temple is also based on such ideas.

7 The Hebrew word used here - yihud, meaning literally union-in-seclusion - is the

same one employed in legal texts (dealing with marriage etc.) to refer to sexual

intercourse.

8 The so-called Qedusbab Sblisbit (Third Holiness), inserted in the prayer Uva

Letzion towards the end of the morning service.Numbers, 29. 9-10 The power of

Satan, and his connection with non-Jews, is illustrated by a widespread custom,

established under cabbalistic influence in many Jewish communities from the 17th

century. A Jewish woman returning from her monthly ritual bath of purification

(after which sexual intercourse with her husband is mandatory) must beware of

meeting one of the four satanic creatures: Gentile, pig, dog or donkey. If she does

meet any one of them she must take another bath. The custom was advocated (among

others) by Shn'et Musar, a book on Jewish moral conduct first published in 1712,

which was one of the most popular books among Jews in both eastern Europe and

Islamic countries until early this century, and is still widely read in some Orthodox

circles.

11 This is prescribed in minute detail. For example, the ritual hand washing must not

be done under a tap; each hand must be washed singly, in water from a mug (of

prescribed minimal size) held in the other hand. If one's hands are really dirty, it is

quite impossible to clean them in this way, but such pragmatic considerations are

obviously irrelevant. Classical Judaism prescribes a great number of such detailed

rituals, to which the cabbala attaches deep significance. There are, for example, many

precise rules concerning behavior in a lavatory. A Jew relieving nature in an open

space must not do so in a North-South direction, because North is associated with

Satan.

12 'Interpretation' is my own expression. The classical (and present-day Orthodox)

view is that the talmudic meaning, even where it is contrary to the literal sense, was

always the operational one.

13 According to an apocryphal story, a famous 19th century Jewish heretic observed

in this connection that the verse Thou shalt not commit adultery' is repeated only

twice. 'Presumably one is therefore forbidden to eat adultery or to cook it, but

enjoying it is all right.'

14 The Hebrew re'akha is rendered by the King James Version (and most other

English translations) somewhat imprecisely as 'thy neighbor'. See however II Samuel,

16:17, where exactly the same word is rendered by the King James Version more

correctly as 'thy friend'.

15 The Mishnah is remarkably free of all this, and in particular the belief in demons

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 92 —

and witchcraft is relatively rare in it. The Babylonian Talmud, on the other hand, is

full of gross superstitions.

16 Or, to be precise, in many parts of Palestine. Apparently the areas to which the law

applies are those where there was Jewish demographic predominance around AD

150-200.

17 Therefore non-zionist Orthodox Jews in Israel organize special shops during

sabbatical years, which sell fruits and vegetables grown by Arabs on Arab land.

18 In the winter of 1945-6,1 myself, then a boy under 13, participated in such

proceedings. The man in charge of agricultural work in the religious agricultural

school I was men attending was a particularly pious Jew and thought it would be safe

if the crucial act, that of removing the board, should be performed by an orphan

under 13 years old, incapable of being, or making anyone else, guilty of a sin. (A boy

under that age cannot be guilty of a sin; his father, if he has one, is considered

responsible.) Everything was carefully explained to me beforehand, including the

duty to say, 'I need this board,' when in fact it was not needed.

19 For example, the Talmud forbids a Jew to enjoy the light of a candle lit by a

Gentile on the sabbath, unless the latter had lit it for his own use before the Jew

entered the room.

20 One of my uncles in pre-1939 Warsaw used a subtler method. He employed a nonJewish maid called Marysia and it was his custom upon waking from his Saturday

siesta to say, first quietly, 'How nice it would be if' - and then, raising his voice to a

shout, '... Marysia would bring us a cup of tea!' He was held to be a very pious and

God fearing man and would never dream of drinking a drop of milk for a full six

hours after eating meat. In his kitchen he had two sinks, one for washing up dishes

used for eating meat, the other for milk dishes.

21 Occasionally regrettable mistakes occur, because some of these jobs are quite

cushy, allowing the employee six days off each week. The town of Bney Braq (near

Tel-Aviv), inhabited almost exclusively by Orthodox Jews, was shaken in the 1960s by

a horrible scandal. Upon the death of the 'sabbath Goy' they had employed for over

twenty years to watch over their water supplies on Saturdays, it was discovered that

he was not really a Christian but a Jew! So when his successor, a Druse, was hired,

the town demanded and obtained from the government a document certifying that

the new employee is a Gentile of pure Gentile descent. It is reliably rumored that the

secret police was asked to research this matter.

22 In contrast, elementary Scripture teaching can be done for payment. This was

always considered a low-status job and was badly paid.

23 Another 'extremely important' ritual is the blowing of a ram's horn on Rosh

Hashanah, whose purpose is to confuse Satan.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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Chapter 4: The Weight of History

1 See, for example, Jeremiah, 44, especially verses 15-19. For an excellent treatment

of certain aspects of this subject see Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, Ktav, USA,

1967.

2 Ezra, 7:25-26. The last two chapters of this book are mainly concerned with Ezra's

efforts to segregate the 'pure' Jews ('the holy seed') away from 'the people of the land'

(who were themselves at least partly of Jewish descent) and break up mixed

marriages.

3 W.F. Albright, Recent Discoveries in Bible lands, Funk & Wagnall, New York, 1955,

p.103.

4 It is significant that, together with this literary corpus, all the historical books

written by Jews after about 400 BC were also rejected. Until the 19th century, Jews

were quite ignorant of the story of Massadah and of figures such as Judas

Maccabaeus, now regarded by many (particularly by Christians) as belonging to the

'very essence' of Judaism.

5 Acts, 18:15.

6 Ibid., 25.

7 See note 6 to Chapter 2.

8 Concerning the term 'classical Judaism' see note 10 to Chapter 2 and note 1 to

Chapter 3.

9 Nobel Prize winners Agnon and Bashevis Singer are examples of this, but many

others can be given, particularly Bialik, the national Hebrew poet. In his famous

poem My Father he describes his saintly father selling vodka to the drunkard

peasants who are depicted as animals. This very popular poem, taught in all Israeli

schools, is one of the vehicles through which the anti-peasant attitude is reproduced.

10 So far as the central power of the Jewish Patriarchate was concerned, the deal was

terminated by Theodosius II in a series of laws, culminating in AD 429; but many of

the local arrangements remained in force.

11 Perhaps another characteristic example is the Parthian empire (until AD 225) but

not enough is known about it. We know, however, that the establishment of the

national Iranian Sasanid empire brought about an immediate decline of the Jews'

position.

