The causes of hostility towards Jews

[M.T.T.]

2
THE CAUSES OF HOSTILITY TOWARDS JEWS: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

"Reason and documentation ... attest to the fact that anti-Jewish
hostility has not been (and is not) constant and ubiquitous. If it
had been, the conclusion is obvious: Jews could not have survived individually or
collectively, religiously or ethnically."
Alan Edelstein

"Medieval Jewry, much as it suffered from disabilities and contempt, still was a privileged
minority in every country in which it was tolerated at all."
Salo Baron, p. 259, 1972

"If Judaism is fundamentally altruistic in an evolutionarily meaningful sense, it would be
expected that Jews [through history] would characteristically engage in self-sacrificing
behavior on behalf of gentiles -- a thesis for which there is absolutely no evidence."
Kevin MacDonald, p. 64

"Indeed, the more religiously conservative a Jew is today, the less likely he or she is to
identify with universalistic ideologies or with the non-Jewish 'poor and downtrodden.'"
Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter,
1982,

p. 112

"My God," she gasped with grief. "Who died?" "Don't worry for nothing," Max assured her. "It's
nobody.They're burying a man called Blenholt today. He's not a Jew."
Daniel Fuchs, fiction, "Homage to
Blenholt
[in BERSHTEL, p.113]

2
THE CAUSES OF HOSTILITY TOWARDS JEWS : A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW


In order to understand the present and prospects for the future, something must be
understood about the past. Jews claim their origins to a seminal patriarch, Abraham, in the
land of Ur (today part of Iraq) 4,000 years ago. Abraham was not a farmer or village member of
a settled community. He was likely one of the "wandering" tribes of his time, a citizenship
less, "outsider" social class known as the "Apiru," or "Habiru" (Hebrews) who were scattered
across a wide area of the Middle East, from Syria to Egypt. [ANDERSON, p. 33] According to
traditional Jewish religious belief, God is reputed to have singled out 75-year old Abraham
among all people on earth and struck an arrangement with him, providing his progeny the
consummate family inheritance: "If Abraham will follow the commandments of God, then He, in
His turn, will make the descendants of Abraham His Chosen People and place them under His
protection ... God at this time stipulates only one commandment, and makes only one promise."
[DIMONT, p. 29] The initial agreement, by modern standards, seems extraordinarily peculiar.
God's commandment was that all males by the eighth day of birth must have the foreskin of
their penises cut off, a painfully literal branding of Jewish distinction around the male
procreative organ:

"God ... said to Abraham ... You shall circumcise the flesh of
the foreskin and that shall be the Covenant between Me
and you." GENESIS: 17:9-13

With this physical marking, notes Barnet Litvinoff, “no male child born of Jewish
parentage is ever allowed to forget he is a Jew ... it reminds him of the doctrine of the
chosen people.” [LITVINOFF, p. 5] "As a sign of this sacred bond, of being special seed,
Chosen," note Herbert Russcol and Margarlit Banai, "The Lord of the Universe commands Abraham"
to circumcize "every man child among you." And as the Torah states it: "I will establish my
covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting
covenant." [RUSSCOL/BANAI, 1970, p. 173] Is this alleged commandment by God to the Abrahamic
"seed" in Jewish tradition not racial?

"Circumcision," says Lawrence Hoffman, "has thus remained the sine qua non of Jewish
identity throughout time. Jews came to believe that it warded off danger, and even saved Jews
from damnation, that the sign of circumcision was tantamount to carrying God's ineffable name
carved in the flesh, that it was a means of attaining mystical unity with the creator, and
that it brought about visionary experience." [HOFFMAN, p. 11] It also symbolized, on the male
genitals, special attention to the genetic continuance of the progeny of Abraham, that -- if
they obeyed the laws and demands of God -- they would someday be as "numerous as the stars."

“By the very sexual act itself,” says Philip Sigal, in explaining traditional thinking,
“the circumcized mystically transmits the covenant to the foetus.” [SIGAL, p. 20] Until the
20th century, it was normal that during the mezizah phase of the circumcision ritual, the
mohel (the expert who performed the circumcision) took the infant's "circumcized member into
his mouth and with two or three draughts sucks the blood out of the wounded part. He then
takes a mouthful of wine from a goblet and spurts it, in two or three intervals, on the
wound." [ROMBERG, p. 45] Today, notes Rabbi Immanuel Jacobovits, "the original method of
sucking by mouth tends to be increasingly confined to the most orthodox circles only."
[JACOBOVITS, p. 196]

In exchange for circumcision and following God's orders, the Jews were promised the land
of Canaan (the land mass of today's Israel, more or less), a place that was already inhabited.
[DIMONT, p. 29] This land for circumcision exchange is the root of Jewish tradition, from
which centuries of rules, regulations, dictates, interpretations and other additions have
followed. God's spiritual link to Jews is understood to have originated, of all things, around
a piece of real estate commonly understood to be part of the "Covenant,” which, says Alfred
Jospe, “is the agreement between God and Israel by which Israel accepts the Torah [Old
Testament] .... The concept of covenant signifies the consciousness of what the truth is.”
[JOSPE, p. 15] “The covenant,” adds Will Herberg, “is an objective supernatural fact; it is
God’s act of creating and maintaining Israel for his purposes in history.” [EISENSTEIN, p.
274]

"For Israel," notes Edward Greenstein, "God's immanence found expression in the
perception of God as a superperson." [GREENSTEIN, E., 1984, p. 89] The idea that God was some
kind of tradesman, and that he was a distinctly dialectical Other to humanity, as a Lord,
King, Patriarch, Commander, and even Warlord of a worldly provenance has -- with the religious
commentaries and meta-commentaries that evolved from His commands in Judaism -- provided fuel
for modern scholarly debate about Jewish (and linked strands of Christian) creations in the
world of secular affairs, most particularly in their materialist, rationalist, and patriarchal
flavors. The result, in today's Orthodox Judaism, says Evelyn Kaye, is a "community [that] has
developed an insular, single-minded approach which is completely intolerant of any views that
differ from its own." [KAYE, p. 23]

Whatever else they believed, Jews have traditionally understood themselves to be -- by
hereditary line -- special, intrinsically better than other people: they were divinely
esteemed. The Old Testament stated it plainly:

"For you are people consecrated to the Lord your God: of all the
peoples on earth the Lord your God chose you to be His
treasured people." [DEUTERONOMY 7:6]

The notion that Jews -- originally defined racially as the Israelite progeny of Abraham
(and a special lineage through his son Isaac, then Jacob, and so on) -- are the "Chosen
People" of God is the bedrock of Jewish self-conception and it resonates deeply in some form
to Jewish self-identity to this day. What exactly such a mantle of greatness confers has, for
most, changed drastically over (particularly recent) centuries, and is still a delicate source
for self-reflection and debate, ranging from traditional racist theories against non-Jews
(still entertained by many Orthodox Jews, and most of Zionism) to more modern, liberalizing,
and even secular notions that Jews are destined to lead humankind to some kind of redemptive
glory.

The extraordinary self-perpetuating ethnocentric premises of traditional Judaism have
been remarked upon by many modern scholars. Likewise, they have often addressed the
drastically different ethical and spiritual views of Judaism and Oriental religious faiths
(such as Hinduism and Buddism). Such a gap is poignantly illustrated in this story by the
great popular folklorist, Joseph Campbell:

"A young Hindu gentleman came to see me, and a very pious
man he proved to be: a worshipper of Vishnu, employed as a
clerk or secretary of one of the Indian delegations at the UN.
He had been reading the works of Heinrich Zimmer on Indian
art, philosophy and religion, works that I had edited many years
before, and which he wanted to discuss. But there was
something else he wanted to talk about too.
"You know, " he said after we had begun to feel at home
with each other, "when I visit a foreign country I like to acquaint
myself with its religion; so I have bought myself a Bible and for
some months now have been reading it from the beginning; but
you know" ... and here he paused, to regard me uncertainly, then
said, "I can't find any religion in it!"
... Now I had of course been brought up on the Bible and I
had also studied Hinduism, so I thought I might be of some
help. " Well," I said, "I can see how that might be, if you had
not been given to know that a reading of the imagined history of
the Jewish race is here regarded as a religious exercise. There
would then, I can see, be very little for you of religion in the
greater part of the Bible."
I thought that later I should perhaps have referred him to
the Psalms; but when I then turned to a fresh reading of these
with Hinduism in mind, I was glad that I had not done so; for
almost invariably the leading theme is either the virtue of the
singer, protected by his God, who will "smite his enemies on
the cheek" and "break the teeth of the wicked;" or, on the other
hand, of complaint that God has not yet given due aid to his
righteous servant: all of which is just about diametrically opposed
to what an instructed Hindu would have been taught to regard as
religious sentiment.
In the Orient the ultimate divine mystery is sought beyond
all human categories of thought and feeling, beyond names and
forms, and absolutely beyond any such concept as of a merciful
or wrathful personality, chooser of one people over another,
comforter of folk who pray, and destroyer of those who do not.
Such anthropomorphic attributions of human sentiment is -- from
the point of view of Indian thought -- a style of religion for
children." [CAMPBELL, Myths, pp. 93-94]

"If you will obey my voice," God tells Jews in their seminal religious text, the Torah,
"and keep my Covenant, you shall become my own possession among all people, for all the earth
is mine." [EXODUS 19:5] This anthropomorphized model of the Israelite God is someone
profoundly concerned with ownership, allegiance, and control -- key values in the
self-promotive tenets of classical Judaism and their practical application in history. After
all, the seminal Jewish religious text -- the Torah (in Christian tradition the first five
books of the Old Testament) -- was created as a kind of Jewish family album, an ancient
listing of Israelite genealogies and pedigrees that codifies sacred recipes for group
solidarity, self-aggrandizement (land conquest, et al), and self-preservation for those with
direct ancestral linkage to Abraham.

"The biblical faith [of the Old Testament]," writes scholar Bernhard Anderson, "to the
bewilderment of many philosophers, is fundamentally historical in character. It is concerned
with events and historical relationships, not abstract values and ideas existing in a timeless
realm." [ANDERSON, p. 12] "The halakah [Jewish religious law] does not aspire to a heavenly
transcendence," notes influential modern rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, "nor does it aspire to
soar upon the wings of some abstract, mysterious spirituality. It fixes its gaze on the
concrete, empirical reality and does not let its attention be diverted from it."
[SOLOVEITCHIK, p. 92] "There is no Valhalla [afterlife Paradise] in Judaism," notes Chaim
Bermant,

"and no Garden of the Houris, and while there was paradise and hell, both were to
be experienced mainly on earth ... Neither heaven with all its joys, nor hell with all
its torments (which, as described in the Talmud, are akin to those of Tantalus)
have a central place in the Jewish faith, Judaism is of this world and in so far
as it believes in the Kingdom of Heaven at all it is as somethng which will become
manifest on earth." [BERMANT, C., 1977, p. 16]

Beyond Israelite genealogies, the Torah (the Old Testament) includes an ancient
compilation of rules and regulations, elaborated upon in metacommentaries by later Judaic
religious texts, especially the Talmud, which codifies correct behavior for all the minutia of
daily living. In Jewish tradition, “the whole keynote of being,” says sociologist Talcott
Parsons, “starting with the creation, was action, the accomplishment of things.” [PARSONS, p.
103] (And one of the "keys to Jewish success," says Jewish business author Steven Silbiger, is
to "be psychologically drivent o prove something.") [SILBIGER, S., 2000, p. 9]

“Judaism is not a revealed religion,” wrote the great German-Jewish philosopher Moses
Mendelssohn, “but revealed legislation. Its first precept is not ‘thou shalt believe’ or not
believe, but thou shalt do or abstain from doing.” [GOLDSTEIN, D., p. 43, in Jerusalem] "A
constant motif of post-Enlightenment ethics," says rabbi Jonathan Sacks, "is the rejection of
religious authority as an external command to which one submits. For this reason [philosopher]
Hegel is sharply critical of the Jewish structure of law. 'Of spirit,' he writes of Judaism,
'nothing remained save pride in slavish obedience.' Much of Nietzsche’s work is a deepening
set of variations on this theme. Judaism, he says, introduced 'a God who demands.' The
autonomous self, central to modern ethics, is radically incompatible with the structures of
Jewish spirituality, built as they are on the concept of mitzvah, command." [SACKS, J., p.
100-101]

The all-encompassing and dictatorial manner of Jewish Orthodoxy in the Talmudic (and
other) interpretations of the Old Testament is reflected in this observation by Gerson Cohen:

"The Torah encompasses and seeks to regulate every moment of
life ... Nothing human is beyond the scope of judgment and its
program of prescription. It is for this reason that Torah is often
called a way of life, for its purpose is to teach the Jew how to act,
think, and even feel." [COHEN, in KLEINE, p. 92]

The obsessive nature of even modern Jewish Orthodoxy within a tight web of restrictive
daily dictates, and the surrender to what Israeli scholar Israel Shahak calls its innate
"totalitarianism," [SHAHAK, p. 15] is reflected in this comment by Egon Mayer:

"What are the first words that one should utter upon awakening? There
is a rule. How many steps may one take from one's bed before washing
at least the tips of one's fingers. There is a rule." [MAYER, Suburb]

Michael Govrin notes that

"A Jew is born into an already articulated biography. In the traditional
context of Halacha -- the Jewish Law (which until two hundred years
ago was the only way a Jews could define him or herself) -- a Jew's
life is codified to a unique extent. From rising in the morning to the moment
of falling asleep at night, from birth to death and burial, the myriad
of gestures, thoughts, and intentions is pre-articulated, forming a specific
mold into which the life is poured. The private life in a given historical
moment is a personal variation on that generic mold; always seemingly
only a re-enactment -- not an 'invention' -- of a preexisting role in an ongoing
plot that started with the first Jews, and is still unfolding." [GOVRIN, M.,
2001]

Charles Liebman and Steven Cohen note that the "halakaha [Jewish religious law] commands
that before eating bread a Jew must recite a blessing, and before this blessing the hands must
be washed and a blessing recited over the hand washing. Even the manner in which the hands are
washed is prescribed: the kind of utensil used, the order in which the hands are washed, the
number of times each hand is washed." [LIEBMAN/COHEN, p. 125]

"It is a commonplace," adds Eunice Lipton, "that an abiding and secularized aspect of
Jewish tradition is its valuing of sensual satisfaction. Jewish law acknowledges appetite; one
is even is told how often one should make love ... One might say that Jewish validation of the
senses results from the emphasis on human life in the present as opposed to any interest in
any afterlife." [LIPTON, p. 289] Evelyn Kaye, who grew up in an Orthodox community, notes
that "Orthodox Judaism plans to regulate every minute, every action and every thought of life
... [KAYE, p. 126] ... The code of Jewish law dictates a range of regulations for sexual
intercourse, including when and where it may be experienced, as well as what to think about
during the act." [KAYE, p. 125] "It is forbidden," says the Code of Jewish Law, "to discharge
semen in vain. This is a graver sin than any other mentioned in the Torah ... It is equivalent
to killing a person ... A man should be extremely careful to avoid an erection. Therefore, he
should not sleep on his back with his face upward, or on his belly with his face downward, but
sleep on his side, in order to avoid it." [GANZFRIED, p.17] "There are even rules," says Kaye,
"about what you may think about while you sit on the toilet." [KAYE, p. 17]

Israel Shahak underscores Orthodox Judaism's complex honing of regulations to the point of
hairsplitting for even purely theoretical concerns that appear to be extraordinarily esoteric
in a modern context:

"During the existence of the Temple, the High Priest was only allowed
to marry a virgin. Although during virtually the whole of the talmudic
period there was no longer a Temple or High Priest, the Talmud devoted
one of its more involved (and bizarre) discussions to the precise
definition of the term 'virgin' fit to marry a High priest. What about a
woman whose hymen had been broken by accident? Does it make any
difference whether the accident occurred before or after the age of three?
By the impact of metal or wood? Was she climbing a tree? And if so,
was she climbing up or down?" [SHAHAK, p. 41]

One of the most profoundly important dimensions of traditional Judaism (one that has had
enormous repercussions for Jewish relations throughout history with their non-Jewish
neighbors) is its injunction to fellow members that Jews must -- conceptually, and through
most of history, physically -- live “apart,” “separate,” distinct from other human beings.
Jewish self-conception, from its early days, was antithetical and antagonistic to other
peoples. "Separation of Israel from the nations [non-Jews]," says Moshe Greenberg, "in order
to be consecrated by God took the extreme form of condemning to death any who worshipped or
tempted others to worship alien gods." [GREENBERG, p. 28]

In later years, throughout the Jewish diaspora, this developed into the Jewish
self-conception as a "nation apart" -- physically as well as conceptually distanced from all
other peoples. "In their determined efforts to prevent assimilation and loss of identity as a
small minority in the midst of a hostile majority," notes the Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish
Religion, "the rabbis deliberately set up barriers for the explicit purpose of preventing
social interaction with gentiles [non-Jews], and decrees were enacted to erect barriers
against this danger. The partaking of meals with gentiles was forbidden ... food cooked by
gentiles was banned." [WERBLOWSKY, p. 269]

Such a "nation apart" admonition is part of classical Jewish religious (and related to
secular Zionist) belief to the present day. Jewish author Alfred Jospe notes that

“when a male Jew is called to the Torah, he recites the traditional
blessing, asher bahar banu mi’kol ha’amim, praising God ‘who
has chosen us from among all other nations.’ When Jews recite their
daily morning prayer they say the benediction, she’lo assani goy,
thanking God ‘that he has not made [us] gentiles.’ When they
pronounce the benediction over the Sabbath [Saturday] wine, they
declare that God has chosen and sanctified Jews from all other
peoples in the same way which he has distinguished between Sabbath
and weekday. When Jews make Havdalah on Saturday night, they
recite the traditional ha-mavdil, glorifying God for setting Jews apart
from all other peoples just as He set apart the sacred from the profane
and light from darkness.” [JOSPE, p. 10-11]

"Unlike many religions," notes Steven Silbiger,

"Judaism is more than simply a belief system that anyone can adopt. To
become Jewish means enlisting in a tribe. The relationship or covenant
is between God and the Jewish people, rather than between God and
individual Jews. Judaism is a religion with a strong ancestral component."
[SILBIGER, S., 2000, p. 11]

In the ancient Greek and Roman worlds people were polytheists, and relatively tolerant
of each other’s theology. Judaism, however, was expressed throughout their diaspora as an
elitist, confrontational faith, engendering ill will everywhere. "It was not sensible," says
Jasper Griffin, "nor was it good manners [in the ancient world] to allege that other peoples'
gods did not exist. Only a madman makes fun of other peoples' religious practices, says the
historian Herodutus in the fifth century BCE ... The response of the Jews [to other religions]
was felt to be shocking and uncouth, as well as dangerous for everybody." Jewish rejection of
the religions and communities in which they lived "placed an inseparable barrier between them
and full acceptance into the classical world; as later on, even more acutely, it did with
Christians." [GRIFFIN, p. 58]

*****************

The seminal source of Jewish history and sacred law is recorded in the Torah (the
Old Testament of the Bible in Christian tradition, consisting of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy). Biblical scholars tend to believe that the Old Testament (which
sometimes cites conflicting facts in various places) was essentially four different written
narratives eventually combined together, each section originally written between 800 to 1600
years after the events described allegedly occurred. Within these texts we read that Abraham
and the early Israelites settled tentatively in the land of the Canaanites, but that famine
eventually drove them towards Egypt. The ancient Hebrews were reportedly enslaved in Egypt, (a
period of momentous impact even in current Jewish collective memory), but were ultimately led
back to Canaan -- the Promised Land -- by Moses in a 40-year trek across the desert in the
thirteenth century BCE. Moses became instrumental in mediating God's demands to the Hebrew
people and instituting laws of behavior and belief for them, known today as the Mosaic code.

Eventually the Israelites forcibly reestablished themselves in the land of Canaan and
over the following centuries divided into sub-clans, fighting and warring among themselves,
and against others. The most drastic intra-Jewish schism was the establishment of two
conflicting monarchies -- Israel, in the northern areas, and Judah, in the south. When ancient
Israel joined a coalition of non-Jewish states in threatening the southern Jewish kingdom,
Judah joined the powerful Assyrian kingdom which destroyed Israel in about 723 BCE. Judah was
destroyed, in turn, in 586 BCE, by Babylonian invasion, concluding the first Jewish expulsion
from their proclaimed homeland. Jews were allowed to return in 538 BCE under the sovereignty
of the Persian monarch, Cyrus; the Romans were masters of the Palestine area by about 100 BCE.
The Jews were ultimately expelled en masse again, this time by the Romans, when Israelites
repeatedly revolted against Roman rule. By the third century CE most Jews were scattered all
across the Roman Empire, from India to Spain. In Jewish lore, this is the solidification of
the Jewish "galut" (a term meaning exile, with derogatory connotations) in non-Jewish lands,
i.e., the Diaspora (dispersion).

It is necessary to again underscore, against the grain of modern popular (and largely
secular) Jewish opinion, that the Old Testament is a compilation of stories, genealogies, and
Godly dictates that were intended by its Jewish authors to be purely intra-Jewish in scope.
The ten commandments of Moses -- "Love your neighbor, "Thou shalt not kill," and all the rest
of it -- did not represent in origin for Jews a universalistic creed. "Love your neighbor”
meant love your fellow Israelite. "Thou shalt not kill" meant don't kill those of your own
people. "[Jewish] tradition," says Charles Liebman, "argued that the essence of Torah is the
obligation to love one's neighbor as oneself, with the term 'neighbor' implying only 'Jew.'"
[LIEBMAN, Rel Tre, p. 313] John Hartung notes that careful inspection of the Torah/Old
Testament "Love Thy Neighbor" commandment make this clear, for example, in Leviticus 19:18:

"Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children
of thy people but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." [Jewish
Publication Society translation: other translations include the
same qualifier; HARTUNG, 1995]

As Louis Jacobs observes:

"Among both Jews and Christians the injunction is read simply as 'love
thy neighbour as thyself' ... [but] in the original context the [Love Thy
Neighbor] verse means: even when someone has behaved badly
towards you, try to overcome your desires for revenge but rather
behave lovingly towards him because, after all, he, too, is a human
being and a member of the covenant people as you are and
therefore entitled to be treated as you yourself wish to be treated ...
The golden rule to love the neighbour applies only to the neighbour
who is a Jew." [JACOBS, L., 1995, p. 323, 324]

As Menachem Gerlitz explains the "neighbor" passage:

'And you shall love your neighbor like your own self' -- this is an important
rule of the Torah. Every Jew must love his fellow Jew with all his heart. The
Baal Shem Tov [founder of the ultra-Othodox Hassidim] used to explain
this as follows: Our Torah teaches us to 'love Hashem your G-d with all
your heart.' How can we prove to ourselves that we are really fulfilling
this commandment? Only through the commandment of loving our fellow
Jew like our own selves. Only by truly loving each and every Jew, every
son of the Chosen People which Hashem selected from all other nations
to love, just like a person loves the son of a dear friend." [GERLITZ, M.,
1983, p. 195]

Judeocentrism, not human universalism, is the core of traditional Jewish understanding of
the Old Testament. The influential medieval Jewish theologian, Maimonides, advised that “It is
incumbent on everyone to love each individual Israelite as himself as it is said, ‘Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself.’” [MANKIN, p. 37] Although there were some Jewish apologetics
with this notion as early as Philo, it was Christian and Enlightenment influences that
universalized the Ten Commandments, and liberalizing Jews, mainly since the eighteenth
century, began to follow suit, bending and broadening the tenets of Judaism (carefully
selecting from contradictory religious references) to encompass a humanistic concern for
non-Jews in step with modern universalist-oriented values.

