Jewish History, Jewish Religion:
The Weight of Three Thousand Years
By Professor Israel Shahak
2. 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 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, 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 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 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 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 English-speaking 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 the phenomenon we are alluding to is by no means
uncommon.7
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 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.
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 Jews had
been subjected to. The first book on Jewish history proper l3
(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
self-contented - the area of Christian attacks against those passages in the
Talmud and the talmudic literature which are specifically anti-Christian or
more generally anti-Gentile. It is important to note that this challenge
developed relatively late in the 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 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 subs 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 Edigio 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
Apulcius from which the violent attack on Christianity had not been removed
was also published in Rome.) Alexander VI Borgin 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 more
lax, while others were more severe; and the offensive passages were expunged
or modified.
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 sereptitious
defiance, combined with outward compliance. As explained above, talmudic
passages directed against Christianity or against non-Jews l7
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 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 long-vanished 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 whipping-boys.
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 Omissio,ts 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 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 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 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 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 Kushi,,:, 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 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 light-hearted 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 example, let us take the famous Hatanya, 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 Fuhrer of Habbad, the so-called Lubavitcher rabbi, M.M.
Schneurssohn, who leads this powerful world-wide 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 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 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 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: Tantuii: 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 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 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.
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 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
non-Jews who in other areas are known - falsely in my opinion - as
'progressives'.
NOTES:
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 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.
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 anti-Black talmudic passages. But without a criticism of all sides
the attack on Islam alone reduces to mere slander
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