12 This ban extends also to marrying a woman converted to Judaism, because all

Gentile women are presumed by the Halakhah to be prostitutes.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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13 A prohibited marriage is not generally void, and requires a divorce. Divorce is

nominally a voluntary act on the part of the husband, but under certain

circumstances a rabbinical court can coerce him to 'will' it (kofin oto 'ad she yyomar

rotzeh ani).

14 Although Jewish achievements during the Golden Age in Muslim Spain (1002-

1147) were more brilliant, they were not lasting. For example, most of the magnificent

Hebrew poetry of that age was subsequently forgotten by Jews, and only recovered by

them in the 19th or 20th century.

15 During that war, Henry of Trastamara used anti-Jewish propaganda. although his

own mother, Leonor de Guzman, a high Castilian noblewoman, was partly of Jewish

descent. (Only in Spain did the highest nobility intermarry with Jews.) After his

victory he too employed Jews in the highest financial positions.

16 Until the 18th century the position of serfs in Poland was generally supposed to be

even worse than in Russia. In that century, certain features of Russian serfdom, such

as public sales of serfs, got worse than in Poland but the central Tsarist government

always retained certain powers over the enslaved peasants, for example the right to

recruit them to the national army.

17 During the preceding period persecutions of Jews were rare. This is true of the

Roman Empire even after serious Jewish rebellions. Gibbon is correct in praising the

liberality of Antonius Pius (and Marcus Aurelius) to Jews, so soon after the major

Bar-Kokhba rebellion of AD 132-5.

18 This fact, easily ascertainable by examination of the details of each persecution, is

not rein~remarked upon by most general historians in recent times. An honorable

exception is Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Rise of Christian Europe, Thames and Hudson,

London, 1965, pp.173-4. Trevor-Roper is also one of the very few modern historians

who mention the predominant Jewish role in the early medieval slave trade between

Christian (and pagan) Europe and the Muslim world (ibid., pp.92-3). In order to

promote this abomination, which I have no space to discuss here, Maimonides

allowed Jews, in the name of the Jewish religion, to abduct Gentile children into

slavery; and his opinion was no doubt acted upon or reflected contemporary practice.

19 Examples can be found in any history of the crusades. See especially S. Runciman,

A History of the Crusades, vol I, book 3, chap 1, 'The German Crusade'. The

subsequent defeat of this host by the Hungarian army, 'to most Christians appeared

as a just punishment meted out of high to the murderers of the Jews.'

20 John Stoyc, Europe Unfolding 1 648~8, Fontana, London, p.46.

21 This latter feature is of course not mentioned by received Jewish historiography.

The usual punishment for a rebellious, or even 'impudent' peasant was impalement.

22 The same can be observed in different regions of a given country. For example, in

Germany, agrarian Bavaria was much more antisemitic than the industrialized areas.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 95 —

23 'The refusal of the Church to admit that once a Jew always a Jew, was another

cause of pain for an ostentatious Catholic like Drumont. One of his chief lieutenants,

Jules Guérin, has recounted the disgust he felt when the famous Jesuit, Père du Lac,

remonstrated with him for attacking some converted Jews named Dreyfus.' D.W.

Brogan, The Development of Modern France, vol 1, Harper Torchbooks, New York,

1966, p.227.

24 Ibid..

25 Let me illustrate the irrational, demonic character which racism can sometimes

acquire with three examples chosen at random. A major part of the extermination of

Europe's Jews was carried out in 1942 and early 1943 during the Nazi offensive in

Russia, which culminated in their defeat at Stalingrad. During the eight months

between June 1942 and February 1943 the Nazis probably used more railway wagons

to haul Jews to the gas chambers than to carry much needed supplies to the army.

Before being taken to their death, most of these Jews, at least in Poland, had been

very effectively employed in production of equipment for the German army. The

second, rather remote, example comes from a description of the Sicilian Vespers in

1282: 'Every Frenchman they met was struck down. They poured into the inns

frequented by the French and the houses where they dwelt, sparing neither man nor

woman nor child ... The riots?s broke into the Dominican and Franciscan convents,

and all the foreign friars were dragged out and told to pronounce the word ciciri,

whose sound the French tongue could never accurately reproduce. Anyone who failed

in the test was slain.' (S. Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, Cambridge University

Press,1958, p. 215.) The third example is recent: in the summer of 1980 - following an

assassination attempt by Jewish terrorists in which Mayor Bassam Shak'a of Nablus

lost both his legs and Mayor Karim Khalaf of Ramallah lost a foot - a group of Jewish

Nazis gathered in the campus of TeI-Aviv University, roasted a few cats and offered

their meat to passers-by as 'shish-kebab from the legs of the Arab mayors'. Anyone

who witnessed this macabre orgy - as I did - would have to admit that some horrors

defy explanation in the present state of knowledge.

26 One of the early quirks of Jabotinsky (founder of the party then led by Begin) was

to propose, in about 1912, the creation of two Jewish states, one in Palestine and the

other in Angola: the former, being poor in natural resources, would be subsidized by

the riches of the latter.

27 Herzl went to Russia to meet von Plehve in August 1903, less than four months

after the hideous Kishinev pogrom, for which the latter was known to be responsible.

Herzl pro- posed an alliance, based on their common wish to get most of the Jews out

of Russia and, in the shorter term, to divert Jewish support away from the socialist

movement. The Tsarist minister started the first interview (8 August) by observing

that he regarded himself as 'an ardent supporter of zionism'. When Herzl went on to

describe the aims of zionism, von Plehve interrupted: 'You are preaching to the

converted'. Amos Elon, Herzel, 'Am 'Oved, 1976 pp.415-9, in Hebrew.

28 Dr Joachim Prinz, Wirjuden, Berlin, 1934, pp. 150-1.

29 Ibid., pp. 154-5.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 96 —

30 For example see ibid., p. 136. Even worse expressions of sympathy with Nazism

were voices by the extremist Lohamey Herut Yisra'el (Stern Gang) as late as 1941. Dr

Prinz was, in zionist terms, a 'dove'. In the 1970s he even patronized the US Jewish

movement Breira, until he was dissuaded by Golda Meir.

Chapter 5: The Laws Against Non-Jews

1 Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, 'Laws on Murderers' 2, 11; Talmudic Encyclopedia,

'Goy'.

2 R. Yo'el Sirkis, Bayit Hadash, commentary on Beyt Josef, yoreh De'ah' 158. The

two rules just mentioned apply even if the Gentile victim is ger toshav, that is a

'resident alien' who has undertaken in front of three Jewish witnesses to keep the

'seven Noahide precepts' (seven biblical laws considered by the Talmud to be

addressed to Gentiles).