Mosaic law or not, the only time-- till the modern state of Israel -- that Jews have had
the opportunity to practice Moses' commandments and the rest of their beliefs (towards
themselves or anybody) from a position of complete empowerment was, even by their own ancient
religious standards, a disaster. The pinnacle of ancient Jewish history was a series of
monarchial regimes that represented a turbulent time of failures in living up to Covenantal
laws, incessant quarreling, fratricide, genocide, wars of conquest with non-Jewish neighbors,
repeated intra-Jewish civil wars, and other struggles for power and control, rife with
continuous bloodletting, as violent as any in human history. Most of this is codified as part
of the Jewish religious faith/history in the Torah.

The well-known historian, Will Durrant, describes the Israelites' seizure (after the Mosaic
moral code was accepted) of the Holy Land from the Canaanites who lived there, like this:

"The conquest of Canaan was but one more instance of a
hungry nomad horde falling upon a settled community. The
conquerors killed as many as they could find, and married the
rest. Slaughter was unconfined, and (to follow the text) was
divinely ordained and enjoyed. Gideon, in capturing two cities,
slew 120,000 men; only in the annals of the Assyrians do we
meet again with such hearty killing. [DURRANT, p. 302]

Even in the Book of Exodus, when Moses (deliverer of the admonition "Thou Shalt Not
Kill" and all the rest of it) discovered his own people weakening, "out of control” with
idolatrous dancing, naked, before a "Golden Calf," he directed the Levites, the priest caste,
to slay three thousand of them. [EXODUS 33:27-28]

Considerable portions of the Bible revolve around violent struggles amongst Israelites
for power. Both King David and Solomon -- among the most beloved of the Israelite ancients in
the myths of modern Jewry -- had half-brothers with rival claims to the Israelite monarchy
murdered. Solomon, for example, arranged for Adonijah to be slain as well as another threat to
the throne, Joab, who was even murdered in the Holy Tabernacle. (Both David and Solomon even
had forced labor gangs of their own Israelite people). Likewise, Ambimelich, the son of
Gideon, (who like most powerful Israelite rulers had a harem of wives and concubines) murdered
70 of his brothers to guarantee the throne for himself. Jeru too, in a fit of ruthlessness,
killed the King of Israel, Joram, and then murdered Ahaziah, of the Israelite kingdom of
Judah, as well as his two brothers. Then he had all 70 sons of King Ahab decapitated, clearing
the way for his own leadership.

In King David's family, notes Joel Rosenberg,

"David's adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah is balanced
by the sexual violation of David's daughter Tamar by David's son
Amnon, the murder of Amnon by his half-brother Absalom, the
appropriation of David's concubines and kingdom by Absalom,
and the slaying of Absalom by David's own servant Joab."
[ROSENBERG, J., 1984, p. 47]

There is too the story of Gibeah (Judges 19:21). An Israelite, enraged by the rape-murder
of his concubine by Jews of another tribe, hacked the corpse into pieces and sent a section to
each of the twelve Israelite tribes to make an embittered point about solidarity. A
confederation of tribes joined together to exact revenge on the perpetrators of the crime. The
ensuing Israelite battle against each other took over 60,000 lives (Judges 20:21). The
victorious confederation then marched on Jabesh-gilead, a group who had declined to join the
coalition against the destroyed Benjaminites. 12,000 soldiers were sent to "smite the
inhabitants of Jabed-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and children." (Judges
21) Only female virgins were spared.

Going further along in Jewish religious history, there is the murder of Simon by his
son-in-law, Hyrcanus, in another bid for the monarchy, and his son, Aristobulus I, who killed
his mother and brother, and imprisoned the rest of his family. After him came his brother,
Alexander Jannaeus, to the throne, a "despotic, violent ruler" who reigned during the civil
war between warring pro-Greek Israelites (Sadducees) and anti-Greek Israelites (Pharisees).
Jannaeus' bloody revenge upon the Pharisees was "as bloody as any in history." [DIMONT, p.89,
90] There was Antipater, "one of history's most unsavory characters," whose family had been
"forcibly converted to Judaism" [GOLDBERG, M., 1976, p. 32] and his son, Herod, who murdered a
few sons, one of his wives, and range of others including 45 Israelite religious leaders.
[DIMONT, p. 95-96] The Torah tells us that the Israelite prophet Elijah slew 450 prophets of
the rival deity Baal (I Kings 18) and military commander Jeru killed "all the prophets of
Baal, all his worshippers and priests." (I Kings 10:18-27) [LANG, B., 1989, p. 120]

Under the ruler Mannasseh there was the reintroduction of pagan cults, child sacrifices
and "systematic murders" in the southern Israelite kingdom of Judah; this kingdom itself had a
rivalry with the northern Israelite kingdom, Israel, and -- as noted -- it eventually aligned
with Assyrian invaders against its Israelite brethren, ultimately to ancient Israel's complete
destruction.

The chaos, internecine warring and corruption, the straying from the “Covenant,” the
worship of idols and the fraying of the moral codes of Israelite solidarity resulted in a
central Jewish belief that took form in later centuries, that Jews had been scattered in a
Diaspora (dispersion) throughout the earth in galut (exile) from the land God gave them,
Israel. But 2,000 years of exile experience, notes Alfred Jospe, “could not shatter the image
Jews had of themselves. Destruction and exile were a national disaster but not completely
unforeseen. They were part of the divine plan ... The Jew was persecuted not because God had
abandoned or rejected him; [The Jew] suffered because he was not equal to his moral task. In
the words of the prayer book, ‘because of our sins, we were exiled from our land’ ...
Suffering was defined as punishment and punishment in turn was a call to duty. Exile was God’s
call to return to the faithfulness inherent in Israel’s role as the ‘chosen people.’ The
acceptance of punishment opened the gate to redemption and return to the land.” [JOSPE, p. 17]
Such a view of human suffering by Judaism, argues Richard Rubenstein, was "a colossal,
megalomaniacal and grandiose misreading of a pathetic and defeated community's historical
predicament. To this day Jews can be found who delude themselves with the notion that somehow
Jewish suffering and powerlessness have redemptive significance for mankind." [KREFETZ, p.
182]

The key to the Israelite future of divine favoritism, and its special covenantal
“mission,” was eventually linked to a Messiah who would triumphantly come to lead His people
into a glorious future. Originally the Messiah was understood to be merely a nationalist
savior, a great and literal king of the Israelite people; later He was reconfigured as an
expression of the one God of the Universe who would lord -- physically and spiritually -- over
the earth, not in an after-life, but in the here-and-now. [JOSPE, p. 22-23] "Judaism," notes
Stephen Whitfield, "in all its forms and manifestations, has always maintained a concept of
redemption as an event which takes place on the stage of history and within the community. It
is an occurrence which takes place in the visible world, unlike Christianity, which conceives
of redemption as an event in the spiritual and unseen realm, an event which is reflected in
the soul." [WHITFIELD, American, p. 33]

****************

Over the centuries the Messiah was not quick in coming, and not all answers to
questions about changing times were clearly indicated in the seminal Torah, so a written
tradition of commentary, argument, and interpretation by respected Jewish religious leaders
evolved and became codified in a second religious text called the Talmud. Many argue that it
is not the Torah but actually the Talmud -- this later legalese and folklore about the seminal
Torah -- that is the crucial source for day-to-day Orthodox Jewish decision making about
religious and secular issues. "The Talmud," observes Jacob Neusner, "is the single most
influential document in the history of Judaism." [BORAZ, p. 5] "Historically speaking," says
Adin Steinsaltz, "the Talmud is the central pillar of Jewish culture." [STEINSALTZ, 1976, p.
266] "The Talmud," adds Robert Goldenberg, "provided the means of determining how God wants
all Jews to live, in all places, at all times. Even if the details of the law had to be
altered to suit newly arisen conditions, the proper way to perform such adaptation could
itself be learned from the Talmud and its commentaries." [GOLDENBERG, R., 1984, p. 166]

This many volumed tome, consisting of Judaism's "legal literature," is really two
distinct books merged together, the Mishna (the "oral law," originally written in Hebrew -- a
language considerably different than modern Hebrew) and the Gemara (largely commentaries about
the Mishna), written mostly in Aramaic three hundred years apart. The Talmud is so difficult
to read and so unwieldly that only lifelong experts even think to tackle the original texts.
Hence, the Talmud that explains and interprets the Torah has needed plenty of other vast
textual explanations to deal with itself; such influential metacommentaries through history
include those of Maimonides (including his Mishneh Torah), Joseph Caro (particularly his
Shukan Arukh, which has never appeared unabridged in English), [GOLDENBERG, R, 1984, p. 174]
and others. Many of such works, too, are so large that they are further distilled into more
reasonably digestible abridgements. Rashi's 39 volumes of explanation, for example, are much
larger than the talmudic texts it addresses. (Rashi's comments are usually printed as part of
the text in Talmudic editions printed since the early Middle Ages). [GOLDENBERG, R., p. 139]
It was not until 1920 that the Talmud was translated into another language (German) for the
first time. In 1935 it first appeared in English.

Edwin Boraz notes that "the study of the Talmud may be so formidable, challenging, and
complex ... [that] one may ask, for what purpose? ... [BORAZ, p. 1] ... [Aside from the
'mishnaic' Hebrew and Aramaic of the original texts] the classic commentaries to the Talmud
are written in 'medieval rabbinic Hebrew,' which is a blend of both Hebrew and Arabic. The
language barrier alone is arduous." [BORAZ, p. 13] The Talmud also lacks "an inner order ...
[it] shift[s] from one subject to another in ways that are not readily apparent. Often, the
pronominal references are unclear ... In short, a talmudic passage seems scattered and
diffused, rather than a well-reasoned dialectic inquiry." [BORAZ, p. 13-14]

To complicate matters even further, there are even two versions of the Talmud, of
Babylonian and Palestinian origin. The latter (called the Yerushalmi), however, is rarely
used, even in religious circles. Jacob Neusner notes that "it fills hundreds of pages with
barely intelligible writing. [It is] famous for its incomprehensibility ... The Yerushalmi has
suffered an odious but deserved reputation for the difficulty in making sense of its
discourse." [NEUSNER, 1993, p. x]

A fundamental current of Talmudic discourse, however, is noted by Herman Wouk: "Talmudic
political judgment often shows the bitterness of a people trodden by wave after wave of
oppressors." [WOUK, p. 201] And what of its legal and moral direction which shifted in
emphases so much over the centuries as was politically expedient? This from Wouk again, a
devout Jew: "Since the Talmud reports the sayings of hundreds of savants over many centuries,
it abounds in contradictory maxims, in conflicting metaphysical guesses, in baffling switches
from cynicism to poetry, from misanthropy to charity, from dislike of women to praise for them
.... In a word, one can say almost anything about this recording of the talk of wise men
through seven centuries, and then find a passage to support it." [WOUK, p. 201]

"For any maxim of the haggada," says Leon Poliakov, "one can be found that states
precisely the contrary." The haggada are "non-legal teachings, speculations, stories,
legends, and prayers" in the Talmud. (The halakah is its "legal" contents.) "The ancient
rabbinic sage used two kinds of speech," says Rabbi Samuel Karff, "halacha and agada [i.e.,
haggada]. Halacha is the language of Jewish law. It asks and answers the question: 'What must
a Jew do to fulfill the covenant?' Agada was the language of the Jewish faith. It tells the
story of God's relation to man through his relation to the people of Israel ... Agada remains
not only the language of worship, but the language of preaching." [KARFF, S., 1979, p. 8,
11-12]

[M.T.T.]

"The Jewish tradition is so rich in the diversity of its sacred texts," adds Alan Dershowitz,
"that one can find an antidote to virtually any unacceptable statement." [DERSHOWITZ, p. 132]
The "antidotes" to every troubling statement in the Talmud suggest a chameleon-like capacity,
a religious faith that has the ability to change colors in different milieu, and readily adapt
to pressures around it. This capacity is based upon "pilpul" (pepper), a "dialectical
technique of reconciling apparently contradictory concepts in the Talmud's texts, often by
straining original meanings through the needle's eye ... [It later] degenerated into little
more than sophistry." [SACHAR, p. 65] "Talmudic dialectics," notes the Jewish Encyclopedia,
"became developed and endowed the Jews who stood beneath the spell of the Talmud with peculiar
characteristics, especially imbuing them with a love of hair-splitting which afterwards
deteriorated into sophistic subtlety." [GOLDSTEIN, D, p. 133, v. 5, p. 726] The Talmud, notes
Robert Goldenberg, has a reputation for "overcomplicated, 'hairsplitting' dialectic."
[GOLDENBERG, R., 1984, p. 139] "One of the thirteen rules for interpreting the Torah," says
influential modern rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, "is the contradiction between two verses and
their harmonization by a third verse." [SOLOVEITCHIK, p. 143] In interpreting the seminal
Torah, notes Mark Zborowski and Elizabeth Hertog, "each word in the Torah has, according to
esoteric tradition, four kinds of meanings: the direct, the interpretive, the allusive, the
secret." [ZBOROWSKI/HERTOG, p. 119]

Leon Poliakov uses the following story to explain the nature of Talmudic reasoning:

"A goy [non-Jew] insisted that a Talmudist explain to him what the
Talmud was. The sage finally consented and asked the goy the
following question:
- 'Two men climb down a chimney. When they come to the bottom,
one has his face covered with soot, the other is spotless. Which of
the two will wash himself?
- 'The one who is dirty,' answered the goy.
- 'No, for the one who's dirty sees the others' clean face and believes
he is clean too. The one who's clean sees a dirty face and believes
his is dirty too.'
- 'I understand!' the goy exclaimed. 'I'm beginning to understand
what the Talmud is.'
- 'No, you have understood nothing at all, the rabbi interrupted, for
how could two men have come down the same chimney, one dirty
and the other clean?' [POLIAKOV, p. 253]

Although Talmudic reasoning considers a variety of argument, Israeli lawyer Uri Huppert
explains the fundamental underlining of its "intolerant" discourse:

"It is beyond any doubt that the halachic-Talmudic reasoning is
reached by considering a variety of opinions, hence the sophisticated
rabbinical 'responsa' -- questions and answers -- are regarded as the
very essence of halachic Judaism. But by the same token, this Judaism
cruelly rejects, prohibits, and excommunicates any step or expression
that collides with the legalistic-dogmatic concept of Orthodox Judaism,
which is xenophobic and intolerant by definition, as expressed by the
[modern] Orthodox rabbinical establishment." [HUPPERT, U., 1988,
p. 197]

The Talmud is full of anecdotes, advice, folk wisdom, and material that, by modern
standards, affects the non-Jew with feelings of incredulity (but sometimes insult and
indignation as we will see later). It is not hard to imagine why so many Jews flocked from the
rabbinically controlled ghettos in the European Enlightenment era. Many modern, secularized
Jews have looked with dismay upon the wisdom of their ancient sages. We learn in the Talmud,
for example, that:

"One who eats an ant is flogged five times forty stripes save one."
[HARRIS, p. 71]

"Demons ... have wings like angels ... [and] they know the future."
[HARRIS, p. 76]

"A dog in a strange place does not bark for seven years." [HARRIS, p.
84]

"For night-blindedness, let a man take a hair-rope and bind one end of it
to his own leg and the other to a dog's, then let the children clatter a
potsherd after him, and call out, "Old man! dog! fool! cock! ... "
[HARRIS, p. 191]

"The bald-headed, and dwarfed, and the blear-eyed are ineligible for the
priesthood." [HARRIS, p. 88]

"Only kings ... eat roast meat with mustard." [HARRIS, p. 88]

"The Rabbis have taught that a man should not drink water on
Wednesdays and Saturdays after night fall ... An evil spirit ... on
these evenings prowls around..." [HARRIS, p. 92]

"These things cause hemorrhoids: -- eating cane leaves, the foliage and
tendrils of a vine, the palate of cattle, the backbones of fish, half-cooked
salt fish, wine, lees, etc." [HARRIS, p. 106]

"These things are detrimental to study [including] walking between two
camels...; to pass under a bridge beneath which no water has flowed
forty days; to drink water that runs through a cemetery..." [HARRIS, p.
116]

"It is not right for a man to sleep in the daytime any longer than a horse
sleeps. And how long is the sleep of a horse? Sixty respirations."
[HARRIS, p. 157]

"The daughters of Israel burn incense for [purposes of] sorcery."
[HARRIS, p. 188]

Jewish apologists like Alan Dershowitz exclaim immediate indignation at anyone who
dares to excerpt such material, despite the fact that they very much represent -- in page
after page -- the "folk" flavor of the ancient Talmud. Cloaking himself as protective defender
of both Judaism and Christianity, and going back one generation from the interpretive Talmud
to the Torah itself, he argues that

"A classic technique of both anti-Semitism and anti-Christianity has
been to cull from Old and New Testament biblical prescriptions that
when taken out of context seem bizarrely out of place in contemporary
life." [DERSHOWITZ, p. 332]

What, one wonders, do Dershowitz-like commentators have in mind for the correct
"context" for understanding Talmudic admonitions, from which anti-Semites have always found a
treasure trove of disturbing material? They are just as bizarre when left in their original
context, probably more so since hundreds, if not thousands, of the same sorts of archaic
perspectives reinform each other, and those who are doing the "culling" are usually the
religiously pious. Such "bizarre cullings" as above are not Talmudic aberrations but are part
of a common tone of an interwoven multi-rabbinical catalogue, from the very particular
perspective of "being Jewish" hundreds of years ago. Such expressions of "folk wisdom" are
not just that, they are explication of a distinct religion, and are argued about over and
over, debated to this very day in Orthodox circles not towards discard, but towards (in their
essential meanings, however they are conjured) use.

When confronted with the details of Talmudic guidance and logic, some liberal-minded Jews
can't actually stomach what they find. Jane Rachel Litman notes that, when faced with the
teachings of the ancient rabbis, some Jews respond with abject denial: i.e., arguing, on
modern terms, that the old rabbinical sages couldn't have possibly meant what they wrote:

"The background sound in the small library is muted but intense. Pairs of scholars
lean over their talmudic texts whispering energetically, trying to puzzle out the
meaning of the particular sugya, passage. The teacher directs them back toward
the group and asks for questions. One student raises a hand: 'I don't understand
verse 5:4 of the tractate Niddah. What does the phrase 'it is like a finger in
eye' mean? The teacher responds, 'This refers to the hymen of a girl younger
than three years old. The Sages believed that in the case of toddler rape, the
hymen would fully grow back by the time the girl reached adulthood and married.
Therfore, though violated, she would still technically be counted as a virgin
and could marry a priest. It's an analogy: poling your finger in the eye is
uncomortable, but causes no lasting harm.
There is a collective gasp of breath among students. Their dismay is palpable.
They do not like this particular talmudic text or the men behind it. But its
authors, the talmudic rabbis, hardly wrote it with this particular group of
students in mind -- mostly thirty- and forty-year old women in suburban
Philadelphia taking a four-week class titled 'Women in Jewish Law' at their
Reform synagogue.
The questioner perists. 'I don't understand. Are you saying this refers to the
rape of a three year-old girl?'
"Or younger,' the teacher responds dryly.
'I don't see how it says anything about rape and hymens. You must be
mistaken. I don't believe the rabbis are talking about rape at all. I think this
statement has nothing to do with the rest of the passage.'
The teacher (I'll admit now that it was me, a second-year rabbinic student)
responds, 'Well, that's the common understanding. What do you think it means?'
The woman is clearly agitated, 'I don't know, but I do know that it couldn't
be about child rape.' This is week three of the class. The woman does not
return for week four. Denial." [LITMAN, R., SEPT 2000]

Litman, the rabbinic student, then confesses that "I find [Elizabeth Kubler] Ross's model
helpful when addressing sacred Jewish texts that are violent or xenophobic, that speak of
child abuse, human slavery, or homophobia with gross insensitivity. Like so many of my
colleagues and students, I often drift confusedly through denial, anger, grief,
rationalization (a form of bargaining); sometimes reaching acceptance, sometimes not."
[LITMAN, R., SEPT 2000]

Another Jewish religion teacher, Deena Copeland Klepper, notes that "there are many
passages in the Bible that make us squirm." She cites Pslam 137 from the Torah, where
Israelites are enjoined to dash innocent Babylonian babies against the rocks. "I have read
Pslam 137 with adults in Jewish history classes many times," Klepper says, "it is the best way
I know to communicate the anguish of the Israelites in exile from their homeland. And yet
reading the text also elicits a horrified reaction in my students. Against the familiarity of
the first part of the psalm, that final vengeful outburst against innocent children shocks; it
violates my students' modern sensibilities." [KLEPPER, D., APRIL 2001]

Despite such moral problems with ancient texts, says Edward Boaz, "To be sure, the Talmud
was written in a historical context vastly different from the world we live in. Its solutions
may not be entirely appropriate to ours. But to its credit, the Talmud is not an abstract
religious work. It grows out of the needs of people in all walks of life. The authors have
created for us a valuable paradigm that may be utilized for meeting the challenges that
confront our children." [BORAZ, p. 3]

For all such Talmudic injunctions, the enduring capacity for the Talmud (and other
Jewish religious metacommentaries) to be entirely malleable as an authoritative work to fit
the occasion at hand is noted by Jacob Katz; of seven Talmudic commentators expressing an
opinion about a seminal religious dictate concerning apostasy, "three succeeded in twisting
the meaning of the sentence into the opposite of its obvious intention." [KATZ, Ex, p. 81]

