Foreword by
Gore Vidal
1.
A Closed Utopia?
2.
Prejudice and Prevarication
3.
Orthodoxy and Interpretation
4.
The Weight of History
5.
The Laws against Non-Jews
6.
Political Consequences
Notes and References
Index
Foreword by Gore Vidal
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 forty-five 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 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 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 concetration 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
CHAPTER 1
A Closed Utopia?
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, 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 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.
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.
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 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 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, 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 non-Jewish 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' 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 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 is to decrease tje 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 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
non-Jews. 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 Zionism1
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 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 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 Ben-Gurion'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 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 religious figures regard the Israeli
refusal to undertake such a holy war, or even 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.-- According to Gazit,
"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 [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 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 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'. 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 admission that Jewish chauvinism and
exclusivism exist, and on an honest examination of the
attitudes of Judaism towards the non-Jews.
CHAPTER 2Prejudice 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
l8 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 t