3 R. David Halevi (Poland, 17th century), Turey Zahav" on Shulhan 'Arukh, 'Yoreh

De'ah' 158.

5 Talmudic Encyclopedia, 'Ger' (= convert to Judaism).

6 For example, R. Shabbtay Kohen (mid 17th century), Siftey Kohen on Shulhan

'Arukh, 'Yoreh De'ah, 158: 'But in times of war it was the custom to kill them with

one's own hands, for it is said, "The best of Gentiles - kill him!"' Siftey Kohen and

Turey Zahay (see note 3) are the two major classical commentaries on the Shulhan

'Arukh.

7 Colonel Rabbi A. Avidan (Zemel), 'Tohar hannesheq le'or hahalakhah' (= 'Purity of

weapons in the light of the Halakhah') in Be'iqvot milhemet yom hakkippurim -

pirqey hagut, halakhah umehqar (In the Wake of the Yom Kippur War - Chapters of

Meditation, Halakhah and Research), Central Region Command, 1973: quoted in

Ha'olam Hazzeh, 5 January 1974; also quoted by David Shaham, 'A chapter of

meditation', Hotam, 28 March 1974; and by Amnon Rubinstein, 'Who falsifies the

Halakhah?' Ma'ariv", 13 October 1975. Rubinstein reports that the booklet was

subsequently withdrawn from circulation by order of the Chief of General Staff,

presumably because it encouraged soldiers to disobey his own orders; but he

complains that Rabbi Avidan has not been court-martialled, nor has any rabbi -

military or civil - taken exception to what he had written.

8 R. Shim'on Weiser, 'Purity of weapons - an exchange of letters' in Niv"

Hammidrashiyyah Yearbook of Midrashiyyat No'am, 1974, pp.29-31. The yearbook

is in Hebrew, English and French, but the material quoted here is printed in Hebrew

only.

9 Psalms, 42:2.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 97 —

10 'Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven',

Deuteronomy, 25:19. Cf. also I Samuel, 15:3: 'Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly

destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant

and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.'

11 We spare the reader most of these rather convoluted references and quotes from

talmudic and rabbinical sources. Such omissions are marked [...]. The rabbi's own

conclusions are reproduced in full.

12 The Tosafot (literally, Addenda) are a body of scholia to the Talmud, dating from

the 1 lth-13th centuries.

13 Persons guilty of such crimes are even allowed to rise to high public positions. An

illustration of this is the case of Shmu'el Lahis, who was responsible for the massacre

of between 50 and 75 Arab peasants imprisoned in a mosque after their village had

been conquered by the Israeli army during the 1948-9 war. Following a pro forma

trial, he was granted complete amnesty, thanks to Ben-Gurion's intercession. The

man went on to become a respected lawyer and in the late 1970s was appointed

Director General of the Jewish Agency (which is, in effect, the executive of the zionist

movement). In early 1978 the facts concerning his past were widely discussed in the

Israeli press, but no rabbi or rabbinical scholar questioned either the amnesty or his

fitness for his new office. His appointment was not revoked.

14 Shulhan 'Arukh, 'Hoshen Mishpat' 426.

15 Tractate 'Avodah Zarah, p. 26b.

16 Maimonides, op. cit., 'Murderer' 4, 11.

17 Leviticus, 19:16. Concerning the rendering 'thy fellow', see note 14 to Chapter 3.

18 Maimonides, op. cit., 'Idolatry' 10, 1-2.

19 In both cases in section 'Yoreh De'ah' 158. The Shulhan 'Arukh repeats the same

doctrine in 'Hoshen Mishpat' 425.

20 Moses Rivkes, Be'er Haggolah on Shulhan 'Arukh, 'Hoshen Mishpat' 425.

21 Thus Professor Jacob Katz, in his Hebrew book Between Jews and Gentiles as well

as in its more apologetic English version Exclusiveness and Tolerance, quotes only

this passage verbatim and draws the amazing conclusion that 'regarding the

obligation to save life no discrimination should be made between Jew and Christian'.

He does not quote any of the authoritative views I have cited above or in the next

section.

22 Maimonides, op. cit., 'Sabbath' 2, 20-21; Shulhan 'Arukh, 'Orab Hayyim' 329.

23 R 'Aqiva Eiger, commentary on Shulhan 'Arukh, ibid. He also adds that if a baby is

found abandoned in a town inhabited mainly by Gentiles, a rabbi should be consulted

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 98 —

as to whether the baby should be saved.

24 Tractate Avodah Zarah, p. 26.

25 Maimonides, op. cit., 'Sabbath' 2, 12; Shulhan 'Arukh, 'Orah Hayyim' 330. The

latter text says 'heathen' rather than 'Gentile' but some of the commentators, such as

Turey Zahav, stress that this ruling applies 'even to Ishmaelites', that is, to Muslims,

'who are not idolators'. Christians are not mentioned explicitly in this connection, but

the ruling must a fortiori apply to them, since - as we shall see below - Islam is

regarded in a more favorable light than Christianity. See also the responsa of Hatam

Sofer quoted below.

26 These two examples, from Poland and France, are reported by Rabbi I.Z. Cahana

(afterwards professor of Talmud in the religious Bar-Ilan University, Israel),

'Medicine in the Halachic post-Talmudic Literature', Sinai, vol 27, 1950, p.221. He

also reports the following case from 19th century Italy. Until 1848, a special law in the

Papal States banned Jewish doctors from treating Gentiles. The Roman Republic

established in 1848 abolished this law along with all other discriminatory law against

Jews. But in 1849 an expeditionary force sent by France's President Louis Napoleon

(afterwards Emperor Napoleon III) defeated the Republic and restored Pope Pius Ix,

who in 1850 revived the anti-Jewish laws. The commanders of the French garrison,

disgusted with this extreme reaction, ignored the papal law and hired some Jewish

doctors to treat their soldiers. The Chief Rabbi of Rome, Moshe Hazan, who was

himself a doctor, was asked whether a pupil of his, also a doctor, could take a job in a

French military hospital despite the risk of having to desecrate the sabbath. The rabbi

replied that if the conditions of employment expressly mention work on the sabbath,

he should refuse. But if they do not, he could take the job and employ 'the great

cleverness of God-fearing Jews.' For example, he could repeat on Saturday the

prescription given on Friday, by simply telling this to the dispenser. R. Cahana's

rather frank article, which contains many other examples, is mentioned in the

bibliography of a book by the former Chief Rabbi of Britain, R. Immanuel Jakobovits,

Jewish Medical Ethics, Bloch, New York, 1962; but in the book itself nothing is said

on this matter.