To hold the Jewish community tightly together against other peoples, rabbinical arguments
can even be consciously used to subvert the original meanings of the seminal Torah itself.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks notes that

"One of the most famous passages in the entire rabbinical literature
[is] the argument between Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and [other
rabbinical] sages [of his era] on the ritual cleanliness of a broken
and reconstituted oven. Rabbi Eliezer declared it clean; the sages
ruled against him. He 'brought all the proofs in the world' for his
view but none was accepted. After invoking several miracles, he
finally appealed to Heaven itself, 'whereupon a Heavenly voice was
heard saying: Why do you dispute with Rabbi Eliezer, seeing that
in all matters the halakhah agrees with him?' This proof too was
rejected, on the grounds that 'It [the Torah] is not in heaven.'"
[SACKS, J., p. 164]

Here, even though Rabbi Eliezer was, according to Jewish law, clearly correct in his
opinion about the broken oven, "the assertion of [communal rabbinical] authority [over God] is
necessary 'so that disputes should not multiply in Israel.'"] [SACKS, J., p. 165]

Lothar Kahn notes prominent secular Jewish author Arthur Koestler's views about such
Talmudic reasoning:

"The survival of a brand of scholasticism in today's Talmudic schools was
an intellectual shock [to Koestler]. The acrobatics in logic in which it indulged
appeared to aim at the same intellectual and moral evasions as the practices
relating to Sabbath and Pesach. Interpretations of Mosaic Law, specifically
devised to evade the original law, struck him as a form of mental corruption."
[KAHN, L., 1961, p. 151]

The Talmud has always functioned as a flexible apparatus to shift and adapt the Jewish
faith over the centuries to current needs and political expediencies. There is enough
conflicting argument in the Talmud to prove or disprove virtually anything, resolve from the
shelf any theological -- or practical -- emergency, depending on which way contemporary winds
blow. In the Talmud, for example, (Sanhedrin 59a) one old sage, Johanan, opins that "A Gentile
who takes up the Torah [Old Testament] is deserving of death." This, to say the least, 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]

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' arch-enemy, Haman
-- usually by hanging him in effigy. Horowitz's article

“deals with the character of Purim over the centuries as a day
combining ritual reversal, joys and hostility -- especially towards
Christians and its symbols, as well as with 19th and 20th century
historiographical attempts to come to grips with the troubling
evidence concerning the activities of the Jews as part of the holiday’s
carnivalesque character. The problematic character of much
historiography concerning Purim can be seen in the case of H. Graetz
who wrote that it had been the custom to burn Haman upon a gallows
which had the form of a cross. It was difficult for Jewish historians to
speak their minds honestly about what Purim had been like in the past,
for fear it would reflect upon European Jewry in the present. [The
article] stresses the tenacity of anti-Christian Purim practices,
especially among European Jewry, in medieval and modern times.”
[REL&THEO, 1995, 38, p. 851]

Meanwhile, for popular, public Gentile consumption in English, Hayyim Schuass's book
about Jewish festivals is typical in its reframing of historical fact into merely the
fantasies of Christian anti-Semitic fanatics, i.e., the reconstruction of Jewish culpability
into Jewish innocense, an attitude systematically manifest throughout Jewish polemic. Schauss
writes that:

"As far back as the fifth century the charge was made against Jews that
they burned a cross and a figure of Jesus on Purim. This slander often
led to attacks upon Jews by their Christian neighbors. In time, under
pressure of the Christians, the custom [of burning an effigy of Haman]
disappeared in Christian lands." [SCHAUSS, p. 268]

The Israeli social critic, Israel Shahak, addresses another example of this systematic
deceit and dissimulation about Jewish history by noting the 1968 English-language volume, The
Joys of Yiddish, by Leon Rosten. Shahak notes that the book

"is a kind of glossary of Yiddish [the Jewish traditional language of
central and eastern Europe] [with].... an etymology stating ... 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, shegetz (or, in
his transliteration, shegues) and defines its Hebrew meaning as 'blemish.'
This is a bold-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 ... wretch, unruly youngster; Gentile youngster."
[SHAHAK, p. 26]

Edwin Freeland notes that:

"The etymological history of the word shiksa itself is instructive ... The
Hebrew word shakaytz means to abominate, to utterly detest. In the
Bible there are constant admonitions not to eat or take the shikutz
(masculine noun form), literally, the abominated thing, into one's
house." [FREEDLAND, E., 1982, p. 508]

For popular consumption in English, however, the word shiksa is usually carefully
censored. In A Dictionary of Yiddish Slang and Idioms, for example, "shikseh" is simply
defined as "Non-Jewish girl (also used to imply an impious or wild Jewish girl)." [KOGOS, p.
70]

But most Jews know better. Yossi Klein Halevi, who grew up in an American Orthodox
community, notes that the word "shiksa" means "a gentile woman, that nasty Yiddish word
implying 'slut.'" [HALEVI, MEMOIRS, p. 224] When Israeli Ze'ev Chafets married a non-Jewish
woman in 1997, he had to face more firmly the institutionalized Jewish racism (and moral
double standards) against his new wife:

"Jews who would rather cut off their tongue than say 'nigger ' or 'spic'
and consider 'kike' and 'Hymie' fighting words talk about 'goyim' and
'shiksas' with blithe indifference. They assume that we can't be guilty of
prejudice because we are all victims ... But terms like 'shiksa' ... no
longer sound like charming Yiddishisms to me; they seem like slurs."
[BROWNFELD, p. 85]

A minority of non-Orthodox Jews who haven't studied their own traditional literature, or
Yiddish and Hebrew, in detail, may not even be aware of the range of such objectionable (by
modern moral standards) material in seminal Jewish religious texts. Nor do informed Jews
invite an examination of the full context of Jewish-Gentile relations through history. In the
last few decades whenever such material is brought to public attention, however rarely, its
exposure is attacked by Jewish organizations as "anti-Semitic canards," distorted and
misrepresented excerpts from their original contexts. Throughout history it has usually taken
apostate Jews to reveal them to the non-Jewish community.

"Among the first generation or two of Dominican friars [in the Middle Ages]," says
Norman Cantor, "... were a remarkable number of Jewish converts. The reason that the friars
.. could engage in a lengthy debate with the rabbis in their public disputations in France
and Spain was that these debating friars were almost invariably former rabbis or rabbinical
students, or sons of rabbis." [CANTOR, p. 179] "Most often," notes Leon Poliakov, "by making
the conversion of the Jews and the denunciation of Jews their chief vocation [Jewish
apostates] constituted a true scourge for the Jewish communities.... [POLIAKOV, p. 167] ...
The role of the renegade Jew ... has always been of prime importance during the persecutions
of the Jews." [POLIAKOV, p. 69]

In the year 1236, for example, Nicholas Donin, a Jewish convert to Christianity,
"approached Pope Gregory IX with a list of charges against rabbinic Judaism." [COHEN, J.,
1982, p. 60] According to Donin, notes Jeremy Cohen, "the rabbis [of the Talmud] allegedly
instructed the Jews to kill Christians and ruled that the Jew may blamelessly cheat and
deceive Christians in any way possible ... The Talmud, claimed Donin, licensed murder, theft,
and religious intolerance, and it included strictures against trusting Gentiles, honoring
them, or even returning a lost piece of property to them. The worst outrage for Donin was the
prayers in the Jews' daily liturgy uttered against Christians and apostates." [COHEN, J.,
1982, p. 68, 71] A compilation was also made, "probably in large part by converts from
Judaism," [COHEN, J., 1982, p. 65] which resulted in "a collection of objectionable excerpts
from the Talmud and Jewish liturgy according to topic, over one hundred folios listing the
passages in the order of their appearance in the Talmud." [COHEN, J., 1982, p. 65] The result
of a Papal investigation of the Talmud resulted in its public burning.

Another such disputation in Barcelona, Spain, occurred in 1262 between Rabbi Moses ben
Nahman and Friar Pablo Christiani. Christiani was born Jewish and "he had studied Jewish
literature under the direction of Rabbi Eliezer ben Emmanuel of Tarascon and Jacob ben Elijah
Lattes of Venice." [COHEN, J., 1982, p. 108] Elsewhere, "Juan Perez de Montalvian, a Marrano
[secret Jew]," notes M. H. Goldberg, "was a priest and notary of the Inquisition. The Society
of Jesus founded by Saint Ignatius had numerous monks of Jewish descent. When Saint Ignatius
chose a successor to lead the order, he appointed Diego Lainez, who had been born a Jew."
[GOLDBERG, M. H., 1976, p. 109-110]

In the 15th century, notes Bernard Lazare,

"Peter Schwartz and Hans Boyd, both converted Jews, instigated the
inhabitants to sack the [Jewish] Ghetto; in Spain, Paul de Santa-Maria
[formerly Solomon Levi] instigated Henry III of Castille to take
measures against the Jews ... [Santa-Maria] is generally found the
instigator in all the persecutions which befell the Jews of his time, and
he hunted the synagogue with a ferocious hatred ... The Talmud
was the great antagonist of the converts, and one that had to withstand
most of their wrath. They constantly denounced it before the inquisitors,
the king, the emperor, and the Pope ... The theologians followed the
example of the converts, most frequently they had about the Talmud no
other notions beyond those given them by the converts." [LAZARE, p.
88]

"In the sixteenth century," adds M. Hirsch Goldberg, "a butcher named Pfefferkorn tried
to have the German emperor destroy all rabbinic writings and Hebrew books except the Bible."
[GOLDBERG, M., 1976, p. 214] Pfefferkorn too was a Jewish convert to Christianity, as was, in
the eighteenth century, Jacob Frank (1726-1791). "Frank and his closest followers adopted
Catholicism," notes Jewish apologist Milton Aron,

"and, in vengeful activities against their opponents within Jewry, heaped
various false accusations against the Jews and their teachings, leading
to the burning of the Talmud." [ARON, M., 1969, p. 30]

Then there is the case of "Michael the Neophyte, an eighteenth century Jewish convert to
Christianity, who not only swore that Judaism commanded the ritual killing of Gentile
children, but provided gory details of his own participation in those murders." [PIPES, D.,
1997, p. 32]

In Germany, notes Nachum Gidal, "one of the most influential opponents of political
equality for the Jews was the baptised Jew Freidrich Julius Stahl (1802-1861) who was the
founder of Prussian conservatism, leader of the Conservative Party, House of Lords, and member
of the Upper House of Prussian Parliament." [GIDAL, p. 17] In Russia, in 1869, "the infamous
Book of the Kahal, ... written by the Jewish apostate Jacob Brafman, made its appearance and
seemed to document the already well-known accusation that the Jews constituted a 'state within
a state' whose main aim was to subjugate and exploit the non-Jewish population." [ARONSON, p.
42] (Louis Rapoport even argues that Jewish oppression of Jews was even pre-eminent in the
Russian communist revolution: "The Jewish Bolsheviks were the most fanatical advocates of
suppressing Jewish parties.") [RAPOPORT, L., 1990, p. 29] Even recently, in Croatia,

"in July 1997, Mladen Schwartz, an individual of Jewish origin and an ultra-nationalist
agitator, promoted his book 'Protocols, Jews and Adolf Hitler' in Zagreb's main
square. In the book Schwartz poses such questions as 'Why should the Croatian
state be in the service of Judeo-lobbyists?'" [INSTITUTE OF JEWISH POLICY
RESEARCH, 2001]

Over the centuries, inflammatory Talmudic passages were "exposed" to the Christian public
more and more by non-Jewish authors; in 1700, for example, the German, Johann Eisenmenger,
wrote Judaism Uncovered and August Rohling, a professor of Semitic languages in Prague, penned
Talmud Jew in 1871. These two works were among the most sensational charges against Jewish
tradition and belief; modern Jewish scholarship (and even more so, Jewish popular opinion)
generally portrays such texts as fabrication or misinterpretation -- in either case,
“anti-Semitic.” "The Talmud," says George Mosse, "was said to be full of exhortations to
cheat, lustfulness, usury, and hatred of Christians ... The Talmud had come to symbolize the
secret of the 'perverted' religion of the Jews." Rohling decided that it was a "program for
domination of the world by the chosen people." [MOSSE, p. 139]

In Eisenmenger's case, his "anti-Jewish sallies," writes Jacob Katz, "were on the whole
not his own inventions. He collected anti-Jewish ornaments from the Christian tradition,
systematized them, and attempted to prove their truth by reading them into the Talmudic
literature with which he was well acquainted." [KATZ, Jew Dig, p. 6] Nazis and others have, of
course, recognized such materials' value in enflaming anti-Jewish hostility and appropriated
them for presentation for their own purposes.

Eisenmenger’s anti-Jewish work, the argumentative basis for many books critical of Jews
that were written later, is particularly noteworthy and bears greater scrutiny. As a dedicated
Christian, Eisenmenger's writings were framed as a polemic that impugned Jewish belief and
tradition. His opus, Judaism Uncovered (Endecktes Judenthum), was a two-volume set of over
2100 pages, quoting from 200 mostly Jewish sources and was the result of twenty years of
research. The author was a respected scholar and well read in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. "In
short," says Jacob Katz (a well-known Jewish scholar who Israeli critic Israel Shahak singles
out as being particularly apologetic when it comes to Jewish religious texts), [SHAHAK, p.
114] "Eisenmenger was acquainted with all the literature a Jewish scholar of standing would
have known ... [He] surpassed his [non-Jewish] predecessors in his mastery of the sources and
his ability to interpret them tendentiously. Contrary to accusations that have been made
against him, he does not falsify his sources." [KATZ, From, p. 14]

Katz refers here to the likes of Bernard Lewis, another Jewish scholar, whose reaction
to Eisenmenger's work is much more typical:

"Eisenmenger was a professor of Oriental languages ... By careful
selection, occasional invention, and sweeping misinterpretation, due
sometimes to ignorance and sometimes to malice, he presents the
Talmud as a corpus of anti-Christian and indeed anti-human doctrine...
Eisenmenger's book, though disproved again and again by both
Christian and Jewish scholars, became a classic of anti-Semitic
literature, and has remained a source book for anti-Semitic accusations
to the present day." [LEWIS, B., 1986, p. 105]

Influential Jews of the Royal Court in Eisenmenger's locale and era (Samson Wertheimer
and Samuel Oppenheimer, among them) managed to have the book banned by the Hapsburg Emperor;
Eisenmenger appealed, and "litigation continued for decades." The author never lived to see
the censorship of his book about Jews lifted. [KATZ, p. 14] "The powerful supplier of the
Austrian armies, Samuel Oppenheimer," notes Leon Poliakov, "actually succeeded, for a
consideration, in having the work banned. Its 2,000 copies were confiscated as soon as they
were printed, and the author died, apparently of grief." [POLIAKOV, p. 243]

Conceding that Eisenmenger's voluminously footnoted citations from Jewish law and
religious literature do indeed exist as he says, Jacob Katz argues (as do many Jewish
apologists) that just because these citations are undeniably part of Judaism's religious
tradition doesn't mean the rules and laws were actually practiced (or, at least, practiced any
longer). Katz asserts that such odious directives from Jewish sages must be understood in
terms of the climate of their creation. "Eisenmenger," says Katz, "consciously ignored
whatever later [Jewish] generations read into earlier sources ... [he was] seeking only the
original meaning intended by the writers." [KATZ, p. 17]

Katz proclaims what he calls the "historical approach" (i.e., trying to understand "the
original meanings intended by the writers") to be fallacious. The correct way to view Jewish
seminal thinking, he argues, is by the "exegetical-homiletical method" (i.e., what Jews were
supposed to believe and what they practiced were eventually two different things -- they
adjusted to changes around them). This, for Katz, negates the "original meanings."

One of Eisenmenger's principal attacks was upon codified Jewish opinion for treatment of
non-Jews and their religions. Eisenmenger cited textual evidence that Jewish religious
tradition forbids robbery, deceit, and even murder only within their own community, non-Jews
were categorically exempt from moral protection. If Jews were raised with such beliefs, argued
Eisenmenger, it is not hard to believe that they would be inclined to defame Christianity at
every chance, as well as rob, swindle, and even murder those not of their own community.

"The nature of the Jewish tradition," writes Katz of such Eisenmenger charges, "its
earliest strata reflecting the conditions of the ancient world, enabled Eisenmenger to prove
such theses. The legal and ethical systems of the ancient world were dualistic ... In the
period of the Mishnah and Talmud, the question of whether the property of non-Jews was
protected by law was still under dispute. Certain individuals who were considered subversive
-- idol worshippers and the like -- remained outside the absolute protection of the [Jewish]
law even in matters of life and death." [KATZ, From, p. 18]

Katz goes on to argue that those rabbinical opinions that asserted, for instance, "that
one should actively work towards ["sectarians' and "infidels'"] deaths became merely
"theoretical material." [KATZ, p. 18] Or as another apologetic Jewish scholar, Louis Jacobs,
puts the Eisenmenger issue:

"There is no doubt that the Talmudic Rabbis, living among pagans,
had a poor opinion of the Gentile world around them even while
admiring some of its features. At times some of the Rabbis gave
vent to the harshest feelings, as in the notorious statement 'Kill
the best of the goyyim.' Johann Andreas Eisenmenger (1654-1704)
in his Endecktes Judenthum (Judaism Unmasked) collected such
adverse passages in order to prove to his satisfaction that the Jews
hate all Gentiles. It became an important aspect of Jewish
apologetic to demonstrate that Eisenmenger had either
misunderstood many of the passages he quotes or had taken
them out of context." [JACOBS, L., 1995, p. 184-185]

Ultimately, Eisenmenger aligned evidence from Jewish religious law to exhibit an alleged
foundation which suggests that, when the Messiah comes, non-Jews would be destroyed. But not
only that. Based on the citational evidence he could piece together, Eisenmenger thought "it
stood to reason that [Jews] would carry out the commandment of destruction even in the present
on those whom it was within their reach to injure and harm." [KATZ, p. 19] In fact, this
theme of vengeful Jewish destruction of non-Jews was addressed in a volume by professor
Abraham Grossman in Hebrew, in 1994, specifically investigating Ashkenazi (European Jewish)
religious society. A summary of his conclusions in Religious and Theological Abstracts states
that

“[The] Ashkenazi believed in the conversion of the Gentiles as part of
the redemptive era, following the stage of vengeance ... The idea that
a link exists between vengeance to be carried out against the enemies
of Israel and the redemption, and that vengeance is a forerunner to
redemption, can be found in the Bible, the Talmud, and in
apocalyptic literature, and should not be viewed as uniquely
Ashkenazi.” [REL&THEO, 38:1, 859]

As renowned sociologist Max Weber once noted:

"In the mind of the pious Jew the moralism of the law was inevitably
combined with the aforementioned hope for revenge, which suffused
practically all the exile and post-exilic sacred scriptures. Moreover,
through two and a half millennium this hope appeared in virtually every
divine service of the Jewish people, characterized by a firm grip upon
two indestructible claims -- religiously sanctified segregation from the
other peoples of the world, and divine promises relating to this world
... When one compares Judaism with other salvation religions, one
finds that in Judaism the doctrine of religious resentment has an
idiosyncratic quality and plays a unique role not found among
the disprivileged classes of any other religion." [NEWMAN, A.,
1998, p. 163])

Yet, concludes professor Katz, "To anyone who is knowledgeable of Jewish literature,
Eisenmenger's interpretations [of central Jewish religious texts] read like a parody of both
the legal and homiletic literature ... It is otherwise, of course, for the reader who is
unfamiliar with the literature: he may fall for Eisenmenger's conclusions, not knowing that
they are no more than the very assumptions that preceded the writer's examination of the
material [i.e., anti-Jewish Christian prejudice]." [KATZ, J, From, p. 20]

Unfortunately, this "parody" reading of seminal Jewish religious literature, and its
“theoretical theses,” as we will soon see, has many Jewish adherents even today, as it always
has, and -- with renewed interest in it in the Jewish world today -- is causing moral
consternation for the more universalistic, enlightened members of the Jewish politic.

"Eisenmenger neither forged his sources nor pulled his accusations out of thin air," says
Katz, "There was a nucleus of truth in all of his claims: the Jews lived in a world of
legendary or mythical concepts, of ethical duality -- following different standards of
morality in their internal and external relationships -- and they dreamed with imaginative
speculation of their future in the time of the Messiah." [KATZ, p. 21] That admitted, Katz
turns to debunk Eisenmenger's volumes of evidence by claiming that the German scholar found
only what he wished to find. In other words, the most relevant facts of Eisenmenger's
argument, to Katz, are not to be found in the evidence of Jewish religious law and literature,
but, rather, in Eisenmenger's underlying paradigm of anti-Semitism.

Is Katz's view true? Is all this anti-Gentile animosity irrefutably found in Jewish
religious literature “obsolete,” and did Eisenmenger just piece various facts together to form
a false whole? Or, rather, is it just that pious believers in talmudic Judaism have really
never had the political empowerment -- until the creation of modern Israel -- to surface the
most disturbing elements of the faith?

Let's turn to Moshe Greenberg for the beginning of an answer to all this, a scholar
described by the periodical Conservative Judaism as "one of the leading scholars of Hebrew
scripture in the world," formerly the Chair of the Department of Bible Studies at Hebrew
University in Israel. As a young man, Greenberg's first introduction to the racist foundation
of Jewish religious literature was in Sefer Hatanya, the central works of Habad hasidim [one
of today's ultra-Orthodox groups, also spelled "Chabad"]. Greenberg noted in 1996 that

"What emerged for me, from the study of the first chapters of the book
and their antecedents was the discovery that the main stream of Jewish
thought is permeated by the genetic spiritual superiority of Jews over
Gentiles, disconcertingly reminiscent of racist notions of our time.
Living in Israel for the past twenty years in a Jewish majority that is no
more sensitive to the feelings of minorities within it than Gentile
majorities are.... [with] Jews in their midst, I have come to realize the
vitality of Jewish racist notions, and I am more than ever convinced that
the hold Judaism will have on this and future generations will be gravely
impaired unless these notions are neutralized by an internal reordering of
traditional values." [GREENBERG, p. 33]

Such traditional values may be found in the memoirs of Yossi Klein Halevi (an American
Jew who eventually moved to Israel) and what he was taught as a youth at Brooklyn's Talmudic
Academy:

"Jews and goyim [non-Jews] were locked in eternal struggle. For now the
goyim prevailed. But when the Messiah came, we would triumph. Twenty
goyim would cling to each thread of our prayer shawls, pleading to serve
us as protection against divine judgment." [HALEVI, p. 68]

One Talmudic Academy teacher taught that "Jews were the center of the world ... Anything
extraneous to Jews was of no real interest to us, or, by implication, God himself." [HALEVI,
p. 68]

Today's Orthodox Lubavitcher movement (famous for its yearly Chabad telethon to raise
money for its projects) also reflects the principles of Jewish racial uniqueness, for example,
in its Sefer Hama'Amarim, by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn:

"The Jewish people were granted the unique ability to draw down all
Divine effluences through their performance of Torah and mitzvos
[the fulfillment of religious commandments] ... [Jews] become vessels for
G-dliness ... The reason why only Jews possess this unique quality
is because of their power of mesirus nefsh, total self-sacrifice...
[SCHNNERSOHN, Y., 1986, p. 2] ... The Talmud comments that
Jews possess three innate character traits: they are bashful, merciful
and benevolent. These traits are not only meritorious in and of
themselves, but also reveal the greatness of the Jewish people. Every
Jew inherently possesses these beautiful traits. [SCHNEERSOHN, Y.,
1986, p. 11] ... G-d's conduct with the Jewish people transcends the
bounds of nature. When a Jew submits all his natural matters to G-d's
service, the Almighty then helps him in a supranatural manner."
[SCHNEERSOHN, Y., 1986, p. 199]

[M.T.T.]

