When Victims Rule (pdf)

THE CAUSES OF HOSTILITY TOWARDS JEWS: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
can be rather disconcerting to find, especially for all the millions of non-Jews
who have dared to read the Old Testament, but the admonition to kill is there
in seminal Jewish religious literature. Of course, on the same page another
rabbi, Meir, takes an opposite stance and claims it is meritorious for anyone to
absorb the Bible. (UNIV JEW EN, v. 3, p. 4] Both opinions are there, both are
legitimate, both religiously sanctioning what a devout Jew essentially chooses
to believe, based upon his or her evaluation – generally within current convention
of a maze of interpretations and emphases – of conflicting rabbinical arguments.
Despite the extremely malleable capacities intrinsic to the Talmud, one of
its historical standards to our own day – in the Orthodox context (which is what
all Jews were till the Enlightenment) – is religiously sanctioned racism, rooted
in the Chosen People ethos and the notion that Jews were superior to all others
and destined to remain “apart” from them. “The Talmudic mind,” says Norman
Cantor, “is hostile to ethnic equality and to universalism. It is very anxious to
enforce an ideal of communal purity. All possible contacts with Gentiles are to
be avoided.” [CANTOR, p. 206] “It is the Talmudic mentality and customs,”
wrote David Goldstein, a Jewish apostate, in 1940, “that are largely responsible
for the enmity of non-Jews towards Jews. This enmity also exists among Jews
themselves, for revolt is the keynote of modern Jews, revolt against Rabbinism,
Orthodox Judaism, which is Talmudism.” [GOLDSTEIN, p. 130] “Learning the
classic Jewish texts in the yeshivot (religious schools) of both western and eastern
Europe,” notes Edwin Boraz, “involved generations of traditions. The Talmud
became part of the genetic code of our people.” [BORAZ, p. 3]
And what is included in this “genetic code?” “Sadly,” says Rabbi Isar
Schorsch,
“a low estimate of non-Jews pervades much of Talmudic literature.
The Mishna admonishes Jews not to leave their animals unattended at
the inn of a gentile, because gentiles are suspected of engaging in bestiality.
Gentiles are described also as liable to rape and murder, so that a
lonely Jew should avoid their company … [T]reatment of the ‘other’ remains
a problem for Judaism. In a divided world, we are entitled to take
whatever measures will advance our narrow interests. And it is such a
world, in which holiness and hatred are intertwined, that [jailed American
fraudster] Rabbi Frankel inhabits.” [SCHORSCH, I., 4-30-99]
Flagrant religious directives, in classical Judaism, for racist positions (and
worse) against all non-Jews, however, are difficult for the non-Jew to research
for many reasons. Relatively few Jews, for instance, are inclined to address such
a subject in detail (for fear of fueling “anti-Semitism”) in English publications.
(Non-Jews who address the Talmud critically are routinely dismissed as anti-
Semitic). It is usually addressed more safely, “privately,” in Hebrew. An example
of this may be gleaned from an English summary in Religious and Theological
Abstracts of a 1994 article in Hebrew by Elliot Horowitz. His subject is Purim –
the annual Jewish festival that celebrates the destruction of the Jews’ archenemy,
Haman – usually by hanging him in effigy. Horowitz’s article
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