27 Hokhmat Shlomoh on Shulhan 'Arukh, 'Orah Hayyim' 330, 2.

28 R. Unterman, Ha'aretz, 4 April 1966. The only qualification he makes - after

having been subjected to continual pressure - is that in our times any refusal to give

medical assistance to a Gentile could cause such hostility as might endanger Jewish

lives.

29 Hatam Sofer, Responsa on Shulhan 'Arukh, 'Yoreh De'ah' 131.

30 Op. cit., on Shulhan 'Arukh, 'Hoshen Mishpat' 194. 31 R. B. Knobelovitz in The

Jewish Review (Journal of the Mizrachi Party in Great Britain), 8 June 1966.

32 R. Yisra'el Me'ir Kagan - better known as the 'Hafetz Hayyim - complains in his

Mishnah Berurah, written in Poland in 1907: 'And know ye that most doctors, even

the most religious, do not take any heed whatsoever of this law; for they work on the

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 99 —

sabbath and do travel several parasangs to treat a heathen, and they grind

medicaments with their own hands. And there is no authority for them to do so. For

although we may find it permissible, because of the fear of hostility, to violate bans

imposed by the sages - and even this is not clear; yet in bans imposed by the Torah

itself it must certainly be forbidden for any Jew to do so, and those who transgress

this prohibition violate the sabbath utterly and may God have mercy on them for

their sacrilege.' (Commentary on Shulhan 'Arukh, 'Orah Hayyim' 330.) The author is

generally regarded as the greatest rabbinical authority of his time.

33 Avraham Steinberg MD (ed.), Jewish Medical Law, compiled from Tzitz Eli 'ezer

(Responsa of R. Eli'ezer Yehuda Waldenberg), translated by David B. Simons MD,

Gefen & Mossad Harav Kook, Jerusalem and California, 1980.

34 Op. cit., p. 39. Ibid., p.41.

35 Ibid., p. 41.

36 The phrase 'between Jew and gentile' is a euphemism. The dispensation is

designed to prevent hostility of Gentiles towards Jews, not the other way around.

37 Ibid.,p.412;my emphasis.

38 Dr Falk Schlesinger Institute for Medical Halakhic Research at Sha'arey Tzedeq

Hospital, Sefer Asya (The Physician's Book), Reuben Mass, Jerusalem, 1979.

39 By myself in Ha'olam Hazzeh, 30 May 1979 and by Shullamit Aloni, Member of

Knesset, in Ha'aretz, 17 June 1980.

40 Ezekiel, 23:20.

41 Tractate Berakhot, p. 78a.

42 Talmudic Encyclopedia, 'Eshet Ish' ('Married Woman').

43 Exodus, 20:17.

44 Genesis, 2:24.

45 Maimonides, op. cit., 'Prohibitions on Sexual Intercourse' 12; 10; Talmudic

Encyclopedia, 'Goy'.

46 Maimonides, op. cit., ibid., 12, 1-3. As a matter of fact, every Gentile woman is

regarded as N.Sh.G.Z. - acronym for the Hebrew words niddah, shifhah, goyah,

zonah (unpurified from menses, slave, Gentile, prostitute). Upon conversion to

Judaism, she ceases indeed to be niddah, shifhah, goyah but is still considered zonah

(prostitute) for the rest of her life, simply by virtue of having been born of a Gentile

mother. In a special category is a woman 'conceived not in holiness but born in

holiness', that is born to a mother who had converted to Judaism while pregnant. In

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 100 —

order to make quite sure that there are no mix-ups, the rabbis insist that a married

couple who convert to Judaism together must abstain from marital relations for three

months.

47 Characteristically, an exception to this generalization is made with respect to

Gentiles holding legal office relating to financial transactions: notaries, debt

collectors, bailiff~ and the like. No similar exception is made regarding ordinary

decent Gentiles, not even if they are friendly towards Jews.

48 Some very early (1st century BC) rabbis called this law 'barbaric' and actually

returned lost property belonging to Gentiles. But the law nevertheless remained.

49 Leviticus, 25:14. This is a literal translation of the Hebrew phrase. The King

James Version renders this as 'ye shall not oppress one another'; 'oppress' is

imprecise but 'one another' is a correct rendering of the biblical idiom 'each man his

brother'. As pointed out in Chapter 3, the Halakhah interprets all such idioms as

referring exclusively to one's fellow Jew.

50 Shulhan 'Arukh, 'Hoshen Mishpat' 227.

51 This view is advocated by H. Bar-Droma, Wezeh Gvul Ha'aretz (And This Is the

Border of the Land), Jerusalem, 1958. In recent years this book is much used by the

Israeli army in indoctrinating its officers.

52 Maimonides, op. cit., 'Idolatry' 10, 3-4.

53 See note 2.

54 Exodus, 23:33.

55 Maimonides, op. cit., 'Idolatry' 10, 6.

56 Deuteronomy, 20:16. See also the verses quoted in note 10.

57 Numbers 31:13-20; note in particular verse 17: 'Now there- fore kill every male

among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.'

58 R. Sha'ul Yisra'eli, 'Taqrit Qibbiya Le'or Hahalakhah' (The Qibbiya incident in the

light of the Halakhah'), in Hattorab Wehammedinah, vol 5, 1953/4.

59 This is followed by a blessing 'for not making me a slave'. Next, a male must add a

blessing 'for not making me a woman', and a female 'for making me as He pleased'.

60 In eastern Europe it was until recent times a universal custom among Jews to spit

on the floor at this point, as an expression of scorn. This was not however a strict

obligation, and today the custom is kept only by the most pious.

61 The Hebrew word is meshummadim, which in rabbinical usage refers to Jews who

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 101 —

become 'idolators', that is either pagan or Christians, but not to Jewish converts to

Islam.

62 The Hebrew word is minim, whose precise meaning is 'disbelievers in the

uniqueness of God'.

63 Tractate Berakhot, p. 58b.

64 According to many rabbinical authorities the original rule still applies in full in

the Land of Israel.

65 This custom gave rise to many incidents in the history of European Jewry. One of

the most famous, whose consequence is still visible today, occurred in 14th century

Prague. King Charles IV of Bohemia (who was also Holy Roman Emperor) had a

magnificent crucifix erected in the middle of a stone bridge which he had built and

which still exists today. It was then reported to him that the Jews of Prague are in the

habit of spitting whenever they pass next to the crucifix. Being a famous protector of

the Jews, he did not institute persecution against them, but simply sentenced the

Jewish community to pay for the Hebrew word Adonay (Lord) to be inscribed on the

crucifix in golden letters. This word is one of the seven holiest names of God, and no

mark of disrespect is allowed in front of it. The spitting ceased. Other incidents

connected with the same custom were much less amusing.