Some in today’s Jewish community recognize a growing problem with what Jacob Katz
disregarded as the “original meanings” of Jewish religious tenets, particularly when
reinvigorated by Jewish Orthodoxy and fused to modern Zionism, wherein “theoretical” status is
revived as practical actions in the real world. In a 1994 issue of Tradition magazine,
published by the Rabbinical Council of America, four questions were posed to a panel of
scholars, including this one:

“Has Religious Zionism been guilty of cultivating a negative stance
towards Gentiles? How can Israel’s chosenness (behirat Yisrael) be
so formulated as to avoid its being misinterpreted as either another
form of secular nationalism, or an endorsement of negative attitudes
towards Gentiles? [FELDMAN, p. 5]

The simple fact that such questions need to be asked, in-house, in a Jewish rabbinical
magazine, is revealing. Of the various responses, Gerald Blidstein, Professor of Jewish Law at
Ben Gurion University in Israel, had the most disturbing one:

“Unfortunately -- from my point of view and, it would seem, from
the perspective from which this symposium is mounted -- the number
of followers of Meir Kahane [the profoundly racist and, some say, even
fascist, American-Israeli leader] within the Orthodox movement is not
tiny, nor has his militant doctrine found a positive response among
small sections of our community. On the contrary: central aspects
of his worldview, or at least his basic attitudes, are shared by large
segments of observant Jewry in both Israel and America ... Kahane
is merely an unmasked version of what Zionism always was -- racist,
brutal, rapacious ... The modern Orthodox community ... exploits...
democratic, humanistic modes of behavior ... for its own benefit.
Exploiting values cynically, benefiting from them but not committing
oneself to them or internalizing them, ought to be unacceptable.”
[BLIDSTEIN, p. 11, 14]

The 1995 assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzak Rabin by a zealous Orthodox
student, Yigal Amir (whose yeshiva had military training as part of its curriculum), was an
event of tragically profound importance to Jews; it brought into ominous focus a very real and
very lethal expression of traditional talmudism, underscoring a widening gap between
areligious Jews and growing numbers who have revived religious fundamentalism based upon
ancient talmudic intolerance, and who now celebrate -- thanks to the creation of the modern
state of Israel -- the power to express the angry dreams of their ancestors. Amir publicly
professed his act of murder to be a religious deed (Rabin's willingness to surrender occupied
land in peace talks with Arabs was understood to be traitorous to Jewish messianism). Even in
America, four months before Rabin was assassinated, a Brooklyn rabbi, Abraham Hecht, publicly
called for the death of any Israeli public official who ceded land to Arabs in peace
agreements with them. [JEWISH WEEK, 3-27-98, p. 20]

A year before Rabin's murder, the prime minister spoke to a Jewish audience about
(American-born) Israeli doctor Baruch Goldstein, the man who had recently burst into a Hebron
mosque with an automatic weapon and slaughtered nearly 30 Muslims at prayer until he himself
was beaten to death:

"The level of support for a murderous lunatic and the identification
with [Goldstein] among some sectors of the public have been greater
than I'd estimated at first. I see in this the danger of an Israeli racism,
or to be more procise, a Jewish racism." [DERFNER, L, 4-1-94,. 2]

As the Jewish Bulletin noted in 1994, "since the Hebron murders, Israeli teachers have
devoted lessons to explaining why Goldstein's deed was an abomination. But at one highly rated
Jerusalem school, the Hebrew Gymnasium, about half the students of an 11th grade class
gathered off campus after one of the anti-Goldstein lessons, and chanted 'Death to the Arabs,'
and 'Goldstein tzaddik,' or righteous man ... Probably the most disturbing finding came from
one of the largest high school in Beersheva. A teacher there polled the class and found that
60 percent of the students supported the massacre." [DERFNER, L., 4-1-94, p. 2]

Based upon literal interpretations of some parts of the Talmud, even Jewish religious
opponents understood how religious texts could be interpreted to sanction Rabin's murder. As a
troubled Israeli rabbi, David Hartmann, observed:

"The rabbis under radically different conditions prevailing during the
third century AD ... encouraged ... hate and destruction. [Rabin's
assassin] was no aberration. He was wholly within the normative
tradition that has survived frozen through the ages to our own time ...
There are sufficient other resources in the tradition -- humane and
pacifist ones -- to counteract the dogmatism. The tragedy is that a
group of fanatical and political rabbis has become dominant over all
other voices in Israel." [ELON, p. 42]

Gershom Scholem, a professor at Hebrew University and an author on Jewish mysticism, was
outraged when a dozen kabbalists (Jewish mystics) camped outside Prime Minister Rabin's house
a few weeks before his murder publicly calling upon "angels of destruction," and prayed for
Rabin to die. This occurred, notes Scholem, "in the heart of Jerusalem, in fairly normal
times. No one in the religious world cried out to protest. Nobody said it's all nonsense. In
other words, they believe (these invocations to black magic) actually work." [ELON, p. 46]

In 1988 another Israeli rabbi, David Ben-Haim, this one a member of the "radical right"
messianic religious movement in Israel, dipped into Talmudic texts and other seminal Judaic
literature to evidence profoundly disturbing material. "In a thirty page study that examined
all Halakhic authorities on the subject," says professor Ehud Sprinzak of the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, "Ben-Haim proves that according to the vast majority, the Torah, when
speaking about Adam (a human being), never includes Gentiles in this category. He points out
that ten recognized Halakhic authorities repeatedly proposed that Gentiles are more beast than
human and that they should be treated accordingly; only two authorities recognize non-Jews as
full human beings created in the image of God." [SPRINZAK, p. 273]

"What comes of all this," wrote Rabbi Ben-Haim, "is that according to the prophets, and
also according to our sages, the Gentiles are seen as beasts ... It is possible that one may
see these injunctions as racism; another may call it hatred of Gentiles, whoever he is; but as
far as the Jew who adheres to the statement of the Torah of Israel is concerned, this is
reality and a way of life which were set for the people of Israel by G-d." [SPRINZAK, p. 274]

"Hardly anyone speaks of Jewish fundamentalism," worries Israel Shahak, "which is
growing in Israel and the United States even more." [SHAHAK, Ideology, p. 80]

Evelyn Kaye, a woman raised in an Orthodox Jewish community in New York, wrote in 1987 an
indicting volume about her life within it and the religiously enforced racism of the ancient
sages that still holds firm in Jewish communities to our present day. The foundation of "being
Jewish" against the rest of humanity is manifest in the fundamentally hostile attitudes
towards non-Jews. Kaye writes that

"The mark of a truly devout Hasidic or Orthodox Jew, as well as
many other Jews, is an unquestioned hatred of non-Jews. This is the
foundation of ultra-Orthodox and Hasidic philosophy. It is as
tenacious, unreasoned, and impossible as anti-Semitism, racism, and
sexism. And as intractable...
There is a complete litany of all the terrible things about non-Jews
which apply to every single one and which are believed implicitly by
the Orthodox.
These include:
-- all Goyim drink alcohol and are always drunk;
-- all Goyim are on drugs;
-- all goyim hate Jews even when they seem friendly;
-- all Goyim are anti-semites, no matter what they say and do;
-- all goyim have a terrible family life and mistreat their wives
and children'
-- all Goyim eat pork all the time;
-- Goyim are never as clever, as kind, as wise or as honest as
Jews;
-- you can never ever trust Goyim.
There's much more. But the essence of anti-Goyimism is passed to
Jewish children with their mother's milk, and then nurtured, fed and
watered carefully into a full-blown phobia throughout their lives.
In order to avoid being contaminated by these terrible creatures,
the Ultra-Orthodox go out of their way to avoid them ... Children ...
manage to grow up without seeing one of these dangerous people
close up. Their attitudes are then perfectly formed. They know
whom to hate." [KAYE, p. 113]

In the 1980s, Samuel Heilman watched an ultra-Orthodox teacher lecture his young
students, and noted that

"Already at this age, these children knew that goyim represented the
absolute other of Yidn [Jews] -- the counterworld. The relation
between the two was clear: 'No ideas or institutions that held in the
one were valid in the other.'" [HEILMAN, S., 1992, p. 192]

Yossi Klein Halevi (whose grandfather was a millionaire in Europe) also grew up in a New
York Hasidic neighborhood, in Borough Park. In 1995 he wrote that:

"Aside from watching them on TV, goyim were alien to me as they were
to the Hasidic children. Naturally, I had no non-Jewish friends. An Italian
family lived on our block. If I saw one of the Italians at a distance, I'd
cross the street to avoid the awkwardness of saying hello ... I did master
[my father's] crucial lesson: to see myself as a stranger in a hostile world,
a member of a people only formally to humanity -- in effect, a separate
species." [HALEVI, p. 15]

"Sadly," noted Orthodox rabbi Mayer Schiller in 1996, "it is ... the granting of humanity
to the Gentile either as an individual or as a people ... that is so often lacking in Orthodox
circles. Suffering from a kind of moral blindness, we find it difficult to see the non-Jew as
anything more than a bit player in our own drama." [MACDONALD, p. 5]

The origin for such beliefs are largely to be found in traditional Jewish religious
literature, then secularly reinforced by a litany of Jewish complaints about alleged Gentile
persecution throughout history. The ambivalent nature of some of today's translated Jewish
religious texts themselves (per their traditional intent) often reflects the fact that various
offending words and passages attracted censorship throughout past centuries by offended
Christian authorities (who were initially appraised of the remarks by Jewish apostates) and
Jewish publishers (who feared dangerous consequences from Christian hostility). As Adin
Steinsaltz notes, "When the Christian church adopted a more severe attitude toward enemies
within its own ranks, it also began to examine Jewish literature and, to a large extent, the
Talmud. Much of the responsibility for this attitude rests with various Jewish converts to
Christianity ... Several European rulers and Church dignitaries were convinced that the Talmud
contained anti-Christian material and, on the basis of informers' charges, they ordered that
all anti-Christian statements and libel against Christ be erased from the books." [STEINSALTZ,
1976, p. 81-82]

Jewish publishers eventually became self-censors; offending passages were excised or
spaces were left blank on pages for Jewish readers to fill in by oral tradition and memory.
The word "Gentile," or the pejorative "goy," (both meaning any non-Jew), for example, was
often replaced with the word "other," "Egyptian," "Kushite," "stranger," or other
dissimulatives for non-Jewish consumption. In one case, for example, a Jewish scribe's
definition of "goyim" as "followers of Jesus Christ" became "those who do not believe in the
law of Moses." [POPPER, p. 28] As Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz notes, "most present day editions [of
the Talmud] still contain a considerable number of changes and omissions introduced by
censorship. Indeed, almost every passage dealing with non-Jews must be suspected of having
undergone some change." [STEINSALTZ, p. 50] "Much Talmudic discussion of early Christianity,"
notes Robert Goldenberg, "was censored out in the course of the Middle Ages and must now be
recovered from scattered manuscripts." [GOLDENBERG, R., 1984, p. 170] Jewish religious
leaders, scholars and general readers usually knew and understood the subterfuge through
history, however, many knowing well the original meanings.

The Encyclopedia Judaica notes that

"In rabbinical literature the distinction between gentile (goy, akkum)
and Christian (Nazeri) has frequently been obscured by textual
alterations necessitated by the vigilance of censors. Thus 'Egyptian,'
'Amalekite,' 'Zadokite (Sadducee),' and 'Kuti' (Samaritan) often
stands in place of the original Nazeri, as well as goy, akkum, etc.
Probably when Resh Lakish stated that a gentile (akkum, etc. in
existing texts) who observed the Sabbath [Saturday rites] is punishable
by death (Sanhedrin, 58b), he had in mind Christians ... Numerous anti-
Christian polemic passages only make real sense after Nazeri has been
restored in place of the spurious Kuti or Zedokite." [ENCY JUD, v. 7,
p. 411]

"Whole paragraphs have been deleted," says Morris Goldstein, "words have been expunged
or substituted, spellings have been changed, thoughts mutilated, and manuscripts seized and
burned." [GOLDSTEIN, p. 3]

M. Herbert Danzger writes that "Jewish modernists" (seeking to reframe and redirect
morally objectionable passages against non-Jews in Jewish religious literature), argue "that
these laws referred not to Gentiles generally but to 'star worshippers,' a precise legal
category meaning those who deny the existence of deity, who practice no law and no justice,
whose ways are cruel and murderous." [DANZGER, p. 295] Even if the 'star worshippers'
interpretation had credence, who exactly in history ever believed in 'no deity, no law, no
justice,' and wallowed in cruelty and murder? Certainly any society anywhere conceives of
itself as framed within concepts of some kind of deity, law, and justice, and attributes their
lack to its enemies, as does the rabbinical literature. According to the Encyclopedia Judaica,
after the fall of the second Temple in 70 CE, the

"world was regarded as divided, by rabbinical opinion ... into the Jewish
people and the 'nations of the world,' and insofar as individuals were
concerned, into the 'Jew' and the 'idolater,' with the Hebrew equivalent
of 'idolater' usually abbreviated to 'akkum,' literally a 'worshipper of
the stars and planets." [EN JUD, p. 410]

Michael Asheri, a Jewish American immigrant to Israel, notes modern Jewish apologetics
and dissimulation about the subject of idolaters:

"Once we get out of the area of friendship and business [with non-Jews],
... it is obvious that to the Jewish way of thinking, many of today's
Gentiles are still worshippers of idols. The use of devotionals
in Christian churches is ingeniously explained away by orthodox Jewish
thinkers, but Jews are still stringently prohibited from entering churches
in which such images are displayed. (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah
142:14) Certainly the practices of present day Hindus and Buddhists
must be considered idol worship or the term has no meaning at all.
In addition, the prohibition of yayin nesech, wine made by Gentiles,
is based entirely on avoidance of avoda zara [worship of strange Gods].
If some of the Gentiles are not idol worshippers, why does this
prohibition continue to be obligatory for all observant Jews?" [ASHERI,
M., 1983, p. 332-333]

Asheri next addresses the reason for Jewish secrecy about this delicate subject: the fear
of anti-Jewish hostility as a response to the Jewish anti-Gentile tradition. There is, says
Asheri,

"an important reason for not making apparent our attitude in this
respect and that is darchet shalom, keeping the peace, between
the Jews and the peoples of the world, among whom they live."
[ASHERI, M., 1983, p. 333]

There are other things about Jewish identity that are best not discussed too publicly.
One of the principles of traditional Jewish law, notes the Israeli social critic Israel
Shahak, is that a Gentile's life must not be saved. He cites a line in the Talmud (Tractate
Avodah Zarah, 26b): "Gentiles are neither to be lifted (out of a well) nor hauled down (into
it)," i.e., if a non-Jew falls into a well a Jew is religiously forbidden from saving his/or
her life. The highly respected Jewish theologian Maimonides takes this example to comment that
"it is forbidden to save [non-Jews] if they are at the point of death; if, for example, one of
them is seen falling into the sea, he should not be rescued." [SHAHAK, p. 80] (In this context
of Jewish religious tradition, Shahak sardonically notes the extremely uncompromising position
many outraged Jews can find themselves in when they so vociferously complain that so many
countries "stood by and did nothing" to help Jews during the Jewish Holocaust.)

As far as Maimonides is concerned, we will refer to him heavily here. His opinions are
highly relevant in our own day. Maimonides is neither obscure to modern Orthodox Judaism, nor
obsolete. He is an integral part of modern Orthodox discourse; according to the New
Encyclopedia Brittanica (1993), Maimonides is recognized "as a pillar of Orthodox faith -- his
creed became part of the Orthodox liturgy [and he is known] as the greatest of Jewish
philosophers." [NEW ENCY BRIT, 7, p. 708]

Israeli professor Michael Harsegor explains another angle to Jewish self-absorption, in
the tale of the "Good Samaritan" from the Christian New Testament tradition (Luke 10:33-34.)
Two Jews, a Cohen and a Levite, pass a non-Jewish man who had been physically attacked and
left behind for dead by robbers. Per traditional Jewish religious conviction, the passing Jews
do not stop to aid the injured man. Eventually a Samaritan passes and stops to help the fellow
in distress. As Harsegor notes, in explaining this parable of pan-human Christian teachings,

"It is wrong to cling to the Torah, like the Cohen and Levite, and do
nothing more. You have to be humane, like the Samaritan, who
is not a religious Jew." [COUSSIN, 1999]

Conversely, rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh, an immigrant from the United States to Israel, has
commented that

"If you saw two people drowning, a Jew and a non-Jew, the Torah
says you save the Jewish life first. If every simple cell in a Jewish
body entails divinity, is a part of God, then every strand of DNA
is part of God. Therefore, something is special about Jewish
DNA ... If a Jew needs a liver, can you take the liver of an innocent
non-Jew passing by to save him? The Torah would probably
permit that. Jewish life has infinite value." [BROWNFELD, A.,
MARCH 2000, p. 105-106]

It is critically important today, of course, for Jewish apologists to find more humane
perspectives on the subject of non-Jews in traditional literature. "Moses Rivkes, a
seventeenth century [Jewish] Lithuanian authority, "notes Jacob Katz, "drew the conclusion
that, regarding the obligation to save life, no discrimination should be made between Jews and
Christians; the same degree was attached to saving either." Rivkes, of course, represents only
one man's view and reflects the views he sought to counter. His opinion, note Charles Liebman
and Steven Cohen, "only demonstrates the depth of historic Jewish hostility toward the non-Jew
and the legitimization that this hostility received within the religious tradition."
[LIEBMAN/COHEN, p. 38]

Other disturbing views from Jewish religious literature and tradition include:

"When we withhold mercy from others [it] is equal to that for doing
(merciful deeds) to members of our own people." [SHAHAK, p. 96]

"If the ox of a Jew gores the ox of Gentile, the Jew is not required to pay
damages, but if the ox of a Gentile ... gores the ox of a Jew, the Gentile
is required to pay full damages." [MISHNAH, BABA KAMA 4:3]

If after taking a purification bath, a Jewish woman sees a dog, pig, donkey, horse,
leper, or a non-Jew ("heathen") before she "meets a friend," she has to take the bath over
again. [GANZFRIED, p. 42] "One should not be alone with a heathen belonging to one of the
seven peoples [the Biblical tribes of Canaan from which non-Jews are traditionally understood
to have descended], because they are apt to commit homicide." [GANZFIELD, p. 52] Likewise,
"cattle should not be kept in the barns of heathen-owned inns, out of suspicion that they may
practice sodomy with them." [LIPMAN, E., 1974, p. 235]

"The Talmud is in disagreement over whether Jews may rob Gentiles," says Jewish scholar
Gordon Lafar, "but even the liberal authority Rabbi Menachem HaMeiri agrees that a Jew who
finds something that was inadvertently lost by a Gentile is not obliged to return it." [LAFAR,
p. 189-190] In this regard, for example, in 1980 Brooklyn rabbi Dovid Katz wrote a book about
the 613 mitzvot (i.e., commandments; singular: mitvah) that a good Othodox Jew is expected to
fulfill. (Katz notes them as "divine decrees"). [KATZ, D., 1980, untitled preface page] Among
those is Mitzvah 69: "It is a positive commandment to return a lost object to a Jew, as the
posuk says (Vayikra 22), 'You should return to your brother.'" Of interesting note here are
some of the detailed explanations of this: Katz highlights the Jewish religious "law" as
stated by an old -- and obviously still influential -- Talmudic expert, Rambam:

"3. One is allowed to keep a lost object of a gentile and he who returns it commits
a sin because he is supporting the wicked people of the world. But if he returns
it to sanctify G-d's name, by their saying that the Jews are honest people,
it is allowed an praiseworthy to return it. Where there will be a profaning of
G-d's name one is forbidden to keep the lost object and must return it ...
4. In a city that has Jews and gentiles living together and half are Jews and
half are gentiles, if one found a lost object he should take the lost object
and announce it. If a Jew comes and gives a sign, that the object is his,
he is obligated to return it to him.
5. If the majority of the city are gentiles, and one finds it in a place where most
people there are Jews, he must make an announcement. But if it is in a
place that is mostly gentile, the lost article belongs to the finder and even
if a Jews gives a sign we do not give it to him. We say he gave up since
there are mostly gentiles and they would take it for themselves. Still
the right way is to return it even then to the Jew who gave the sign."
[KATZ, D., 1980, p. 211-212]

In traditional law, Jewish physicians may break the Sabbath (i.e., the rest day) and work
in order to help seriously sick Jewish patients. But there are conflicting opinions in
religious texts about helping non-Jews, and the allowance to aid ill Gentiles on the Sabbath
is not as clear. Apologetic rabbi Immanuel Jacobovitz notes that

"the special sanction to disregard religious laws in the face of
danger to life originally operated only in regard to Jewish lives,
an attitude still upheld, in theory at least, by the Shulkan 'Arukh ...
Evidently the problem [of what to do about helping non-Jews]
was not very acute until the 17th century, when many responsa
[opinions] began to be devoted to it. In principle the more rigorous
view of the Talmud and the codes was generally maintained, but in
practice it was admitted that Jewish doctors and midwives -- even
the most religious among them -- often violated the Sabbath in their
attendance of non-Jews, however legally indefensible their action might
be." [JACOBOVITS, p. 63]

An Israeli commentator, Uri Hupperet, is more blunt about the traditional reasons why
Orthodox Jewish doctors might help Gentiles on the Sabbath:

"Saving a Gentile's life is also subject to pragmatic reasoning. A
Gentile who is in immediate danger of losing his or her life can
be saved even on the Sabbath; not based on the philosophy of
'loving thy neighbor,' but motivated by netivey shalom (preserving
peace with neighboring Gentiles), or by darkey eivah (avoiding
atrocities of Gentiles against Jews). It is not the human dimension
that motivates the command to save a life in this respect, but a
dimension beneficial to the ethnocentric community that will
remove ammunition from antagonists of Orthodox Judaism."
[HUPPERT, U., 1988, p. 95]

In the Middle Ages it became customary to spit (usually three times) at a Christian cross
(one European king had the word “God” in Hebrew etched on the cross to alleviate the insult).
Pious Jews are also traditionally enjoined to curse when passing a non-Jewish cemetery or
building inhabited by Gentiles. [SHAHAK, p. 93] To this day, in some traditionally religious
communities good Jew ritually curses if he passes a crowd of non-Jews, but utters a blessing
when a group is Jewish. [SHAHAK, p. 93] “According to the Talmud,” confirms Reuven Kitelman,
“a blessing is to be offered upon seeing a multitude of Jews.” [KITELMAN, p. 147]

In 1996 Yossi Klein Halevi wrote that during his youth in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood
in Brooklyn, "some Borough Park children said it was a mitzvah, a religious commandment, to
spit when you passed a church. An alternative opinion held that it was forbidden to even walk
within spitting distance of a church." [HALEVI, p. 17] "An Orthodox Jew learns from his
earliest youth, as part of his sacred studies,” says Israel Shahak, “that Gentiles are
compared to dogs, that it is a sin to praise them." [SHAHAK, p. 96] Institutionally, says
Shahak, "The Book of Education, written in the 14th century, is currently a popular book for
Israeli schoolchildren, its publication subsidized by the government. Its texts includes
material such as 'The Jewish people are the best of the human species ... and worthy to have
slaves to serve them. We are commanded to possess them for our service.'" [SHAHAK, p. 95]

In our own time the occasional exhuming of such anti-Gentile passages from seminal
Orthodox Jewish literature for public discourse has garnered storms of Jewish wrath and
protest; apologists vehemently argue that such texts are obsolete, misunderstood, ambiguous,
or representative of a minority rabbinical opinion among others who took opposing views.

