Jack Salzman, Cornel West Struggles in the Promised

24 // DAVID H. GOLDENBERG
sial professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College, have carried the attack to
center stage of the public arena: "The Hamitic Myth (that is, the association of
the African with the supposed curse of Noah), was invented by Jewish talmudic
scholars....It provided the moral pretext upon which the entire {African slave]
trade grew and flourished." 12
Basing their arguments on translations, anthologies, and encyclopedia articles,
these writers—drawing on one another, derivative and repetitive as they are, not
one of them an expert in rabbinic literature—have created a modern American
intellectual tradition. The tradition, however, disappears upon inspection.
Academic tools are being manipulated, and ancient sources exploited, to serve
purposes foreign to a real search for truth. And the sorriest aspect of this sordid
drama is that most of those repeating the canards are innocent bystanders.
While the arguments of these authors are repeated from one book to the next,
the tone undergoes sharp change. The objective language of Jordan and Gossett
is gradually replaced by the voice of vehement attack in the works of some who
follow them. There is clearly more at stake here than pure scholarship. It is, however,
the argument and not the tone that is the subject of this essay.
The charge of ancient Jewish racism consists of three parts: (a) rabbinic statements
project an anti-Black sentiment; (b) such sentiment is pervasive in rabbinic
literature (Talmud and Midrash) and reflects a "talmudic view" of Blacks; and (c)
this view is the source of racism in Western civilization. I shall deal with each of
these claims in turn.
"Rabbinic Statements Project an Anti-Black Sentiment" The charge of "rabbinic
racism" rests upon a total of five statements. Two of these occur in the earlier talmudic-midrashic
corpus—the others are in later medieval sources—and view
dark skin as a curse of God. The first (Talmud, Sanhedrin 108b) records the following
folktale told by a third-century CE rabbi: God prohibited Noah and all
the creatures in the ark from engaging in sex during the flood ("I have decided to
destroy my world and you would create life!"). Three creatures transgressed—the
dog, the raven, and Ham, son of Noah—and were punished. Ham's punishment
was that he became black, a procreative (i.e., genetic) punishment for a procreative
(i.e., sexual) sin. 13 The second story (Midrash, Genesis Rabbah 36.7), in an
elaboration of the biblical narrative in Genesis 9 ("And Ham saw [Noah's] nakedness"),
assumes that Ham castrated his father Noah. In retaliation Noah said to
Ham: "You prevented me from doing that which is done in the dark [the sexual
act], therefore may your progeny be black and ugly." 14
First, it should be noted—it is often not—that these folktales are concerned
with skin color, not race. Ham's progeny, the Bible tells us, comprised different
ethnic groups: Egyptians, Libyans, Canaanites, Ethiopians. Still, the idea that
dark skin is a punishment for a sinful act is disturbing to our twentieth-century
Western ears.
But should we listen to a 1700-year-old Near Eastern text with twentieth-