66 The verses most commonly used for this purpose contain words derived from the

Hebrew root shaqetz which means 'abominate, detest', as in Deuteronomy, 7:26:

'thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.' It

seems that the insulting term sheqetz, used to refer to all Gentiles (Chapter 2),

originated from this custom.

67 Talmud, Tractate Beytzah, p. 21a, b; Mishnah Berurah on Shulhan 'Arukh, 'Orah

Hayyim' 512. Another commentary (Magen Avraham) also excludes Karaites.

68 According to the Halakha, a Gentile slave bought by a Jew should be converted to

Judaism, but does not thereby become a proper Jew.

69 Leviticus, 25:46.

70 The Hebrew form of the name Jesus - Yeshu - was interpreted as an acronym for

the curse may his name and memory be wiped out', which is used as an extreme form

of abuse. In fact, anti-zionist Orthodox Jews (such as Neturey Qarta) sometimes refer

to Herzl as 'Herzl Jesus' and I have found in religious zionist writings expressions

such as 'Nasser Jesus' and more recently 'Arafat Jesus.'

INDEX

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 102 —

TOPICS

adultery, capital offense, 87

Aggadah, talmudic Narrative, 39

agriculture, 41, 43;

Jewish contempt for, 42,53;

mixed crops, 44-5

al-Mansur, caliph of Spain, 57 AlexanderVJ Borgia, Pope, 21 Aloni, Shulamit, 27 Amalekites, 84;

law on murder of, 77, 113n;

Palestinians identified with, 91-2

antisemitism, 2,103;

alliance with zionism, 71-2;

modern,66-9

 apartheid,Jewish ideology compared with, 100 Apuleius, The Golden Ass, 21 Arab League, meeting at

Fez,100 Arab mayors, attempted assassination (1980), 112n Arabs, as enemies, 77;

exploitation of labor of, 5, 96,

see also Islam; Muslims Arba 'ah Turim,

on saving of life, 81

 Arendt, Hannah, on Jewish history, 16 army Sec Israeli army Artaxerxes I, King, 50 Australia, 23,

24 Austrian Empire, Jewish Enlightenment in, 70;

Jews in, 15;

and modern Judaism, 51;

serfdom in, 53;

under Metternich, 17

 Babylonian exile, return from(537 BC), 50 Bar Mitzvah ceremony, 17 Bayit Hadash, 83 Begin,

Menachem, 35 Ben-Gurion, David, 12;

alliance with French antisemites, 71;

Jewish ideology of, 8-9, 35

 Bergman, Hugo Shmuel, philosopher, 28 Beyt Yosef, codification of talmudic law, 75;

on saving of life, 81

 Bible, biblical borders of Israel, 9-10;

interpretation of, 36-8;

Kingdoms of Old Testament, 50;

New Testament to be burnt, 21, 98;

polytheism in, 32

 Bismarck, Otto von, 70 Black Death, 65 Blacks, racism against, 25, 106n;

US organized Jews' support for, 102

 Book of Education, The, 94-5 Book of Knowledge (Maimonidean Code), 24-5 books, anathematized,

18 Bratislava (Pressburg), Jews in,15 bribery, use of, 17,21 British Labor Party, 30 Buber, Martin,

Hassidic apologist, 27~ cabbala (mysticism), spread of, 32-3, lO7n Canaanites,23, 91 Canada,

support for Israel,101 capital punishment, within Jewish communities, 14-15, 17 capitalism, and

modern antisemitism, 66-7 Casimir the Great, of Poland, 61,62 Castile see Spain Catholic church, and

alliance with antisemitism, 68 cemeteries, blessings and curses on, 234,93;

violation of, 378

 characteristics,Jewish, and modern antisemitism, 18-19, 67 Charles W of Bohemia, Holy Roman

Emperor, 117-18n chauvinism,Jewish, 11-12,103 child labor, exploitation of Arab, 96 Chmielnicki

revolt (Ukraine 1648),66,72,73 Christian clergy, as 'friends of the Jews', 29-30 Christianity, and

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 103 —

campaign against Talmud, 20-2;

Jewish hatred of, 92-3,97,98;

lack of racism in, 67;

persecution of Jews, 97; and

records of Jewish history, 52;

rise of, 51

 class, and effect of dispensations, 48,49;

within Jewish communities, 55

 classical Judaism, 74, 105n, 106n;

decay of monotheism m, 324;

effect of dispensations on, 42, 47-8;

major social features of, 52-6;

Platonic influence on, 12-13;

profit motive in, 49;

repressive nature of, 19-20,

see also Orthodox Judaism; zionism

 clergy, Christian, as 'friends of the Jews', 29-30 clergy, Jewish, powers and exemption from taxes, 54-

5;

restrictions on marriage, 59

 Code of Talmudic Law (Editio Pn'nceps), 21 conservatism, alliance with antisemitism, 68,

69,70,71 conspiracy theory of history, and modern antisemitism, 67 Constitutional law, against

opposition to 'Jewish state', 3 conversion from Judaism, 20, 105n, 117n;

as escape, 15

 conversion to Judaism, and definition of Jewish, 4-5;

and entitlement to settle in Israel, 34;

of women, 5, 1 16n

 Creation, by First Cause, 33 Cromer, Lord, on imperialism,100 crusades, and persecution of Jews,

65 curses, against buildings, 93;

against Christians, 92-3, 117n;

on graveyards, 24;

on infidels, 24-5,93;

prohibition against, 96;

spitting, 1 17-18n

 Cyprus, Israel's claims to, 9, 90 Daughter (Shekhinah), and union with Son, 33-4 Dayan, Moshe,

100 Decalogue, talmudic interpretation of, 36-7 deception in business, 89 democracy, lacking in State

of Israel, 2, 3 Deutscher, Isaac, socialist, 53 diaspora, Jews of the,

influence of Talmudic laws on, 2;

uncritical support for Israel, 101-2,

see also USA

 dispensations (heterim), 42-7;

and deception of God, 47, 48;

for holy days, 94;

profit motive in, 4~9;

social aspects of, 47-9,

see also Sabbath

 divorce, 110n doctors, employed by rulers, 534;

and Gentile wounded (Israeli army), 27,28;

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 104 —

and saving of life on Sabbath, 40, 81-7, 115n

 Dreyfus affair, 68 Drumont, E., La France Juive, 67, 68 Egypt, claims of Israel to, 9;