Those Jews who are familiar with such passages (particularly -- but not only -- the
Orthodox) realize that such texts are guaranteed fuel for anti-Jewish hostility; hence,
apologetic Jewish scholars inevitably step forward at the first inkling of these texts gaining
any kind of non-Jewish audience, seeking -- at all costs -- damage control. The fact is that
such material was, and is, often very much, part of Jewish Orthodoxy and is seminal to
traditional Jewish thought about "others." Such material is not what the apologetic Jewish
community wants known and circulated about them beyond Jewish circles. Nor does it fit modern
secular Jewry’s universalistic myths about themselves, that liberal universalism originated in
the Jewish religion. "Jews would be pretty embarrassed if some of our own triumphalist
literature were better known," Leah Orlowick, a Conservative rabbi told a Jewish interviewer
inquiring about Christianity, "I can show you texts where Jews declare themselves inherently
on a higher spiritual level than all non-Jews. And if you're willing to wade through all the
apologetics, the hemming and hawing, I can bring you to Jews who still believe in natural
superiority, so let's not be hypocrites." [HALBERSTAM, p. 221] One of the best ways of
dissimulation by Jewish apologists is to turn the tables of complaint by indignantly arguing
that the public examination of such racist Jewish doctrines is, in fact, unreasonable
expressions of the investigators' anti-Semitism.

Morris Adler's post-Holocaust (1958) comments, sponsored by the B'nai B'rith Hillel
Foundation, are typical:

"A distinguished group of Christian scholars have studied the
Talmud and refuted the vile allegations about it. They have treated
it as an important phase of historic Judaism and interpreted its
true character. The most patent absurdities are no longer repeated
except perhaps by some ranting bigot whose very extremism
discredits him in the eyes of reasonable people." [ADLER, M., 1958,
1963, 1974, p. 12]

One of the ways Jewish dissimulation works is also like this:

"The Talmud is full of remarks against idolatry and idolaters; but the
prevailing opinion of the rabbis is that by idolaters are meant only those
in Palestine." [UNIVERSAL JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA, v. 3, p. 4]

"Idolaters" is traditionally known by Orthodox Jews to be one of the words that can
signify, generically, non-Jews anywhere. "The term idolatry," says E. E. Urbach, "was coined
by our sages and included everything connected with a god other than the God of Israel ... in
practice the laws dealing with idolatry cover all relations between Jews and non-Jews."
[HALBERSTAM, p. 157]

"The assumption that all Gentiles are by definition idolaters," says David Novak, "led
to a number of important halakhic norms. And although the concept of Noahide, that is, the
non-idolatrous Gentile changed this assumption, many of the norms based upon it remained,
albeit in modified form in most cases." [NOVAK, Image, p. 115]

"As far as Christians being idolaters," says Ronald Modras, "the state of Jewish law on
the matter was confused. Medieval Jews generally regarded Christianity as an idolatrous
religion. But laws prohibiting interaction with idolaters were not applied to Christians with
any uniformity ... [Jews] often regarded themselves as a civilized people living among
barbarians." [MODRAS, p. 193]

Jacob Minkin notes that “Maimonides classed the Christian in the category of idol
worshippers.” [MINKIN, p. 318] And “an Israelite who worships an idol,” says Maimonides, “is
regarded as an idolator in all respects ... the penalty for which is death by stoning.”
[MINKIN, p. 318] Maimonides also had this to say about "idolators": "It is forbidden to show
them mercy, as it was said, 'nor show no mercy unto them (Deut. 7:2) ... You [also] learn that
it is forbidden to heal idolators even for a fee. But if one is afraid of them or apprehends
that refusal might cause ill will, medical treatment may be given for a fee but not
gratuitiously." [HARKABI, p. 157] "Maimonides exempts the Muslims from the category of
idolators," says former Israeli army official Yehoshafat Harkabi, "but the Christians, by
contrast, were explicitly included ... [HARKABI, p. 157] ... The classification of Christians
as idolators has apparently become widespread and accepted in religious literature [today].
This is not merely a theoretical matter, since practical conclusions flow from it." [HARKABI,
p. 159]

With the increasing rise of a "back to the roots" Jewish nationalist Orthodoxy in Israel
(and in considerable degree in the United States), and irretrievably tainted by the influence
of modern western pan-human moralities, some Jews are stirring with serious moral qualms about
bygone eras' interpretation of seminal Jewish religious literature returning to credibility.
An Israeli rabbi, Tzvi Marx, for example, has lamented the dangers of traditionalist
understanding of some talmudic, and even Torah, texts. These includes the likening of Arabs to
dogs and the notion that Jews are human beings but "idolaters" are not. [from the Talmud, BT
Yebamot 61a, also BT Baba Metzia 114b, MARX, p. 44] Elsewhere, Rabbi Marx bemoans talmudic
rabbi Shimon bar Yohai's "infamous teaching" and "dehumanizing depiction" of non-Jews,
stemming from the Torah line that states: "And you [only you Jews] my sheep, the sheep of my
pasture, are men." [EZEK. 34:21]

"The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews," said influential rabbi
Yitzhak Hacohen Kook (spiritual leader of today's Gush Emunim messianic movement) in the early
20th century, "-- all of them in all different levels -- is greater and deeper than the
difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle." [BROWNFELD, A., MARCH 2000, p.
105-106]

How popularly widespread are such brutal dehumanizations of non-Jews in traditional --
even secular -- Jewish culture? In a 1961 study of Jewish-Americans (not focusing solely on
the Orthodox), Judith Kramer and Seymour Leventman noted that

"Even in the Yiddish language [the common language of immigrant Jews
from central and eastern Europe, where more Jews lived, til Hitler, than
any other place in the world] ... popular usage distinguished between
Jews and non-Jews by employing different verbs to describe the
behavior. Reserved for gentiles are words otherwise used in reference
to animals: e.g., Jews eat (essen), but goyim eat like pigs (fressen);
Jews die (starben), but goyim die like dogs (pagern); Jews take a drink
(trinken), but goyim drink like sots (soifen)." [KRAMER, p. 107]

(For the people and their language that is ever innocent, Jewish author Leo Wiener
reflected a common Jewish perception in 1899: "There is probably no other language in
existence on which so much opprobrium has been heaped as on Yiddish. Such a bias can be
explained only as a manifestation of a general prejudice against everything Jewish." [ HERZ,
J., 1954, p. 82] In 1999, as part of widespread Jewish public relations efforts to veil the
essences of traditional Jewish identity, unsuspecting non-Jews in Poland were invited to sit
in on a brief "course" for them at the 9th Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow. It was entitled,
however incongruously, Jezyk jidisz dla kazdego ("Yiddish for Everyone"). A Polish monthly
tourist magazine noted that the festival "plays a not insignificant role in breaking down bad
stereotypes in Polish-Jewish relations." [MIESAC w KRAKOWIE, p. 3] )

"Every Jew is familiar with the works of Hillel," says Chaim Bermant,

"and the precept of 'love they neighbor as thyself' is at the heart of Judaism, yet
every student brought up on the Babylonian Talmud -- and it must be remembered
that for many centuries, especially in Poland, the Jews studied little else -- is
inculcated with a disdain for the gentile which has entered into Jewish lore and into
the very expressions of the Yiddish language." [BERMAN, C., 1977, p. 35]

This human/non-human kind of Yiddish linguistic distinction between Jews and non-Jews
has been transposed to Hebrew and Jewish culture in modern day Israel. "The immediate referent
of the Israelis is a Jew," says Charles Liebman and Steven Cohen, "Indeed the very term Jew is
used colloquially as a synonym for person." [LIEBMAN/COHEN, p. 166] This kind of degradation
of the Gentile world is also reflected in the Hebrew words for Jewish immigrants who come to
live in Israel from around the world, and, conversely, those who leave the Jewish state. Those
who come to Israel are olim, which means to ascend. Those who leave Israel for non-Jewish
lands are yordim, "from the root meaning to 'descend,' but also to 'decline' and to
'deteriorate.'" [AVRUCH, K., 1981, p. 56]

In a discussion concerning Jewish perspectives on slavery (about which there is "no
negative attitude" in Biblical or rabbinical literature) Judah Rosenthal, Professor of
Biblical Exegesis at the College of Jewish Studies in Chicago, also notes Rabbi Yohai's
weighty opinion on the biblical sheep reference and that, indeed, the old rabbi believed the
"concept of man refers only to Israel." A more tolerant opinion, in Rosenthal's view, was that
of another Talmudic contributor, Rabbi Akiba, who wrote that "Beloved is the man that he was
created in the image of God." However, adds Rosenthal, Rabbi Akiba also believed that a
citation from Leviticus 25:46 ("You should keep them [non-Jews] in slavery forever") was an
"obligation." [ROSENTHAL, p. 70-71] This echoes Maimonide's belief that keeping a Gentile
slave "forever" was a "normative commandment." [ROSENTHAL, p. 71]

Maimonides also said this:

“A Gentile slave has to be enslaved forever ... one of the main reasons
being that since the Jewish nation is the elite of the human race ...
they deserve to have slaves serve them.” [ROSENTHAL, p. 71]

and:

“A man may give his bondswoman [female slave] to his [male] slave
or to his neighbor's slave ... since they are regarded as cattle.”
[ROSENTHAL, p. 71]

("The Torah hardly abolishes slavery," notes Edward Greenstein, "The Bible assumed
slavery as a given and gave it a role. A slave was an indentured servant who could repay his
debts through labor.") [GREENSTEIN, E., 1984, p. 96]

Along the same lines, Isaac Abravenel (1437-1508), a prominent Jewish scholar of the
Middle Ages, "considered Israel to be superior to other nations and therefore, he [Israel] is
entitled to be their masters." [ROSENTHAL, p. 73] There are also Jews who believe such
things, quite literally, today. In a 1980 speech by Israeli rabbi Moshe Halevi Segal, he
proclaimed that

"All nations should surrender to us, to the King of Israel, to the Messiah
of G-d of Jacob, and should be taught exclusively by us. They must
desert their false beliefs and cultures, and the social system dangerous
to us, to leave this treacherous democracy ... Democracy ... confuses
the truth and justice." [SPRINZAK, p. 273]

The Orthodox "Chabad" movement is a very popular, and activist, movement in America and
Israel today, seeking to pull wayward secular Jews back to the religious fold. For decades
this organization was headed by Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, who died in the 1990s. "The
difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish person," said Schneerson,

"stems from the common expression: 'Let us differentiate.' Thus, we do
not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a
superior level. Rather, we have a case of 'let us differentiate' between
totally different species. This is what needs to be said about the body:
the body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the
body of [members] of all nations of the world ... A non-Jew's entire
reality is only vanity. It is written, 'And the strangers shall guard and
feed your flocks' (Isaiah 61:5). The entire creation [of a non-Jew] exists
only for the sake of the Jews." [BROWNFELD, A., MARCH 2000,
p. 105-106]

Some talmudic -- and other -- citations also dictate that only non-Jewish corpses are
"unclean." This, says Rabbi Tsvi Marx, has an "attitudinal impact [that] is far reaching ...
and ethically devastating when taken literally." The idea, for instance, that only Jews can
have ritually "unclean" corpses can be, and is, interpreted by many Orthodox Jews to mean that
non-Jews are not technically of the same essential material as Jews, and, thus less -- or not
at all -- human. "In the Talmudic tradition Jews are often depicted as reflecting "the image
of God," says Moshe Greenberg, "but not the non-Jews. R [abbi] Yohanon, for instance, says
Jews 'were purged of their pollution; the Gentiles ... were not. R [abbi] Shmuel Edel is among
those who collaborated this view." [GREENBERG, p. 31-32]

Rabbi Marx adds that in the English Soncino Talmud translation concerning tractate
Yebamot (p. 405, footnote 2), readers are informed that Rabbi Simeon b. Yohait says that "only
an Israelite ... can be said to have been like Adam, created in the image of God. Idol
worshippers [i.e., non-Jews] hav[e] marred the Divine image and forfeit all claim to this
appellation." [MARX, p. 44] Marx brings up the influential Maimonides again too, in another
context. According to Maimonides' interpretation of earlier rabbinical arguments, Marx worries
that in Jewish religious law the “murder of a gentile seems not to be a punishable offense."
[MARX, p. 45]

Again, Maimonides is no rabbinical slouch, and is not obscure. His opinion on all matters
is respected by Orthodox Jews to this day. "Ignoring the weighty legal opinion of Maimonides,"
says Eugene Korn, "is always a risky strategy." [KORN, p. 271] Of the Jewish sages, Maimonides
was also "the most consistent advocate of .... suzerainty over Gentiles." [NOVAK, The Image,
p. 114] In fact, Maimonides also wrote the following, referring to the biblical figure Noah,
who was not Jewish:

"Moses [commanded] on the authority of God to compel all human
beings to accept the commandments that were commanded to Noah,
and he who does not accept [them] is killed." [KORN, p. 266]

"The context of [this]," says Eugene Korn, "is [Maimonide's] description of an ideal
polity under Jewish sovereignty." [KORN, p. 266] Such a world view in traditional Jewish
thinking is usually swept under the rug in modern popular discourse. A case in point is the
complete lack of historical context in which popular Jewish commentary condemns those non-Jews
who readily accepted (and still accept) the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the best
known anti-Jewish text in modern history. (Originating in Eastern Europe, the Protocols
claimed to be an actual document from a secret Jewish cabal). "The Protocols of the Elders of
Zion," notes Richard Levy,

"one of the most important forgeries of modern times, presents a
Jewish plot to take over the world and to reduce non-Jews to slavery ...
The Protocols found a huge audience, especially following the
turbulent times following World War I ... Why has the Protocols
of Elders of Zion, a shameless fraud, seized the imagination and
informed the political judgment of [anti-Semitic] men and women
throughout the twentieth century?" [SEGEL, p. 3]

Like virtually all Jews who pose such a question, they do not actively seek an answer
from within their own community -- i.e., they are really not interested in an honest answer.
Why would anyone fall for the idea of a Jewish plot to dominate the world aimed at holding all
others in subjugation? Maimonides, above, in classical religious thinking, points to the
beginning of an answer. Orthodox conviction that God will favor Jews at the "end of days" to,
in some form, rule the world is yet another marker. The Torah/Old Testament states expected
Jewish domination clearly in a number of places -- for example:

"The Gentile shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness
of thy rising ... the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee ...
Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be
shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the forces of the
Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought. For the nation and kingdom
that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly
wasted." [ISAIAH 60, 1-12]

"Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance,
and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt
break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a
potter's vessel." [PSALMS 2: 8-9]

"Thus saith the Lord, 'The labor of Egypt, and merchandise of
Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto
thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee, in chains they
shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make
supplication unto thee, saying, 'Surely God is in thee; and there is none
else, there is no [other] God.'" [ISAIAH 46: 14]

[See John Hartung's article about the roots of the Israelites' war-based ethnocentrism
and how it has been popularly transformed in much of Christian tradition (and some reforming
strands of Judaism) into a benevolent "light of nations" scenario; HARTUNG, 1995]

As Old Testament scholar John Allegro has noted:

"The history of the Jews as revealed in the Torah was thus in a sense
coextensive with the story of mankind, and in Adam's supremacy of
the beasts of the field [GEN. 1:26] could be seen figured from the
Creation the eventual dominion of the Jew of the whole world ...
[ALLEGRO, J., 1971, p. 61] ... Yahweh [the Israelite God] is not
just a tribal deity, but the God of the Universe. His Chosen People
are not just another ethnos: they are the Sons of God, destined to rule
the world." [ALLEGRO, p. 162]

"One of the basic tenets of the Lurianic Cabbala [a strain of Jewish mysticism]," note
Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, "is the absolute superiority of the Jewish soul and body
over the non-Jewish soul and body. According to the Lurianic Cabbala, the world was created
solely for the sake of the Jews; the existence of non-Jews was subsidiary." [BROWNFELD, A.,
MARCH 2000, p. 105-106] A(n ultra-Orthodox) Chabad-sponsored Internet website, geared for
non-Jews, frames this world view discretely:

"What is the key to salvation? Those who return to the Law (the Seven
Commandments for the Children of Noah, according to the eternal covenant
made with Noah in Genesis 9) and who assist the Jewish people (Isaiah 60.
61, 66) will be saved and will participate in the miracles and revelations,
including worshipping in the Third Temple, under the kingship of the Messiah.
As described in many places, including Jeremiah 16:19-21 and Zechariah 8:20-23,
all the old gentile religions of the world will disappear, and their followers
will turn to Jews for spiritual leadership." [NOAH'S COVENANT WEBSITE,
2001

[M.T.T.]

As prominent anti-Jewish critic Henry Ford once said about his own publishing of an edition of
the Protocols of the Elders of Zion:

"You will find we at no time guaranteed their authenticity. We have
merely stated what they contain and have paralleled this with what
actually took place and are leaving it to the mind of the public to
judge." [WARREN, D., 1996, p. 150-151]

In 1920, the London Times reviewed the Protocols, not with condemnation, but with the
uneasy sense that much of what the Protocols proclaimed, forgery or not, was coming to pass on
the world scene:

"What are these 'Protocols?' ... Are they a forgery? If so, whence comes the
uncanny note of prophecy, prophecy in parts fulfilled, in parts far gone in
the way of fulfilment? Have we been struggling these tragic years to blow up
and extirpate the secret organisation of German world dominion ony to find beneath
it another, more dangerous because more secret? Have we been straining every
fibre of our national body, escaped of a 'Pax Germanica' only to fall into a
'Pax Judaica?' The 'Elders of Zion' as represented in their 'Protocols' are by
no means kinder taskmasters than William II and his henchmen would have
been." [BERMANT, C., 1977, p. 33]

We may seek further clues to Gentile receptivity to the fictitious Protocols due to
Jewish identity itself and the inevitable expressions, in day-to-day life with the goyim
through history, of Jewish supremacy and domination.

"Throughout their history," says Israeli Jay Gonen, "the Jews ... entertained feelings of
superiority over Gentiles ... It therefore became a prevalent notion among Jews that they are
supposed to use their heads while the Gentiles do the dirty work." [GONEN, p. 137] "A Jewish
servant or labourer is almost unknown in Egypt," noted one "Mr. Samuel" in his late 19th
century Jewish Life in the East, "our people here as elsewhere being infected with that
dislike for manual labor and that preference for earning our living with our heads which is at
once the strength of our upper and the destruction of our lower classes." [SMITH, G.,
1881/1959, p. 18]

Israeli-born David Grossman notes the expression of this elitist Jewish attitude in
modern Israel. Much of his 1988 volume, The Yellow Wind, explores Jewish exploitation of its
Arab underclass for menial labor. The following is an interchange Grossman had with a small
Arab child in a West Bank refugee camp. It is, as Grossman consistently notes, far from an
isolated example of how young Palestinian experiences and world views about Jews are being
shaped by their overseers.

"[Grossman]: Do you know who the Jews are?
[Boy:] The army.
Are there other Jews?
No.
What does your father do?
Sick.
And your mother?
She works in Jerusalem for the Jews. Cleans their houses."
[GROSSMAN, D., 1988, p. 24]

In the same book, Grossman expands upon this theme of socialized Jewish racism and
exploitation of a menial underclass, illustrated by an incident with one of his neighbors in
Jerusalem:

"An Arab woman cleans the stairwell at the [Jewish] housing project
in which I live. Her name is Amuna, and she lives in Ramallah [an
Arab town]. I talk to her from time to time. A three-year-old
[Jewish] boy, the son of one of our neighbors, used to seeing her
bent over a pail of water, heard us talking and was surprised -- I
saw it on his face. He asked her name and I told him. Afterwards,
he asked what we had talked about in Arabic, and I explained. He
thought a minute and said: 'Amuna is a little bit a person and a little
bit a dog, right?' I asked him why he said that. He explained: 'She
is a little bit dog, because she always walks on all fours. And she
is also a little bit of a person, because she knows how to talk."
End of story." [GROSSMAN, D., 1988, p. 214-215]

In 1911 the prominent Zionist A. D. Gordon (an early pioneer to Palestine/Israel)
surveyed his Jewish people and culture -- Orthodox or not -- with concern, writing:

"We [Jews] have developed an attitude of looking down on manual labor.
We must not deceive ourselves in this regard, nor shut our eyes to our
grave deficiencies, not merely as individuals but as a people. The well-
known Talmudic saying, that when the Jews do God's will their labor is
done for them by others is characteristic of our attitudes. This saying is
significant. It demonstrates how far this attitude has become an
instinctive feeling within us, a second nature." [GORDON, p. 679]

The "Labor Zionism" political movement sought to readjust urban Jews to farm labor in
the early years of Zionism in Palestine/Israel. But Rosemary Reuther even notes the same old
Jewish propensity to function as overseers has come to the fore in modern Israel:

"The sabra [native-born Jewish Israeli], redeemed from Diaspora
weakness, with a gun in one hand and a plow in the other, has
become a military-political-industrial ruling elite. Many Jews no
longer work the land with their own hands or do any kind of
manual labor. For many, such labor is now seen as 'Arab work.'"
[ELLIS, M., 1990, p. 150]

Israeli Nimrod Tevlin recalled his youth in Russia:

"After [the first year of college], we [members of a Zionist organization]
decided to quit and spend full time preparing to emigrate to
Palestine. Hardly any of us, however, had backgrounds as workers --
heavy physical work like farming was considered work for the
goyim." [GORKIN, M., 1971, p. 56]

The 1989 Russian census clearly evidences this traditional Jewish proclivity to avoid
manual labor. And why have so few Jews ever worked in Russian factories? Jewish scholar
Michael Paul Sacks, in a common Jewish apologetic theme to be elaborated upon in depth in this
book later, has the stock answer: anti-Semitism among the working class. "There was little to
attract Jews to work in the factory," says Sacks, "Surveys have shown greater levels of
anti-Semitism among blue-collar workers and those with lower levels of education ... There can
be no doubt that in comparison with professional or semi-professional employment, Jews in
blue-collar jobs were an especially small minority." [SACKS, M., 1998. [p. 265]

Chone Shmeruk notes the practical implications of such feeling in pre-war World War II
Warsaw: "As far as my district goes [where I lived in Warsaw] ... it was exclusively Jewish.
The only non-Jews there were the janitors, who usually had small apartments near the
entrance." [SHMERUK, p. 326] [See also later discussions of American Jewry's propensity
towards employing maids, especially African-Americans, for menial labor [in the POPULAR
CULTURE chapter], as well as the traditional non-Jewish Saturday servant known as the shabbes
goy].

What are we to make of the disturbing implications of these words, in 2001, from Michael
Finkel, in a New York Times article? :

"Moshe lives in Israel, which happens to be one of the more active nations in the
international organ-trafficking market. The market, which is completely illegal, is
so complex and well organized that a single transaction often crosses three
continents ... Israel also does not contriute much to the supply side of the
equation. Organ donation is extremely low; an estimated 3 percent of Israelis
have signed donor cards ... Paying for an organ has become so routine in Israel
that there have been instances in which a patient has elected not to accept the
offer of a kidney donation from a well-matched relative. 'Why risk harm to
a family member?' one patient told me." [FINKEL, M., 5-27-01]

Early Zionist Arthur Ruppin notes an incident in which he found a Gentile cutting wood
for a Jew in Eastern Europe. Ruppin suggested that there were Jews would might be able to use
the work, but the employer noted that "a Jew does not undertake such work, even when he's
starving; it is not suitable for a Jew." [MACDONALD, p. 23]

During the California Gold Rush in the mid-19th century, many Jews hurried to the mining
areas, but not to labor for gold. Their demeanor was noted by Hinton Rowan Helper, "whose
tract, The Impending Crisis of the South, would soon crystallize opinions concerning slavery
.. [Helper] ws as vociferous in his claims of Jewish laziness in the gold rush as he was in
condemnation of the southern slaveholder. With regards to the Jews he wrote: 'Mining, the
cultivation of the soil, in a word, any occupation tht requires exposure to weather, is too
fatiguing and intolerable for them. The law requiring man to get bread by the sweat of his
brow is an injunction with which they refuse to comply.'" [LEVINSON, R., 1978, p. 13]

Another contemporary of the Gold Rush, J. D. Bothwick observed that

"In traveling through the mines from one end to the other, I never saw a Jew lift
a pick or shovel to do a single stroke of work, or, in fact, occupy himself in any
other way than in selling slops. while men of other classes and of every nation
showed such versatility in betaking themselves to whatever business or occupation
appeared at the time to be most advisable without reference to their antecedents,
and, in a country where no man, to whatever class of society he belonged, was
in the least degree ashamed to roll up his sleeves and dig in the mines for gold,
or to engage in any other kind of manual labour, it was a remarkable fact that the
Jews were the only people whom this was not observable." [LEVINSON, R.,
1978, p. 13]

In his autobiography, well-known Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem watched a ferryman in
Eastern Europe absorbed in the difficult physical task of pulling a boat across a river. "Only
a Goy could do work like that, not a Jew," he wrote, "The Bible says of Esau [non-Jews], 'And
thou shalt serve they brother.' It is good that I am a descendant of Jacob [Jacob: Jews] and
not of Esau." [LINDEMANN, Esau's, p. 5] Albert Lindemann also notes the case of "the eminent
Jewish-American intellectual Sidney Hook [who] remembered how, as a boy, he had asked his
religion teacher about the injustice of what Jacob did to Esau. The teacher responded, 'What
kind of question is that? Esau was an animal.'" [LINDEMANN, p. 5]

This Jacob-Esau division is another deep source of enduring Jewish racism and elitism per
their supposed genius in outwitting others. The story of Jacob and Esau is from the biblical
Genesis. They were the two sons (twins) of Isaac (son of the seminal Jewish patriarch Abraham)
and Rebecca. Jacob, however, is understood in Jewish lore as an early patriarch of the Jewish
ancestral lineage, Esau is not. Esau is an ancestor of Gentiles. And as the Torah (Genesis
25.21-23) states it, God told the pregnant Rebecca that "two nations are in thy womb, two
nationalities will emerge from inside of thee. And one people will be stronger than the other
-- the elder will serve the younger." The "younger" of course was Jacob, ancestor of the Jews.
"If you fail Jacob," notes traditional Yiddish folklore, "you aid Esau." [KUMOVE, S., 1985, p.
81]

Albert Lindemann notes the later development of this brother tale:

"In the biblical account, Jacob conspires with his mother, Rebecca,
to trick Esau out of receiving the blessing of their aged and blind
father, Isaac. Esau, the first-born, had already foolishly given over
his birthright to Jacob in exchange for a bowl of lentils. But Esau
remained Isaac's favorite ... Esau was outraged when he discovered
that he and his father had been duped, that Jacob had posed as his
older brother [to his blind father] and had gained Isaac's blessing ...
Anti-Semites of various shapes have drawn upon the Jacob-Esau tale
as proof of the incorrigible cunning and moral corruption of the Jews
throughout history ... Even in the 1990s, the notion of a somehow
unbridgeable gap between Esau and Jacob, Gentile and Jew, remains
central to traditional Jewish perspectives ('Esau always hates Jacob,'
'The Messiah will not come until the tears of Esau have been
exhausted.')" [LINDEMANN, Esau's, p. 4-5]

"[Jacob's] deception," says Shlomo Riskin, "was orchestrated by his mother, perhaps
even ordained by God, but his feeling of guilt never leaves him." [RISKIN, S., 1994, p. 5B]
Esau, notes Nathan Ausubel, "surnamed 'the wicked' in Jewish folklore, is portrayed as a
fierce warrior and hunter, preoccupied with fighting and the chase. Jacob, on the other hand,
is depicted as a gentle scholar, always found in the House of Study in pursuit of divine
instruction." [AUSUBEL, p. 28] Jacob, however, in the original story, was the treacherous
brother. One Jewish observer, Hugh Blumenfeld, has noted with consternation that the brother
who was morally righteous, Esau, is so much condemned in Jewish lore. "It floors me,"
Blumenfeld told a Jewish newspaper, "because he is the one who forgives his brother, who tries
to do right by the end of the story." [KATZ-STONE, 1999, p. 47]

Rabbi Yisroel Yaaikov Klapholz notes the traditional Talmudic views of the Esau
(Gentiles) - Jacob (Jews) dialectic:

"Rebekah became pregnant with twins ... Esau said to Jacob: 'If
you do not let me come out first, I will kill my mother as I leave her
stomach.' Jacob said: 'That evildoer is a murderer even before his
birth' ... One [son] will adorn himself with Torah, the other will boast
of his sins. Both will be hated by other nations and both will rule
the world. But in the end, the descendants of your righteous son
shall reign supreme. After Esau's rule, no other nation shall reign
but Israel. G-d [God] also revealed to Rebekah that He loves Jacob
and despises Esau ... Rebekah called one son Jacob, the other Esau.
Esau was born ruddy all over, like a hairy mantle, his redness
indicating that he was of a murderous nature ... Esau ... refused to
be circumcized for the rest of his life. Jacob, on the other hand, was
born circumcized." [KLAPHOLZ, p. 14-16]

One of Rabbi Klapholz's chapters in a book he authored is called "Jacob's Innocence and
Esau's Cunning." "People saw the deeds of the two youths," says Klapholz, "and said: 'Esau is
a thorn-bush and Jacob a fragrant flower.' The cunning Esau was always plotting to do evil."
[KLAPHOLZ, p. 17]

Samuel Heilman, an anthropologist and an Orthodox Jew, notes, from the usual Jewish
martyrological view, the Jacob-Esau subject in the Hasidic community:

"'Jacob and Esau are two opposites,' as Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam
(1848-1906) of Bobov, Poland, put it in commonly heard terms
that saw Jews and Gentiles symbolized by the two Biblical brothers,
'and it is unthinkable that there should be any connection between
them in any way.' If much of the two thousand years of the diaspora
had led to Jewish persecution and degradation, these Jews responded
by categorizing everyone who was not a Jew as some inferior being."
[HEILMAN, S., 1992, p. 19]

Throughout Jewish tradition, the origin of hatred of Jewish arch-enemies is the most
primitive sort: animosities are rooted in clan-based feuds. The despised are actually
blood-related with common, not so terribly distant, ancestors. As noted, the Israelite
patriarch Abraham had two sons: Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac is considered by modern day Jews to
represent the Jewish lineage; Ishmael, even according to Islamic tradition, fathered the Arab
line. In the Jewish family tree, Isaac's sons were Jacob and Esau: Esau is a kind of symbolic
patriarch of all Gentiles. Only the children of Jacob are considered to continue the Jewish
line. Esau fathered Eliphaz, who in turn fathered Amalek, the most-hated enemy in Jewish
tradition. [More, at length, about Amalek later. For purposes here, suffice it to note -- as
startling as it may sound -- that the Old Testament commands Jews to "blot out the memory" of
him by exterminating all his descendants. To read about Amalek now, click here] Amalek is,
hence, actually not that terribly remote from the Jewish bloodline: he was the great-great
grandson of Abraham.

Joshua Cohen notes traditional Jewish perspective of the Amalek story:

"The Talmudic sages tell us that the Jewish fathers -- Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob -- rejected [Amalek's mother's] offer to convert and that her
rejection resulted in Amalek's hatred of Israel ... In a way then, this
[Talmudic] midrash tells the origin of the prejudice that western tradition
would later call anti-Semitism ... The Amalekites ... were the first enemies
of the Jews after their emergence from Egypt as a full-fledged nation ...
Not only do Jews and Amalekites share a common ancestry; Jewish
humanity and Amalekite bigotry were encoded in the same seed."
[COHEN, J., p. 296-297]

The Israelites/Jews continued on their separatist course thus conceptually armed, victims
of senseless bigotry, as they saw it, through history.

Before we move on, however, we must yet mention again the influential sage Maimonides,
whose pronouncements still find widespread credibility in Jewish culture (particularly amidst
the Orthodox in our own day). According to Maimonides, notes Eugene Korn:

"Only with the commission of grievous sins do a small minority of Jews
lose their share in the world to come. The reverse proposition appears
to be true for Gentiles: Immortality for non-Jews would be the exception,
open to a small minority. Thus we arrive at arbitrary inequality, the
essence of injustice." [KORN, p. 270]

Some modern, and influential, rabbis like Rav Velvel Soloveitchik interpret such
Maimonides opinions to their most ominous degree. "Not only is the rational and autonomous
moral [non-Jewish] person denied wisdom and a share in the world to come," says Eugene Korn, "
... it robs all non-believers and their cultures of any intellectual, religious, or even human
value." [KORN, p. 281] "By modern standards," observes Lenni Brenner, "Judaism is jarring in
its ethnic and religious chauvinism, and extreme and contradictory in its social ethics, real
and ideal." [BRENNER, p. 41]

Israel Shahak, both an Israeli citizen and Holocaust survivor, underscores that racism,
stemming from the Jewish Chosen People concept, is intrinsic to the Orthodox Jewish faith.
"The rabbis," he writes, "and, even worse, the apologetic 'scholars of Judaism’ know this very
well and for this reason they do not try to argue against such views inside the Jewish
community; and of course they never mention them outside it. Inside, they vilify any Jew who
raises such matters within earshot of Gentiles, and they issue deceitful denials in which the
art of equivocation reaches its summit. For example, they state, using general terms, the
importance which Judaism attaches to mercy; but what they forget to point out is that
according to the Halakhah [Jewish religious law] 'mercy' means mercy towards Jews." [SHAHAK,
p. 96]

Note, for example, the apologetics of professor Robert Pois, who, like many, turns the
usual dissimulatives about a "selective interpretation" of the Talmud into the implication
that only Nazis and their kindred would, in overview, entertain negative opinion about this
important Jewish religious work:

"The selective mining of Talmudic sources ... has been a traditional
approach of anti-Semites for some time. Yes, there are nasty anti-heathen
(read anti-Christian) comments in the Talmud. But ... the 63 sections of
this compendium of Jewish oral law and folklore ... was not informed by
a systematic theology. Rather, it was, literally, commentary. In a word,
it was a panoply of opinions of one or the other religious and social
issues ... Obviously, if one wants to depict the Talmud as being
consistently anti-Goy, great selectivity is necessary. Such was revealed
in that tradition which informed the writings of Houston Stewart
Chamberlain and Alfred Rosenberg." [ROIS, R., 1998]

Chamberlain and Rosenberg, of course, were prominent Nazi ideologues. Pois here infers
that to investigate assertions of Jewish racism in its sacred works can only be the interest
of a Nazi.

The origin of the chauvinist Jewish worldview, which will surface many times in this
volume, is, again, the traditional Jewish notion of themselves as the "Chosen People" of God.
This idea, wrote J. O. Hertzler, is “literally and vividly maintained ... in a very decided
Judeocentric view of history and the world.” [HERTZLER, p. 70] It is often referred to as
"chosenness," or "election," as if there had been a divine vote cast somewhere to confirm
their self-perceived specialness. “The Jews may stand astride time and eternity,” wrote
Arthur A. Cohen, "... This is unavoidably an aristocratic mission.” [EISENSTEIN, I. p. 275]
"Alas," says Ze'ev Levy, "the concept of chosenness entails ethnocentrism, for the better (in
the past) or the worse (today). Chosenness does not go with otherness, that is, with
unconditional respect of others." [LEVY, p. 104] This is an understatement. "The concept of
an eternal selection," says Moshe Greenberg, "eventually merges with a doctrine of
spiritual-racial superiority, rooted, it seems, in the biblical term 'holy seed' ...
[According to the Old Testament/Torah, Ezra 9:2] holiness inheres in the seed and is
hereditary." [GREENBERG, p. 31]

"The word 'chosen' [per 'Chosen People']," notes Arnold Eisen, "is used sparingly in
the Bible, to convey the passion of choosing. Its antonym is not 'considered impartially' or
'ignored,' but 'despised.'" [EISEN, p. RHETORIC, p. 66] "The Jewish religion," wrote Arthur
Koestler, "unlike any other, is racially discriminating, nationally segregative, and socially
tension-creating." [LINDEMANN, p. 20]

The continuing debate about this within the Jewish community by liberal and secular
thinkers is generally framed euphemistically in the contrasting terms of "particularism and
universalism." While most Jews tend to be apologetic for this term, particularism actually
refers to the purely self-concern, self-aggrandizement, racism, and ethnocentrism of
traditional Jewish thinking (to the systemic detriment of non-Jews) throughout the centuries.
This was consistently manifest by a Jewish segregated lifestyle, tight knit community,
different Jewish moral standards for behavior towards Jews and non-Jews, racial and hereditary
obsessions, and condescending views of all non-Jews around them. Universalism, on the other
hand, refers to a shift in Jewish moral thinking (like everyone else) beginning with the
Enlightenment, exemplified in a liberalizing Germany with the universalizing ideas of
philosophers like Immanuel Kant. Universalism embodies the notion that Jewish particularism
(or any other) is morally incorrect and obsolete and that spiritual and secular laws should be
the same for everyone, all-inclusive. (As Israel Shahak notes, the Jews of Europe did not
fight for freedom and liberation from their own stagnant ghetto ideology of particularism;
emancipation was a gift of universalistic benevolence from the surrounding non-Jewish
community which opened the doors for Jews to leave their distinctive ideological ghetto.)
[SHAHAK, p. 17]

Eventually recognizing that complete acceptance of a universalistic ethic towards their
fellow human beings could only mean serious endangerment of the "particularist" Jewish
identity, liberalizing elements of world Jewry since the Enlightenment have moved to proclaim
two antithetical ideas as essential parts of Jewish identity: both an allegiance to "Chosen
People" Judeo-centrism and pan-human universalism. This is managed by the enduring
Judeo-centric notion that distinctly Jewish hands must cling to the steering wheel of humanity
itself as some form of a Jewish leadership "mission": in the pseudo-religious sphere, this is
generally expressed as some version of "We Jews are fated to lead all of humanity to its
destiny." In this new Chosen People construct, Jews can thereby still take satisfaction in
their presumed exceptionality, but it is now (supposedly) morally adjusted to do some good for
others in their wake.

"In the very emphasis upon the particular," says Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin, "this singular
family [Jews] reflected the noblest form of universalism." [DONIN, p. 8] "We Jews are a
narrow, nationalist, self-centered people, " observes Samuel Dresner, "There is no point in
denying it ... [Yet] in all of Judaism ... particularism and universalism go hand in hand ...
Particularism and universalism, both are essentials of Judaism." [DRESNER, p. 50-51] "Jewish
pride, Jewish chauvinism, Jewish particularism," says Roger Kamenetz, "-- the idea that we are
a special chosen people -- seems to contradict the very universalistic prophetic messages
Judaism also teaches." [KAMENETZ, R., 1994, p. 150]

Knowing the foundation of Judeo-centric religious history, such Jewish proclamation is
peculiar:

“We [Jews] are under no obligation to forcefully convert non-Jews,”
says Reuven Bulka, “On the contrary, we must carefully avoid any
coercive conversion practices. However, it is another matter when the
issue is enlightening the world with Judaic values.” [BULKA, p. 18]

“Why did God choose Israel?” asks Alfred Jospe, “Because all other nations refused to
accept Torah. Originally, God had offered it to all nations of the world. But the children of
Esau [non-Jews] rejected it because they could not reconcile themselves to the commandment
‘Thou shalt not kill.’ The Moabites declined the offer because they felt they could not accept
the commandment ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ The Ishamaelites [traditional ancestors of
today's Arabs] refused it because they could not square their habits with the commandment,
‘Thou shalt not steal.’” [JOSPE, p. 14]

This is of course yet another manifestation of classical Jewish ethnocentrism, often
arrogance, and even today sometimes racism, false-fronted by an illusionary claim of Jewish
service to humanity, a service conceived to be more special than any other. Jewish scholar
Norman Cantor states the true essence of traditional Jewish identity succinctly:

"The covenant idea is the polar opposite of democracy, multiculturalism,
and ethnic equality." [CANTOR, p. 21]

"Jewish values," adds Charles Liebman,

"... are folk-oriented rather than universalist, ethnocentric rather than
cosmopolitan, and at least one major strand in Jewish tradition expresses
indifference, fear, and even hostility to the non-Jew." [LIEBMAN, C., p.
10]

"In Borough Park's language," says Yossi Klein Halevi, referring to the Orthodox
community where he was raised, "'universalist' was a synonym for traitor ... Other people
might take their humanity for granted; but Jews, at least in Borough Park, felt certain only
of their Jewishness." [HALEVI, p. 75] "Maintaining the bonds one Jew must feel with another
Jew," notes Susan Schneider, "is part of Judaism, along with the idea that being Jewish may
require maintaining the purity and/or unity of the Jewish people." [SCHNEIDER, p. 323]

In an American context, Arnold Eisen notes the modern Jewish liberals' resultant quandary
in reframing the Jewish worldview for Gentile consumption:

"The notion of the Jewish [special] mission to [other peoples] was
problematic, because it presumed that one people had the truth, and
all others could but wait patiently to receive it. Such hierarchical ideas
did not seem to fit in a society which espoused egalitarianism; if all
men were created equal, why did other people need the Jews in order
to attain true knowledge of God? The search for ways of reconciling
pluralism and election became a pressing task of Jewish apologetic."
[EISEN, p. 21]

One of the ways convoluted apologetic seeks to distance itself from racism and inevitable
Gentile hostility is to rhapsodize about special Jewish destiny, as does Reuven Bulka, who in
this case also obfuscates it:

"The notion of chosenness is ... misleading and fraught with danger,
as if to imply some inherent genetic or biological virtue that
is merely an accident of fate. Being chosen is the end result of
chosingness, much the same way that the bride's choice to agree
to the request of a groom to marry her is predicated on the
presumption that she has already been chosen, an assumption
inherent in the groom's question-request entreaty." [BULKA, p. 17]

In the apologetic realm, it is interesting to note the noble moral currency afforded
modern Judaism in popular American culture by the presentation of the pan-human,
universalistic excerpt from Jewish religious sources that supposedly says: "Whoever saves a
single life, saves the world entire." (This is the stated theme, for example, during a
candle-lighting scene to begin the fabulously popular Stephen Spielberg movie about Jews under
Nazi occupation, Schindler's List). Even taking this "life-saving" statement at face value,
however, it is subject to interpretive manipulation. Some Jewish observers have noted that
"this Talmudic saying, taken literally, is the ideological basis for an amoral survivalism,"
i.e., saving "a" life is merely self-survival. [CHEYETTE, p. 233]

Yet this supposedly noble refrain is clouded even further. In the talmudic Mishna,
Sanhedrin 4:5, the original really says this: "Whoever destroys a single Jewish life,
Scripture accounts it to him as though he had destroyed a whole world." It is quite
particularist in its scope, i.e., it only cares about Jews, self-survival or not. Nonetheless,
this literal fact does not hinder many Jewish non-Orthodox apologists from universalizing this
chauvinist quote anyway. "Most Jews whose study of the Mishna," says Jacob Petuchowski, "is
confined to the standard edition continue to invest this statement with a particularist
limitation, while the few scholars who deal with textual criticism are aware of the greater
universalistic breath of the original statement." [PETUCHOWKI, p. 8] When dropping the adverb
"Jewish" from the seminal source, insists the likes of Petuchowski, one arrives at the
"correct reading."