Jews in, 51

 Eiger, Aqiva (Rabbi), 82 emancipation of Jews, and rise of antisemitism, 70;

within civil states, 14, 15-17, 66

 England, Jewish community in medieval, 56;

legal rights for Jews in, 14

 English Revolution, 69 excuses, for not desecrating Sabbath, 82-3, 84, 85,

see also dispensations

 Ezra, Book of, 50 Fatimid empire, and Jews in Egypt, 58,59 'fellow', interpretation of, 37, 95,

117n First Cause, Creator, 33 'forbidden thoughts', 16, 19 formula, significance of, 35 France, Jewish

community in medieval, 56-7;

legal rights for Jews in, 14;

and modern antisemitism, 66, 67~, 71;

and modern Judaism, 51

 fraud, against Gentiles, 89 French revolution, 14, 15, 69, 73 Galilee, 'Judaization' of, 8 Gaza Strip,

91-2 Gazit, Shlomo, General, 11, 12 Gemarah, discussions of Mishnah, 39 Gentiles, 70, 81;

and authority over Jews, 88;

duty to oppress, 96;

fictitious sales to, 434, 45;

gifts to, 88-9;

kings excepted from laws against, 534;

in Land of Israel, 90-2:

murder by, 76;

murder of, 76;

praise of forbidden, 93;

presumed contamination of wine and food by, 94;

as resident aliens, 91, 112n;

saving life of, 1, 80-1, 82, 86;

sexual offenses and status of women, 87-8, 116n;

as slaves, 95

 geography, study of forbidden, 18, 19, 105n Germany, Buber's Hassidic eulogies published in, 28;

Jewish Enlightenment in, 70;

Jewish society in 18th century, 15-16;

and modem antisemitism, 66, 67, 669;

Peasant War (1525), 73;

persecution of historians, 105n,

see also Nazis gifts, as investment, 88

 Golden Age, Jewish, in Muslim Spain, 57-8, 110n Gordon, A.D., 7 Gospels, banned in schools,

98 Greek Orthodox Church, and antisemitism, 68 grinding, banned on Sabbath, 40,45-6 Gush

Emunim, and biblical borders of Israel, 9;

cabbalistic traditions of, 32, 35;

on Islam, 98;

and oppression of Gentiles, 96;

prayers against Christianity, 92-3;

and treatment of Palestinians, 91

 Gypsies, Nazi extermination of, 64 Habbad movement, 27 Hadas, Moses, on Platonic influences, 12-

13 Hafetz Hayyim (Rabbi Yisra'el Me'ir Kagan), 1 15n Hagga'on, Sa'adia (Rabbi),104n Halakhah (legal

system of classical Judaism), 75;

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 105 —

and Israel's criminal law, 79;

on Muslims, 98;

on saving of life, 80

hands, ritual washing of, 34

 Hassidic movement, attitude to non-Jews, 26-8 Hatanya, Habbad movement text, 27 Hellenism,

influence of, 51 Henry II (of Trastamara and Castile),60, 110n Herzl, Theodor, alliance with von

Plehve, 71, 112n Hesronot Shas edition of Talmudic Omissions, 23 Hess, Moses, Jewish racist,

30 Hippocratic Oath, 85, 86 historiography, and nationalism,22 history, Jewish ignorance and fear of,

17, 18, 19-20, 109n;

Jewish need to confront,734;

and totalitarianism, 22, 105n

 History of the Kings of France, 19-20 Hitler, Adolf, zionist approval of, 71-2 Hokhmat Shlomob, 19thcentury commentary, 83 Holland,censorship of talmudic literature,21;

legal rights for Jews in, 14;

and modern Judaism, 51;

War of Dutch Independence( 156~1648),69

 Holocaust, the, 64, 111n holy days, laws against work on, 94, see also Sabbath hostility against Jews,

avoidance of, laws on money and property, 88-9;

and murder, 76;

and popular rejoicing, 93;

and saving of life, 76,82-3, 85-6

 houses, lease of, 90-1;

sale of to Gentiles, 90

 human rights, and attitude to non-Jews, 101-2 humor, Jewish sense of, 18 Hungary, serfdom in,

53 Hussein, King, of Jordan, 100 identity cards, 6 immigration laws, Law of Return, 6;

residency rights, 5

 imperialism, Lord Cromer's

formula, 100

 interest on loans, dispensation for taking, 42-3, 89;

to Gentiles, 89, 95-6

 intermarriage, in Spain and Poland, 67, 110n Iraq, claims of Israel to, 9 Islam, attitude of Judaism to,

98;

forbids expulsion of Jews, 57;

lack of racism in, 67,

see also Arabs; Muslims Israel, ancient kingdom of, 50

 Israel, Land of (as defined in Talmud),

laws against Gentiles in, 90-2

 Israel Land Authority, 5 Israel, State of, citizenship, 4, 6;

dangers posed by, 2-3, 8;

defined as a Jewish state, 24;

discrimination against non-Jews, 5-6, 234;

dominated by east-European Jews, 64;

laws on murder, 7~9;

religious basis of policies, 1-2, 8-9, 99;

restoration of biblical borders, 9-10;

role in Middle East, 11, 73;

uncritical support for, 102

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 106 —

 Israeli army, doctors and Gentile wounded, 27,28;

and religious laws on murder of Gentiles, 76-9, 1 13n;

and Sabbath observance, 46

 Israeli Medical Association, 87 Isserles, Moses (Rabbi), 81 Italy, anti-Jewish laws in, 115n; Jews in

medieval, 19,57 Jabotiasky, -, pact with Petlyura, 71 Jabri, Sheikh, of Hebron, 100 Jacquerie revolt

(1357~),73 Jesus, talmudic misinterpretation of, 97-8;

talmudic precepts against, 21;

as term of abuse, 118n

 Jewish communities, in 18th century, 14-15;

autonomous powers of, 54, 60, 62;

between talmudic and classical periods, 41-2;

liberated by modern states, 15-16,66;

as middle class in feudal countries, 534,56

 Jewish Enlightenment(Haskalah), 32,70 Jewish ideology, continuing chauvinism of, 17-18;

imperialism prohibited by, 100-1;

influence of, 11-12, 99,

see also classical Judaism; Judaism

 Jewish Medical Law, 85-6 Jewish National Fund (JNF), 5, 7, 8 Jews, categories defined by Talmud,

3940;

defined in 1780,14;

defined in Israeli law, 4-5, 109n;

social position in eastern Europe, 534

 Jordan, claims of Israel to, 9, 90;

relations with State of Israel, 99-100

 Judah, ancient kingdom of, 50 Judaism, attitude to Islam, 98;

gap in knowledge of (AD 200-800), 52;

hatred of Christianity, 97~;

historical phases of, 50-2,

see also classical Judaism; Gush Emunim; mysticism; Orthodox Judaism

 Kafr Qasim, mass murder at 79 Karaites (heretical sect), 60;

ban on saving life of, 83,85-6

 Karo, Rabbi Yosef, Beyt Yosef, 75 Kaufman, Yehezkiel, 28 kibbutz, exclusivism of, 7, 17 King, Martin

Luther, Jewish support for, 26, 102 kings, exceptions to laws against Gentiles, 534 Kiryat-Arba,

100 Kohens (priestly tribe), 87-8 Koran see Qur'an Kushites (Kushim), transliteration of Blacks,

25 Kuwait, claims of Israel to,9 labor movement, zionist, and redeemed land, 7 Lahis, Shmu'el,

amnesty for, 1 13-14n land, ownership of, 34,5;

redemption of, 78,11, 100;

sale of to Gentiles, 43, 90

 Law of Return, 6 laws, 'of heaven', 75,

see Talmud learning

see scholarship leavened substances, dispensations for, 45

 Lebanon, Israel's claims to, 9, 10,90 Lemberg (Lvov), rabbi poisoned in, 17 liberalization, see

emancipation of Jews liberalism, and antisemitism, 69;

zionist hostility to, 71-2

 Likud Party, and restoration of biblical borders, 10 Lior, Dov (Rabbi), 10 lost property, belonging to

Gentiles, 89, 116n Lvov see Lemberg Maccabean period (142-63 BC), 13 Machiavelli, 12 Maimonides,

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 107 —

Moses, Guide to the Perplexed, 25;

Mishneh Torah, 21,24-5,75;

Muslim persecution of, 97;

physician to Saladin, 59, 98;

racism of, 25;

on saving of life, 80

 Marx, Karl, on Judaism, 49 marxists, as 'friends of the Jews', 30 meat and milk, injunction against

mixing, 37 medicine see doctors; midwives Meir, Golda, Prime Minister,71, 100 Mencius (Chinese

sage), 74 mercy, interpretation of, 96 Mesopotamia, ancient kingdom of, 41,50 Metz (France),

83 Middle East, State of Israel's role in, 11,73 Midianites, Biblical exhortations against,

92 Midrashiyyat No'am college, 77 midwives, for Gentiles, on Sabbath, 82-3,85;

in Turkey, 84

 milking on Sabbath, dispensations for, 44 Mishnah, legal code of Talmud,39 Mishnah Berurah,

modern codification of talmudic law, 75, 118n Mishneh Torah (Maimonides' codification of talmudic

law), 21,75;

and work on Sabbath, 84

 mixed crops, dispensation for sowing, 44-5, 108n monotheism, in Judaism, 324 More, Sir Thomas,

12 Moses, incarnation as Son, 33 Moshe (soldier), letters to rabbi, 77-9 murder, of Gentiles,76;

of Jews, 75,76

 Muslim countries, Jews in medieval, 57-9 Muslims, and contamination of wine by, 94 mysticism,

attitude to non-Jews, 16;

and deception, 269;

Hassidism, 2~8,

see also cabbala; Gush Emunim

 Napoleon III, Emperor of France, 115n nationalism, and historiography, 22 Nazis, extermination of

Jews, 64, 11 in;

Jewish, 112n

 New Testament, public burning of, 21,98 Nicaragua, Israeli role in, 73 Nicholas I, of Russia, 16-

17 Noahide precepts, 91, 112n non-Jews, 'friends of the Jews', 29-31;

in Jewish mysticism,16;

and redeemed land, 7;

used for work on Sabbath,44, 45-7,

see also Gentiles

 Occupied Territories, Israeli regime in, 2;

land 'redemption' in, 8

 Old Testament, and ancient kingdoms, 50 organizations, exclusiveness of Jewish, 102 Orthodox

Judaism, 13,32;

corrupting influence of, 48-9,

see also classical Judaism; zionism

 Ottoman Empire, Jews in, 58-9, 70 Palestine, ancient kingdom of, 41, 50;

British Labor party plans for, 30;

 PLO, 99-100 Palestinians, religious duty to expel, 91-2,96;

zionist hostility to, 29, 72

 papacy, liberalism of, 21;

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 108 —

and persecution of Jews, 65-6

 Parthion Empire, 110n Patriarch, Jewish, in Roman Empire, 54-5, 110n Paul, St, 51 payment, for work

on Sabbath, 47 peasants, absent from classical Judaism, 52-3;

Jewish contempt for, 42, 72, 109n;

oppression by Jews in Poland, 63;

State of Israel's oppression of, 73

 Pedro I, of Castile, 60 Pentateuch, talmudic interpretations of, 37 persecution of Jews, 64-6,97,

110n Persian Empire, 50,51 Peruvian tribe, converted to Judaism, 34 Petlyura, -' pact with Jabotinsky,

71 Pharisees, 51 Philo of Alexandria, 105n Plato, 12-13, 104-5n Plehve, Count von, alliance with

Herzl,71, 112n PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization),99-100 pogroms, in Tsarist Russia, 65 Poland,

dispensation on interest-taking, 42-3;

Jewish communities in, 14,17,55, 614;

Royal Towns, 62;

serfdom in, 53, 110n;

treating Gentiles on Sabbath, 83

 Popper, Karl, The Open Society and Its Enemies, 13,18 popular movements, and opposition to Jews,

60-1,64, 65-6;

racism not a factor in, 73

 Portugal, 59, see also Spain Prague, crucifix on bridge, 117-18n prayers, against Gentiles, 92-3, 117n;

morning, for union of Son and Daughter, 34;

superstitious use of, 48;

to propitiate Satan, 34

 Pressburg (Bratislava), Jews in, 15 priests see clergy primary intention, and ban on work on Sabbath,

86 Prinz, Dr Joachim, and ideology of racial purity, 71-2 profit motive, in dispensations,

469 Protestantism, and alliance with antisemitism, 68 Prussia, emancipation of Jews in, 70; serfdom

in, 53 Pugachev rebellion, Russia, 73 'purity of weapons', 78, 79, 113n Qibbiya massacre, 92 Qur'an,

not condemned by Judaism, 98 rabbinical courts, Gentile witnesses in, 88;

of Jerusalem, 1;

powers of, 14-15

 racial purity, ideology common to Nazism and zionism, 71-2 racism, against non-Jews, 2, 69;

irrationality of, 11 1-12n;

pro-Jewish among non-Jews, 29-31

 Reformation, intellectual honesty in, 21 Religions, Ministry of (State of Israel), 21 religious

fanaticism, dangers of, 29 religious toleration, in early Judaism, 50-1 Richard I, King of England,

65 ritual, importance of, 35, 107n Rivkes, Moses (Rabbi), liberalism of, 81 robbery (with violence), of

Gentiles, 90 Roman Empire, Jewish religious toleration in, 51,110n;

legal position of Jewry in, 54-5

 Romania, emancipation of Jews in' 70 Rosten, Leo, The Joys of Yiddish, 26 Russia, censorship of

talmudic literature, 21, 23;

emancipation of Jews in, 70;

persecution of Jews in, 65;

serfdom in, 53,73, 110n

 Ryazin, Stenka, rebellion of Russian peasants, 73 Sabbath, dispensations for milking on, 44;

saving of life on, 81-7;

Talmud's definitions of work forbidden on, 40-1, 84;

use of telephone on, 1,

see also dispensations

 Sabbath-Goy, dispensations for, 45-7, 108-9n sabbatical year, dispensation for, 434,

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 109 —

108n Sadduceans,51, 106n Saladin, toleration of Jews, 59, 98 Satan, propitiation of, 34;

role of, 33, 107n

 Saudi Arabia, claims of Israel to, 9 saving of life, 80-1, 114n;

on Sabbath, 81-7

 Schneurssohn, M.M. (Rabbi), 27 scholars, deception by, 24-6 scholarship, religious textbooks, 94-5;

restricted in classical Judaism, 18, 19-20, 105n, 109n,

see also history

 Scholem, Gershom, 16n schools, Gospels banned in, 98;

Talmudic omissions taught in, 234 </DL>

 Seljuk empire, 58 serfdom, in eastern Europe, 52-3;

in Poland,61, ll0n;

in Russia, 53, 73, 110n

 sexual offenses, Halaldiab law on, 87-B Sharon, Arid, 10 Shaygets (sheqetz),

definition of, 26, 118n

 Shazar, President, Habbad supporter, 27 Shekhinah see Daughter Shevet Musar, on moral conduct,

107n Shmu'el Hannagid, of Granada, 57-8 Shulban 'Arukh, codification of talmudic law, 75;

on saving of life, 81,82

 Sicilian Vespers (1282), 111-12n Sinai, claimed by State of Israel, 9,10,90 Sirkis, Yo'el (Rabbi),Bayit

Hadash, 83 Sixtus W, Pope, 21 slave revolutions, 73 slave trade, Jewish role in, 111n, 105n slaves,

Gentile, 95, 105n Slavs, Nazi extermination of, 64 socialism, and antisemitism, 69 socialists, racism of

Jewish, 30, 53 Sofer, Moshe (Rabbi) ('Hatam Sofer'), 15;

responsa, 83-5

 Son (Holy Blessed One), and union with Daughter, 33-4 South Africa, Bantustans in 100;

and human rights, 103

 Spain, Jewish Golden Age, 57-8, 110n

Jews in, 14-15, 59-61, 105n;

massacre of Jews (139n),65-6

 Stalin, Joseph, 103 Steinsalz, 'Adin (Rabbi), 24 Strasbourg, persecution of Jews, 65 Suez War (1956),

8-9 superstition, 110n;

of Polish Jews, 63 </DL>

 Syria, ancient kingdom of, 50;

claimed by State of Israel, 9, 90

 Tabernacles, feast of, 34 Talmud, Babylonian, 39,41, 75 Talmud, Jerusalem(Palestinian), 39 Talmud

and talmudic law, attacks on Christianity, 20-1, 234, 106n;

Christian attacks on, 20-2;

exhortations to genocide, 91;

and interpretation of Bible, 36-8;

and profit motive, 49;

on saving of life, 80;

structure of, 3942,

see also Mishneb Torah; Shulhan 'Arukh

 Talmudic Encyclopedia, 75 talmudic literature, 39;

Jewish History, Jewish Religion

— 110 —

censorship of, 21,

see also Aggadah; Gemarah; Mishnah; Talmud

 Talmudic Omissions, 23 tax collectors, Jews as, 60, 62 taxation, Jewish clergy exempt from,

54 technology, effect on Sabbath observance, 45-6 Temples,building and destruction of, 33 theft,

talmudic interpretation of, 36-7,90 Theodosius I, Emperor, 54 Toldot Yehsu, on Jesus, 98 Torah see

Mishneb Torah Torquemada, Tomas de, Inquisitor, 61 totalitarianism, and deception, 29;

in Israeli-Jewish community, 10,103

 travel, on Sabbath, 84-5 Trevor-Roper, Hugh,

'Sir Thomas More and Utopia', 12;

The Rise of Christian Europe, 110-un </DL>

 Turkey, claims of Israel to, 9, 90;

midwives in, 84

 Ukraine, Chmielnicki revolt (1648),66, 73 universities, disputations in, 21, 105n USA, and Buber's

works on Hassidism, 28;

Israeli influence in, 3;

non-Jewish 'friends of the Jews', 30;

predominance of east- European Jews, 64;

support for Israel, 101;

translation of Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed, 25

 USSR, and human rights, 103;

immigrants from, 6

 virgin, Talmud's definition of, 41 wages, delaying,96 Waldenberg, Eli'ezer Yehuda (Rabbi),

85 washing, of hands, 34, 107n;

ritual bathing, 107n

 Weiser, Shim'on (Rabbi), letters to soldier Moshe, 77-9 West Bank, land restricted to Jews, 34;

oppression of Palestinians, 29;

and relations with Jordan, 100

 women, midwives, 82-5;

status of Gentile, 87-8, 116n;

status of Jewish, 88

 work, types defined in Talmud, 40 work, right to, discrimination against non-Jews, 5 World Zionist

Organization,5 xenophobia, and antisemitism, 68 Ximines, Cardinal, Inquisitor, 61 Yad

Le'akhimorganisation 21 Yemen,Jews in, 52 Yiddish, inaccuracy of glossary of, 26;

literature in, 70

 Yom Kippur War, 99 zionism, alliance with antisemitism, 71-2;

and hatred of peasants, 53;

influence in State of Israel, 13, 51, 99;

influences on, 1-2, 35; and laws against Gentiles, 90-1;

nostalgia for closed society, 19;

and political expediency, 97;

as response to antisemitism, 69-71,

see also classical Judaism; Orthodox Judaism