This kind of modern revisionism has set the stage for a bitter -- and intensifying --
struggle in international Jewry for the heart, and meaning, of Judaism between Orthodox
followers of traditional belief and liberalizing revisionists, who largely suppress the
historical facts of their own religious history. In recent years a number of Orthodox groups
have even declared that their ideological rivals -- those Jews who at least pay lip service to
universalistic ideals -- are not even Jewish. "In debates within the Jewish community," says
Gordon Lafar, "both universalists and chauvinists claim to be speaking in the name of
traditional Jewish values." [LAFAR, p. 180]

"In my youth," noted Meir Tamari in 1987, "Judaism was synonymous with socialism. There
were religious Orthodox trade unions and religious Orthodox socialist parties. In Reform
Judaism, this was a major issue. And we literally distorted Jewish sources -- and I was guilty
of that, misguiding many young people in explaining to them that the Torah and socialism were
synonymous." [JEWISH WEEK, 5-15-87, p. 28] "After fifty some years of conscious exploration,"
wrote professor Paul Laute, a 1960s-era Civil Rights activist, "it has finally occurred to me
that my identification of Jewishness with progressive social action is as much a historical
construction as the messianic intolerance of [the racist Jewish messianic movement] Gush
Emunim." [LAUTER, p. 45]

Amnon Rubenstein, an Israeli scholar, in noting the folly of claiming Judaism as a
"universal" religion, cites the following crucial Torah (Old Testament) passages about God's
favoritism towards the Jews:

"If ye will hearken unto My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then
ye shall be Mine own treasure from among all peoples."

"Ye shall be holy unto Me, for I the Lord am holy and have severed
you from other people that ye shall me mine."

"These well known passages," he observes, "explain why it is impossible from the
traditional viewpoint, to separate the idea of chosenness, of a 'treasure nation,' from the
concept of the covenant and the observance of Jewish religious law and how false it is to
relate these religious paradigms to secular values. It is futile to transplant the biblical
injunctions into a secular context and support this by referring to the prophets' 'universal'
visions of social justice and peace among nations." [RUBENSTEIN, A., p. 34-35]

Rubenstein attributes the values of "human equality" to "Christian monotheism" and the
French revolution. [RUBENSTEIN, A., p. 36]

Another Israeli, Bernard Avishai, notes that left-wing Israelis "cringe when they hear
the same people ["Jewish American intellectuals"] talk about 'Jewish ethical vocation' or,
worse, lecture Israelis about how Judaism mandates a peculiarly open-spirited morality, a
sense of history." [AVISHAI, B., p. 350] As Stuart Svonkin notes:

"The work of Jewish historians clearly demonstrates that there are few discernible
connections between the premodern Jewish tradition and modern ideals of social
justice. The liberal universal precepts that [the likes of former Anti-Defamation
League head Benjamin] Epstein enumerated bear little relation to historical Judaism;
their provenance is much more recent ... These renovated, if mythic, 'Jewish precepts'
-- clearly dehistoricized and largely secularized -- closely corresponded with the basic
tenets of postwar American liberalism. The ADL's intergroup relations program was
thus predicated on the assertion -- historically inaccurate but rhetorically powerful
-- that the same 'concepts of dmocracy' informed both Judaism and the 'American creed'
of liberty and equality." [SVONKIN, S., 1997, p. 20]

In Israel, a society for Jews and controlled by Jews, there is no need for
universalizing apologetics over the essence of traditional Judaism. Charles Liebman and Steven
Cohen note that

"Many leftist secularists see Judaism as so inimical to liberal values that
they have severed their own ties with it. Whereas their predecessors
held that one could be a humanist socialist and be Jewishly committed
at the same time, intellectuals in this new circle are in effect walking away
from the battle over the political meaning of Judaism. They view Judaism
as so thoroughly conservative, nationalistic and particularistic that it
cannot be reformed. In this view the only hope for the Israeli liberal is
the disestablishment of Judaism." [LIEBMAN/COHEN, p. 118]

In 1996 American-born Israeli Ze'ev Chafets noted how troubled he was at what he
discovered to be powerful expressions of traditional Judaism in the Jewish state:

"Rabbi Meir Kahane began preaching that Arabs are dogs and the
penalty for a Muslim man marrying a Jewish woman should be
death," Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz "said a schoolbus full of kids was
hit by a train because God was angry that the movie theatre in their
town was open on Friday nights," the Lubavitcher Rebbe [rabbi]
"allowed his followers to declare him the Messiah," Rabbi Yitzhak
Kadouri, "the world's greatest kabbalist ... put a hex on a Jerusalem
office building that blocked his view," Rabbi Dov Lior "declared it
kosher to kill gentile women and children in wartime," Rabbi Nahum
Rabinovich "advocated scattering land mines to prevent Israeli soldiers
from carrying out orders in the West Bank," "20,000 yeshivah boys
gathered to stone and threaten Israeli archeologists," Rabbi Moshe
Maya "arose in the Knesset and said that the halakhic penalty for
homosexuality is death," Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, "universally considered
one of the great Torah sages of the age, was quoted as ruling that
the faithful should refuse transfusions from gentiles and nonobservant
Jews because they have dangerously treif blood which might cause all
manner of un-Jewish behavior," Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu believes
that "Jewish blood is inherently pure and therefore incapable of defiling
Jewish recipients." [CHAFETS, Z., 1996, p. 18]

"Real Torah Judaism," concludes Chafets, with sarcasm for the Orthodox, "is a
scientifically based doctrine of racial purity. Jews have one, superior, kind of blood, the
rest of humanity has another ... [My rabbi in Michigan] was probably ashamed to tell the
truth." [CHAFETS, Z., 1996, p. 18]

The origin of this divide between "particularist" and "universalist" Jews is to be found
in the 19th century, in the wake of the Enlightenment and the emergence of European Jews from
their isolationist ghettos. "Rationalism, modernism, and emancipation," notes R. J. Zwi
Wroblowsky, "made the notion of a chosen people increasingly problematical." [WERBLOWSKY, p.
158] Religious reformers in Germany sought to "redefine Judaism to fit Protestant categories."
This new Reform Judaism, says Charles Silberman, "expurgated ... aspects of Judaism ... to
make worship in the synagogue resemble Protestant services as much as possible." [SILBERMAN,
p. 38] "In general, [Reform Judaism] gave Jewish religion a distinctly gentile tinge." [PATAI,
R., 1971, p. 304] "Orthodox Jews naturally expressed their horror at the progressive
Christianization of the synagogue," says Walter Laqueur, "for this, not to mince words, is
what it amounted to." [LAQUEUR, p. 17] In 1884, Orthodox Jews even sued a Reform temple in
Charleston, South Carolina, for introducing an organ into the synagogue, "a desecration of the
Jewish ritual." [GOLDEN, H., 1973, p. 6] Theology shifted in "Reform Judaism" too. In 1869,
for example, a Philadelphia conference of Reform-minded rabbis formally de-emphasized the more
literal aspects of the old chosen people concept, refocusing on "the unity of all rational
creatures." [LIPSET/RAAB, p. 59]

Even a strand of Orthodox Judaism in America -- commonly termed "Modern Judaism" -- in
earlier years did play down some of its segregationist and anti-universalistic tenets. But, as
Jack Wertheimer noted in 1993,

"Few Orthodox spokesmen any longer articulate the undergirding assumptions
of Modern Orthodoxy, namely, that a synthesis of traditional Judaism and modern
Western culture is not only feasible but desirable. The thought of the leading
ideologue of modern Orthodoxy in the nineteenth century, Rabbi Samson
Hirsch, is now reinterpreted by his disciples as having urged Torah im
Derekh Eretz, a synthesis of traditional Judaism and Western culture, as
merely a temporary solution to the pressing needs of the day; now, it is
argued, such a goal is no longer desirable ...[WERTHEIMER, J., 1993, p. 127]
Virtually all contemporary gedolim (recognized rabbinical authorities
within the Orthodox world) identify with right-wing Orthodoxy, and their
views are rarely challenged." [WERTHEIMER, J., 1993, p. 128]

Jewish thinkers, particularly in the Reform world, says Richard L. Rubenstein, sought "to
assert the priority of those elements of the Torah which seemed to remain relevant and
defensible in their own times. [T]hey tended to distinguish between the spirit of the Torah
and its frequently embarrassing letter by emphasizing the abiding relevance of the moral
elements of the Torah." [RUBENSTEIN, p. 236] "The idea," says Michael Meyer, "that pure
religious faith is essentially moral rapidly became the theoretical basis and practical
operative principle of the Reform movement." [RUBENSTEIN, p. 337]

With the Reform movement came Jewish efforts to distance enlightened, modern Jewry from
their rabbinically archaic and cloistered pasts. Also came the appropriation of the
universalistic themes of Christian-based culture to make them "Jewish." "Attempts have been
made to link the Jewish propensity to identify with political activism and social justice to
Judaism," note David Desser and Lester Friedman, "with specific exhortations in the Old
Testament. Such attempts try to isolate precepts and commandments favoring social
egalitarianism and universalism. This thesis ... has at best a tenuous explanatory capacity.
In fact, Christianity would more likely have greater ties to secular liberalism ... Jewish
cries for social justice did not arise until the 19th century, and there were precious few
major political thinkers until this period." [DESSER, p.] "Some commentators," worry
particularist Jewish scholars Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab, "want to believe that an intrinsic
aspect of Jewish life consists of such universally benevolent 'Jewish social values' as
equality, social justice, and world peace' ... By taking on a public orientation similar to
Christian denominations, Judaism runs the danger of appearing more Americanized and less
particularistic." [LIPSET/RAAB, p. 54]

One of the most influential propagators of the notion of a universalistic Judaism (the
basis for the popular western strain of Judaism called Reform) was Abraham Geiger. Geiger, an
early nineteenth century theologian, claimed that "Judaism has proved itself a force outliving
its peculiar nationality, and therefore may lay claim to special consideration." This "special
consideration" is ultimately understood to be Jewish exceptionality in pan-human affairs,
especially in -- but not limited to -- matters of morality and spirituality. But as modern
scholar Joseph Blau observes about Geiger's above proclamation, "let us reflect for a moment
on the paradoxical quality of this assertion. Geiger was saying that because Judaism had
eliminated its own claim to a special character, it was entitled to a special character.
Because particularism had been excised from Jewish religion, Judaism had a right to special
status. He seems to be on the verge of replacing particularist Jewish nationalism by
particularist Jewish religion." [BLAU, p. 49] In other words, Geiger, Reformed Judaism, and
many of today's Jews (especially in America where Reform is so popular) have been shamed by
the democratic, egalitarian, and universalistic impact of the Enlightenment and pan-human
ideals of Christianity to exchange Jewish chauvinism for ... Jewish chauvinism! Modern Jewry
simply lifts Christian universalistic tenets and incongruously tacks them onto Jewish
particularism, the particularism that early Christians (rebelling Jews) left in the first
place. "It is curious to sit in a Reform or so-called Conservative American [Jewish]
congregation," says Norman Cantor, "and listen to the rabbi sermonize about the equality
between Jew and Christian, black and white. This is actually the universalizing message not of
the talmudic rabbi, but of Rabbi Saul [St. Paul of New Testament fame] who was beaten up and
driven from the diaspora synagogues when he preached this leveling message." [CANTOR, p. 106]

George L. Mosse notes the way particularist Judaism was contorted to be somehow
universalized in turn-of-the-century Germany:

"In 1910, Rabbi Cossman Werner of Munich castigated Jews
who had been baptized into Christianity for committing a crime
not merely against Judaism but above all against humanity itself.
Such Jews opposed equal rights and hindered others in fighting
for justice, for 'to be a Jew means to be human,' a statement
which was greeted with thunderous applause. The argument
against baptism was based not on Judaism as a revealed religion
but on the religion of humanity." [MOSSE, G., 1985, p. 19]

This curious universalistic message, heralded today in some form by so many modern Jews,
is rendered transparently hollow and fundamentally incongruous in a Jewish context. As Eric
Kahler phrases it, in Orwellian double-think: "The substance of [Judaism's] particularism is
universality." [KAHLER, E., 1967, p. 11] "True universalism, according to [one Jewish] school
of thought," wrote Lothar Kahn, "can't occur without each human family contributing its
individuality to the whole race of men. The Jew can best become a Frenchman or German -- a
citizen of the world -- by perfecting the Jewishness in him." [KAHN, L., 1961, p. 30] Or take
Will Herberg's typical Jewish view of it all:

"Jewish particularism, because it transcends every national and cultural
boundary, becomes, strangely enough a vehicle and witness to
universalism. [HERBERG, p. 276]

In other words, at root here, Herberg simply asserts that because Jews extend their
allegiance to each other wherever they are in the world, this is "universalism." E.L.
Goldstein notes the Jewish reluctance to relinquish the racial foundation of Jewish identity,
even in the invention of a "universalistic" Reform Judaism in the 19th century:

"It was not uncommon for a rabbi to make bold pronouncements about
his desire for a universalistic society and then, in moments of frustration
or doubt, revert to a racial understanding of the Jews ... While willing
to stretch the definition of Judaism to its limits, it was clear that most
Reformers were not willing to break the historical continuity of the
Jewish 'race.' Even Solomon Schindler ... one of the most radical of
Reform rabbis, felt compelled to acknowledge the racial aspect of
Jewish identity. Despite the high universal task of Judaism, wrote
Schindler, 'it remains a fact that we spring from a different branch of
humanity, that different blood flows in our veins, that our temperament,
our tastes, our humor is different from yours; that, in a word, we differ
in our views and in our modes of thinking in many cases as much as
we differ in our features.'" [MACDONALD, 1998, p. 157]

"The tension between the universal and particular in Jewish life," observes Charles
Liebman and Steven Cohen about much Jewish commentary today, "is a favorite theme of Jewish
commentators, both scholarly and popular ... They in effect lead their audiences in cheering
the uniqueness of American Jewry, portraying it as the one American religious or ethnic group
that combines a passionate concern for itself with an almost equally passionate concern for
others." [LIEBMAN/COHEN, p. 28] Louis Jacobs, in an apologetic, notes the endemic Jewish
universalist/particularist identity incompatability:

"The question of universalism in Judaism is, and is bound to be, an extremely
complicated one. The God Jews worship is the Creator of the whole world
and of all peoples yet Jews believe that they are the Chosen People, however
the latter concept is understood. The balance between universalism and
particularism has always been difficult for Jews to achieve ... It is all
really a matter of where the emphasis is to be placed and there have been
varying emphases in this matter throughout the history of Judaism. Some
Jews have spoken as if God's chief, if not total, interest, so to speak, is
with 'His' people. Others, especially in modern times, have gone to the
opposite extreme, preferring to stress universalism to the extent of
watering down the doctrine of particularism to render it a vague notion
of loyalty to a tradition in which the universalism had first emerged.
Few Jews will fail to admit that there are tensions between the two
doctrines." [JACOBS, L., 1995, p. 576-577]

[M.T.T.]

Popular Jewish author Cynthia Ozick can, on one hand, claim that "Jewish universalism
emphasizes that the God of Israel is also the God of mankind-in-general" and yet conclude the
same article with an appeal to fellow Jews to be more self-absorbed as Jews: "If we blow into
the narrow end of the shofar [a ram horn, used as an instrument to herald traditional
religious practice] we will be heard far. But if we choose to be Mankind rather than Jewish
and blow into the wider part, we will not be heard at all; for us America will have been in
vain." [OZICK, C., p. 34]

This implicit contradiction in a "universalist"-"particularist" Judaism is not lost to
some young Jews who see through such illusory thinking. In a book about Jewish identity, one
Jewish interviewee notes that "Judaism is very insular, it doesn't happily bring people in, so
if you're supposed to be setting an example yet you keep everyone out, that's contradictory."
[KLEIN, E. p. 191]

And this thinly disguised attitude of enduring Jewish superiority always leaves the
ideological door ajar for Jews to easily turn back to Jewish Orthodoxy and its seminal
"particularism" of religious antiquity, or simply convert it in secular terms to modern
Zionism. By the end of the twentieth century, with the modern state of Israel, we are seeing
this happening. Most of those who call themselves Jews have a significant degree of loyalty
to Israel. And Jewish Orthodoxy is in fact growing in America and often entwining with its
secular Chosen People offshoot, Zionism. The idea of being divinely endowed is a powerful
attraction. One study notes that about a quarter of all Orthodox Jews in America today were
new (i.e., "returned") to Orthodoxy. The current growth in Orthodox adherents is the first
since the eighteenth century Enlightenment. "The Haredim [ultra-orthodox]," says Robert
Wistrich, "are the fastest growing segment in contemporary Jewry." [WISTRICH, TERMS, p. 5]
"Institutionally and demographically," noted Jonathan Sacks in 1993, "the strongest and most
rapidly growing group in the contemporary Jewish world is Orthodox Jewry." [SACKS, J., p. 138]

How profoundly this paradoxical "particularism" (i.e., chauvinism) is ingrained in the
Jewish consciousness is evidenced even in leftist political organizations that are supposed to
be founded upon notions of universality, egalitarianism, and pan-human solidarity. In the
years leading up to the Russian communist revolution in the early twentieth century, the
undying obsession by most Russian Jews for themselves -- distinct from many Russian leftists
around them -- often manifest itself in ethnocentric political expressions. Many Jews of
Russia and Poland congregated towards their own socialist movement called the Bund. Much to
the aggravation of communist party leader V. I. Lenin and his universalistic Bolshevik
movement, the Bund's version of leftism insisted upon -- even within the context of the
existing nation state of Russia -- special Jewish national rights beyond those civil. [AGUS,
p. 164]

"It was not enough for the Bund," says Heinz-Dietrich Lowe, "to shift ... from Russian to
Yiddish in its agitational programme, it had to develop a fully fledged national programme
which demanded cultural autonomy for the Jews of the Russian empire." [LOWE, p. 171] When
non-Jews began rioting in Russia against Jewish exclusionism and commercial exploitation in
the late 1800s, "the Bund ... used these pogroms as an opportunity to intensify its economic
activities and further its political aims." [LOWE, p. 171] "[The Bund's] leaders," says Joseph
Marcus, "consistently conducted a class-conscious policy, ostensibly in the interests of the
whole working class, but actually confined to its Jewish members." [MARCUS, p. 211]

While the Bund had a large following in Eastern Europe, notes Shmuel Ettinger,

"at the same time, the Zionist Federation, which was also being formed
by Russian Jews, stimulated the [Jewish] nationalist trends ... Among
Jewish political subgroups the Socialist Zionist Party demanded that
a Jewish society, socialist in principle, be established in a special
territory to be set aside for the Jews; the Jewish Socialist Party, the
'Seymists,' demanded a superior leadership institution, 'Sejm,' for
every one of the nations which belonged to the Federation of Russia;
the 'Peoples' Party' (Folkspartey), led by historian Simon Dubnov,
demanded a large measure of autonomy for the Jews within the
framework of the Russian state ... Many Jews also played a part
in organizing the general Russian political parties." [ETTINGER, 1984,
p. 9]

Across time and culture, even in the context of the supposed multiculturalist and
egalitarian American New Left movement of the 1960's, Jews collectively tended to perceive
themselves with special distinction. As Arthur Liebman noted:

"[Gentile intellectuals] really are not totally accepted into even the
secularist humanist liberal company of their quondam Jewish friends.
Jews continue to insist in indirect and often inexplicable ways on their
own uniqueness. Jewish universalism in relations between Jews and
non-Jews has an empty ring ... Still, we have the anomaly of Jewish
secularists and atheists writing their own prayer books. We find
Jewish political reformers ... ostensibly pressing for universalist
political goals -- while organizing their own political clubs which are
so Jewish in style and manner that non-Jews often feel unwelcome."
[LIEBMAN, in MACDONALD, p. 158]

Jews have a long history of leftist political advocacy, agitation against any status quo
of Christian empowerment, and profoundly disproportionate percentages of leadership roles in
groups that ostensibly espouse pan-human, universalist themes. With massive Jewish escape
from the working class in America, Nathan Glazer and Patrick Moynihan noted in 1963 that "the
unions are increasingly less Jewish [but] Jewish labor leaders continue to dominate, even
though they deal for the most part with non-Jewish workers." [GLAZER/MOYNIHAN, p. 144-145] "In
America and Europe," says Barry Rubin, "the left was so heavily Jewish as to be virtually a
communal activity in itself, especially in the 1930's ... Marxist intellectuals in those years
were heavily Jewish in composition and profoundly Jewish in their thinking ... [Its
pre-eminent leaders] were all born into highly assimilated, wealthy families..." [RUBIN, B.,
p. 147] Reflecting on the collapse of the leftist movement in America, Harold Cruse, an
African-American intellectual and former communist, complained that

"The Jews could not [Americanize Marxism] with the nationalist-
aggressiveness emerging out of East Side ghettoes to demonstrate
through Marxism their intellectual superiority over the Anglo-Saxon
goyim. The Jews failed to make Marxism applicable to anything in
America but their own national-group ambition or individual self-
election." [LIEBMAN, A., p. 529]

In 1982 a Jewish author noted a similar quote by a Gentile communist activist from
Wisconsin:

"It became increasingly apparent to most participants [at a communist
youth conference] that virtually all the speakers were Jewish New
Yorkers. Speakers with thick New York accents would identify
themselves as 'the delegate from the Lower East Side' or 'the comrade
from Brownsville.' Finally the national leadership called a recess to
discuss what was becoming an embarassment. How could a
supposedly national student organization be so totally dominated by
New York Jews? ... The convention was held in Wisconsin." [in
MACDONALD, 1998, p. 72]

"The problem arose," says Arthur Liebman,

"to the means to accomplish the objective of Americanizing what was an essentially
Jewish and European socialist movement ... [LIEBMAN, A., 1986, p. 340] ...
The disproportionate presence of Jews and the foreign born generally in
the socialist movement coupled with the relative absence of non-Jews and
native Americans troubled many of its leaders, Jews and non-Jews alike.
The Communist party, for example, in the 1920s was made up almost
entirely of Jews and foreign born, most of whom were in foreign language
federations. The Jews alone in the 1930s and 1940s accounted for approximately
40 to 50 percent of the membership of the Communist party." [LIEBMAN, A.,|
1986, p. 339]

Nathaniel Weyl notes that:

"Although Communist leaders were normally taciturn about the extent
to which Party membership was Jewish, Jack Stachel complained in
The Communist for April 1929 that in Los Angeles 'practically 90 per
cent of the membership is Jewish.' In 1945, John Williamson, another
national leader of the American Communist Party, observed that, while
a seventh of Party membership was concentrated in Brooklyn, it
was not the working-class districts, but in Brownsville, Williamsburg,
Coney Island and Bensonhurst, which he characterized 'as primarily
Jewish American communities.' In 1951, the same complaint about
Brooklyn was reiterated. A 1938 breakdown of Communist educational
directors on a district level reported that 17 out of 34 were Jewish and
only nine 'American' ... Based on scrutiny of surnames, Glazer concluded
that all of the 'Rank and File' (Communist) teachers placed on trial by
the Teachers Union in 1932 were Jewish." [WEYL, N., 1968, p. 118-119]

Peter Pulzer once noted that, in the German socialist ranks of the early 20th century,
"Their [Jews'] disproportionately bourgeois origins and their tendency to derive their views
from first principles rather than empirical experience, led them into a dominating position
[in] the party's debates." [WEISBERGER, A., 1997, p. 93] Arthur Liebman notes the background
to the Morris Hillquit's election to the American Socialist party chairmanship in 1932:

"Hilquit, in turn, brought the unmentionable to the center stage in an emotional
speech, declaring, 'I apologize for having been born abroad, for being a Jew, and
living in New York City.'
Hilquit's oblique reference to anti-Semitism assured him of victory. As Thomas
[Hilquit's opponent for the chairmanship] later commented, 'Once the anti-
Semitic issue was raised, even though unjustly, I was inclined to think it
best that Hillquit won.' The Socialist party did not want to risk being labeled
anti-Semitic." [LIEBMAN, A., 1986, p. 341]

Some estimates suggest that 60% of the leadership for the 60s-era radical SDS (Students
for a Democratic Society) were Jews (well-known radicals included Kathy Boudin, Bettina
Aptheker, among many others). [PRAGER, p. 61] From 1960 to 1970, five of the nine changing
presidents of the organization were Jewish males (Al Haber, Todd Gitlin, and the last three
for the decade: Mike Spiegel, Mike Klonsky, and Mark Rudd). [SALE, K., 1973, p. 663] As
Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter note:

"The early SDS was heavily Jewish in both its leadership and its activist cadres.
Key SDS leaders included Richard Flacks, who played an important role
in its formation and growth, as well as Al Haber, Robb Ross, Steve Max,
Mike Spiegel, Mike Klonsky, Todd Gitlin, Mark Rudd, and others. Indeed,
for the first few years, SDS was largely funded by the League for
Industrial Democracy, a heavily Jewish socialist (but anti-communist)
organization.
SDS's early successes were at elite universities containing substantial
numbers of Jewish students and sympathetic Jewish faculty, including
the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Brandeis, Oberlin, and the
University of California. At Berkeley SDS leaders were not unaware
of their roots. As Robb Ross put it, describing the situation at the
Unversity of Wisconsin in the early 1960s, '... my impression is
that the left at Madison is not just a new left, but a revival of the old ...
with all the problems that entails. I am struck by the lack of
Wisconsin-born people [in the Madison-area left] and the massive
preponderance of New York Jews. The situation at the University
of Minnesota is similar' ... [Researcher] Berns and his associates
found that 83 percent of a small radical activist sample studied at
the University of California in the early 1970s were of Jewish
background." [ROTHMAN/LICHTER, 1982, p. 61]

Susan Stern was among those to turn to the violent Weatherman underground organization.
Ted Gold, another Weatherman member, died when a bomb he was making exploded in his hands.
[ROTHMAN/LICHTER, 1982, p. 61] In an iconic 1970 incident, three of the four students shot and
killed by National Guardsmen at a famous Kent State University demonstration were Jewish.
[BYARD, K., 5-5-00]

A study by Joseph Adelson at the University of Michigan, one of the American hotbeds of
1960s-era activism, suggested that 90% of those defined as politically "radical students" at
that school were Jews. [PRAGER, p. 61, 66] And, "when, for instance, the Queens College SDS
held a sit-in at an induction center several years ago," wrote Gabriel Ende, "they chose to
sing Christmas carols to dramatize their activity, although the chairman and almost all of the
members were Jewish." [ENDE, G., 1971, p. 61]

Ronald Radosh notes that

"In elite institutions like the University of Chicago, a large 63 percent of student
radicals were Jewish; Tom Hayden may have been the most famous name in
the University of Michigan SDS, but '90 percent of the student left [in that school]
came from jewish backgrounds;' and nationally, 60 percent of SDS members
were Jewish. As my once-friend Paul Breines wrote about my own alma
mater the University of Wisconsin, 'the real yeast in the whole scene had been
the New York Jewish students in Wisconsin' ... As late as 1946, one-third
of America's Jews held a favorable view of the Soviet Union." [RADOSH, R.,
6-5-01]

Decades earlier, note Rothman and Lichter:

"The American Student Union, the most prominent radical student group
during the 1930s, was heavily concentrated in New York colleges and
universities with large Jewish enrollments. And on other campuses,
such as the University of Illinois, substantial portions of its limited
membership were students of Jewish background from New York
City." [ROTHMAN/LICHTER, 1982, p. 101]

In communist organizations that supposedly idealized a classless society for all people,
it inevitably grated with enduring Jewish self-perception: Jews often tended to configure as a
special caste of controllers of -- not a religious, but now -- a secular messianism. As Jeff
Schatz notes about pre-World War II Poland: "Despite the fact that [communist] party
authorities consciously strove to promote classically proletarian and ethnically Polish
members to the cadres of leaders and functionaries, Jewish communists formed 54 percent of the
field leadership of the KPP [Polish Communist Party] in 1935. Moreover, Jews constituted a
total of 75 percent of the party's technica, the apparatus for production and distribution of
propaganda material. Finally, communists of Jewish origin occupied most of the seats of the
Central Committee of the of the KPPP [Communists Workers Party of Poland] and the KPP."
[SCHATZ, p. 97] Jews were at this time 10% of the Polish population.

In Russia, notes Shmuel Ettinger,

"when the Russian Social Democratic Party split into two factions --
Bolsheviks and Mensheviks -- both factions had many Jews in
their leaderships (such as Boris Axelrod, Yuly Martov, Lev Trotsky,
Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenov) and among their most active
party members. Many Jews also played a part in the foundations and
leadership of the party ... For example, Mikhail Gots was one of the
party's main thereoticians and Grigory Gershuni was the leader of
its fighting organization, which carried out terrorist acts against the
Tsarist regime." [ETTINGER, p. 9]

Earlier in Russia, notes Leon Schapiro, "a particularly important part was played by
[Jewish revolutionary Aaron] Zundelovich, who in 1872 had formed a revolutionary circle mainly
among students at the state-sponsored rabbinical school, at Vilna." [SCHAPIRO, L., 1961, p.
153]

Also, notes Albert Lindemann, "it seems beyond serious debate that in the first twenty
years of the Bolshevik Party the top ten to twenty leaders included close to a majority of
Jews. Of the seven 'major figures' listed in The Makers of the Russian Revolution, four are of
Jewish origin." [LINDEMANN, p. 429-430] Among the most important Jewish communists were the
aforementioned Trotsky (originally Lev Davidovich Bronstein) and Grigori Yevseyevich Zinoviev
("Lenin's closest associate in the war years"). Lev Borisovich Kamenev (Rosenfeld) headed the
party newspaper, Pravda. Adolf Yoffe was head of the Revolutionary Military Committee of the
Petrograd Bolshevik Party in 1917-18. Moisei Solomonovich, head of the secret police in
Petrograd, was known by some as the epitome of "Jewish terror against the Russian people."
[LINDEMANN, p. 431]

In Hungary, notes Jewish scholar Howard Sachar, "for 135 days [in 1919], Hungary was ruled
by a Communist dictatorship. Its party boss, Bela Kun, was a Jew. So were 31 of the 49
commissars in Kun's regime." [SACHAR, H., 1985, p. 339]
During that time, note Jewish scholars Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter, Jews also
represented

"most managers of the forty-eight People's Commissars in his
revolutionary government. Most managers of the new state farms were
Jewish, as were the bureau chiefs of the Central Administration and the
leading olice officers. Overall, of 202 high officials in the Kun government,
161 were Jewish. Jews remained active in the Communist party during
the Horthy regime of 1920-44, dominating its leadership. Again,
most were from established, midle-class (or, at worst, lower-middle-
class) backgrounds. Hardly any were proletarians or peasants. Most
of the Hungarian Jewish community was massacred during World
War II ... Nonetheless, the leading cadres of the Communist party in
the postwar period were Jews, who completely dominated the regime until
1952-53 ... The wags of Budapest explained the presence of a lone
gentile in the party leadership on the grounds that a 'goy' was
needed to turn on the lights on Saturday." [ROTHMAN/LICHTER, 1982,
p. 89]

"In Lithuania," add Rothman and Lichter,

"about 54 percent of the [Communist] party cadres were Jewish. Salonika
Jewry played a major role in the foundation of Greek Communist party and
remained prominent until the early 1940s. Similar patterns prevailed in Rumania and
Czechoslovakia. Jews played quite prominent roles in the top and second echelon
leadership of the communist regimes in all of these countries in the immediate
postwar period. Theywere often associated with Stalinist policies and were
strongly represented in the secret police. In Poland, for example, three of the
five members of the original Politburo were Jewish. A fourth, Wladyslaw Gomulka,
was married to a woman of Jewish background. In both Rumania and Czechoslovakia,
at least two of the four key figures in the Communist party were of Jewish background."
[ROTHMAN/LICHTER, 1982, p. 90]

In Canada, in the 1940s, the Jewish head of the Communist Party in Montreal, Harry Binder,
estimated that 70% of the Communist Party membership in his city were Jewish. In Toronto, from
a Jewish population of 50,000, about 30% of the formal members of the local Communist
community were believed to be Jews, not including those who had looser ties to the
organization. [PARIS, E., 1980, p. 145]

David Biale notes Jewish pre-eminence among the communists of South Africa:

"The fact that they were outsiders to the main elements of white South
African society -- British and Afrikaner -- undoubtedly made them more
likely to rebel against the existing order. It was the explosive combination
of Communist ideology as a kind of substitute for religion and the Jews'
marginal status that probably turned these Jews into such a prevalent
presence on the South African left." [BIALE, D., MARCH/APRIL 2000,
p. 63-64]

"Jews of Polish background played an important role in the founding of the Cuban
communist party," note Rothman and Lichter, "and there are scattered indications of their
significance in left-wing parties and groups in other Latin American countries. Jews were also
prominent in the formation of Communist parties in various North African countries."
[ROTHMAN/LICHTER, 1982, p. 90-91]

Even in 1930's pre-Nazi Germany, the Communist Party's top two leaders -- Rosa Luxemberg
and Paul Levi -- were Jewish. (Hannah Arendt notes that Luxemberg was a member of a
"Polish-Jewish 'peer group,'" which was a "carefully hidden attachment to the Polish party
which sprang from it.") [ARENDT, 1968, p. 40] Earlier, in the wake of World War I, another
Jewish radical, Kurt Eisner, proclaimed a socialist republic in Bavaria. Upon his
assassination, Eisner's government was replaced by another socialist one -- that of president
Ernst Toller (also Jewish). Erich Muehsam and Gustav Landauer were other Jews in high
positions in the government. [PAYNE, p. 124-125] Next came a Communist coup to oust the
socialist regime. As John Cornwell describes it, "After a week or two of outlandish misrule,
on April 12 [1919] a reign of terror ensued under the red revolutionary trio of Max Levien,
Eugen Levine, and Tonja Axelrod [also all Jewish] to hasten the dictatorship of the
proletariat. The new regime kidnapped 'middle-class' hostages, throwing them into Stadeheim
Prison. They shut down schools, imposed censorship, and requisitioned peoples' homes and
possessions." [CORNWELL, p. 74] In Austria, in 1920, repeating the theme, "the socialist
government was led by Friedrich Adler, Otto Bauer, Karl Seitz, Julius Deutsch and Hugo
Breitner." [GROLLMAN, E., 1965, p. 117] "The Austrian Social Democrat party was founded by
Victor Adler, a deracinated Jew from a well-known Prague Jewish family, and the party paper
was edited by Friedrich Austerlitz, a Moravian Jew. Other prominent Jews in the party
leadership included Wilhelm Ellenbogen, Otto Bauer, Robert Dannenberg, and Max Adler."
[ROTHMAN/LICHTER, 1982, p. 88]

'The list of leading socialists [in Germany] of Jewish origin is long and illustrious,"
adds Adam Weisberger, "-- Eduard Bernstein, Rosa Luxemberg, Gustav Landauer, Kurt Eisner, Paul
Singer, Hugo Haase -- to mention some of the most prominent among them." [WEISBERG, A., 1997,
p. 2]

As George Mosse notes:

"Jews were highly visible in many of the postwar [World War I]
revolutions, not only in Bolshevik Russia but also in Budapest,
Munich, and Berlin. During the postwar crisis, belief in Jewish
conspiracies and subversive activity was not just a curious notion
held by professed haters of Jews; in 1918, even Winston Churchill
associated Jews with the Bolshevik conspiracy." [MOSSE, G., 1985,
p. 68-69]

[Other chapters will deal with the important role of Jews in the communist movement more
extensively. If interested now, here are three links to excerpts about Jewish pre-eminence in
Russian and other Eastern European communism, Jews in the Polish communist system, and Jewish
communist spies in America]

For those who even know about such a past, Jewish historiography these days tends to
assert that communist and socialist Jews, in Russia and everywhere else, did not have any
interest in a Jewish identity. This position asserts that such Jewish communist involvement
was an investment in a secular universalism that leaves behind the traditional Jewish
collectivist identity. In explaining away why so many Jews were secret police terrorists under
the communist regime in Eastern Europe [see above links], Jewish author Michael Checinski
writes that"They were, for better or worse, considered less susceptible to the
lures of 'Polish nationalism,' to which even impeccable Polish Communists
were not thought immune. It should be remembered that these Jews
were of a particular type: there were few veteran Communists among
them, as their victims would be former KPP members and other
left-wingers, and Moscow was taking no chances with sentimental
ties of comradeship cramping their style as guardians of political
'purity.' Many of them had not only sadistic inclinations but also
various grudges against their future victims, both Polish and Jewish.
Indeed, it is significant that there were no traces of 'Jewish
solidarity' among the staff of the Tenth Department. On the
contrary, they represented a distorted conception of 'internationalism,'
which could be described as 'Jewish anti-Semitism.'" [CHECINSKI,
M., 1982, p. 71-72]

This is a common Jewish apologetic tact today, to explain away the Jewish identities of
so many communist terrorists by proclaiming that they had no connective identity with others
in their work circles. Even here, Jewish consensus proclaims, even as Jews murdered others,
Jews remain victims of anti-Semitism. [Much more about this in future chapters]

But as Kevin MacDonald suggests, "surface declarations of a lack of Jewish identity may
be highly misleading ... There is good evidence for widespread self-deception about Jewish
identity among Jewish radicals ... [Bolshevism] was a government that aggressively attempted
to destroy all vestiges of Christianity as a socially unifying force within the Soviet Union
while at the same time it established a secular Jewish subculture." [MACDONALD, 1998, p. 60]

Arthur Liebman notes this phenomenon in "the flood of Yiddish-speaking Jews" to America
in the early years of the twentieth century:

"These new Jews were too large a constituency to be kept separate from the
Socialist party for the length of time ncessary to accept the arguments of the
sophisticated Marxist cosmopolitan Jews. If these masses of Jews who valued
their Jewish identity and language would come to socialism through a speical
Jewish organization, then the Socialists decided they would have it. The Jewish
Socialist Federation was officially recognized by the Socialist party in 1912."
[LIEBMAN, A., 1986, p. 339]

As Jewish author John Sack notes about the many officials of Jewish origin in Poland
after World War II who headed the repressive communist secret police system:

"I'd interviewed twenty-three Jews who'd been in the Office [of State
Security], and one, just one, had considered himself a communist in
1945. He and the others had gone to Jewish schools, studied the
Torah, had been bar-mitzvahed, sometimes wore payes ... By whose
definition weren't they Jews? Not by the Talmud's, certainly not by
the government of Israel's or the government of Nazi Germany's."
[PIOTROWSKI, p. 63]

Melanie Kaye-Kantrowitz puts her Jewish identity in a socialist context this way:

"Out of nowhere pops a question, 'If you don't care about being
Jewish, how come all your friends are Jews?'
Vivian ... thinks about being Jewish on the toilet and in her
sleep, as well as every other moment of the day or night.
'I live in New York,' I snap, and we both burst out laughing.
Mentally I flip through my friends for a non-Jew. Nothing.
She shakes her head. 'You're such a Jew. How come you
don't know this about yourself?'
... My parents never thought about it either, it was who they
were. In Vilna they were Jews and socialists, and when they came
here they were still Jews and socialists. They lived among other
Jews. Everyone spoke Jewish. What was there to think? It was
like air, they breathed it. There was Jewish everything. My parents
would argue who you could trust less, communists or Democrats,
anarchists they never worried about. All Jewish. Orthodox,
secular. Owners, bosses, workers. Doctors, teachers, salesclerks,
writers, dancers, peddlers, you name it. All Jewish. Movies. Gossip
columns. Like I said, you breathed it." [KAYE-KANTROWITZ,
1990, p. 188]

Jewish author Anne Roiphe, today an ardent supporter of Israel, addresses the same
theme:

"I can say I was a Marxist before I was old enough to know history,
and afterward a liberal, a Leftist, a woman of the people with the people,
but finally I must own to the hypocrisy. I see certain unwelcome
contradictions." [ROLPHE, 1981, p. 113]

Rolphe's first hypocrisy was that she was born to wealth: "I am the product of the
[economic] wits of my grandfather." [ROLPHE, 1981, p. 113] And despite an identity as a
Marxist, Leftist, liberal, or whatever else she thought she was, Rolphe inevitably was drawn
back to "this odd mystical connection to the Jewish peoplehood, " [ROLPHE, 1981, p. 182]
writing an entire volume about it (subtitled A Jewish Journey in Christian America). "I
thought," she wrote, "that ... I had asserted my ego as separate from the forced march of
Jewish history ... I had thought I had cut out the roots of the tree that was causing too much
shade in my garden ... [but] the tree without roots had surprised me with its staying power."
[ROIPHE, 1981, p. 180]

Jewish communist Sam Carr was released from a Canadian prison in 1951 for spying for
Russia. "Ironically," notes Erna Paris, "given the fact that he 'wasn't much of a Jew,' he did
become the leader of the Unified Jewish People's Order after 1960." [PARIS, E., p. 176] In
Argentina, Jewish publisher Jacobo Timerman was imprisoned by the ruling military junta in
1977. It was pointed out to him by his right-wing interrogators that he was a member of a
"registered affiliate organization of the Communist Party" in his youth. Timerman denied that
he joined it because of any interest in communism, but, rather, for how it could serve his
other ideological interests: "I belonged to it as an anti-Fascist, a Jew, and a Zionist."
[TIMERMAN, J., 1981, p. 116]

"A number of Jewish socialists, particularly in the later stages of the [German]
Wilhelhmine period," notes Adam Weisberger, "exhibited the phenomenon of returning to Judaism
... although admittedly often in secular or accentuated form. Joseph Bloch, for example,
originally an ardent assimilationist and German nationalist, became perhaps the chief
proponent of Zionism in the German socialist movement." [WEISBERGER, A., 1997, p. 98]

In 1961, Jewish author Daniel Aaron criticized the shallow attachment many in radical
movements really had to their left-wing postures: "Some writers joined or broke from the
[Communist] Movement because of their wives, or for careerist reasons, or because they read
their own inner disturbances into the realities of social dislocation. To put it another way,
the subject matter of politics ... was often the vehicle for non-political emotions and
compulsions." [WALD, p. 14]

Sigmund Freud (although not a Marxist, his areligious work is often joined to Marxist
theory) insisted that his psychological speculations applied to all people and tried to
dismiss any evidence of his own special Jewish particularism. But he was always conflicted
about it. As he once wrote about his connection to Jewish identity, "When I felt an
inclination to [Jewish] national enthusiasm I strove to suppress it as being harmful and
wrong, alarmed by the warning examples of the people among whom we Jews live. But plenty of
other things remained to make the attraction of Jewry and Jews irresistible -- many obscure
emotional forces, which were the more powerful the less they could be expressed in words, as
well as a clear consciousness of inner identity, the safe privacy of a common mental
connection." [ROIPHE, 1981, p. 180] (The clique that runs, and enforces, the psychoanalytic
world, as we shall see later, remains overwhelmingly Jewish).

Jewish messianic elitism in leftist "universalist" circles endures to this day. In 1992,
Michael Lerner, prominent editor of the left-wing Jewish journal Tikkun, suggested remedies
for curing anti-Semitism in leftist organizations. The cure? "Put[ting] self-affirming Jews in
positions of leadership in your organizations" [LERNER, Socialism, p. 115] and indoctrination
sessions to sensitize non-Jews to Jewish needs (Lerner's term is: "internal education
programs.")

Erna Paris notes the history of Jewish communism in Canada:

"Although the Jewish left claimed to be dedicated to perfect equality,
it also gave full-blown expression to the strong velvet-gloved, ancient,
patriarchal traditions of Judaism. If the ancestral prophets like Amos
were the Fathers of Israel, so the men of UJPO [United Jewish
People's Order: a 'Jewish' branch of communism] and the school of
the Jewish labour movement were the 'Fathers' of the women and
children in the movement. Without question, they were the new
Hebrew prophets of a better world." [PARIS, E., p. 152]

As Adam Weisberger notes this Jewish identity root in the profound historical influence
of Jews in revolutionary communist and socialist movements that aimed to destroy the existing
social order:

"A messianic idea, derived from traditional Judaism, persisted through
the process of secularization and entered into the groundwork of
socialism ... Jewish socialists, even when they were estranged from
Judaism and possessed little or no formal Jewish education, remained
an essential part of the mission of those Jews who believed they had
broken with tradition." [WEISBERGER, A., 1997, p. 112]

"After being nurtured by a culture that saw itself superior by virtue of its special
relationship with God," note Jewish authors Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter,

"many Jews must have experienced their contact with modern Europe
[with the birth of the Enlightenment] as traumatic. It was difficult to
think Jewish life superior to the achievements of European civilization
once the protective mantle of the shtetl was no longer present. What
better way to reestablish claims to superiority than by adopting the
most 'advanced' social position of the larger society and viewing
this adoption as a reflection of Jewish heritage? Thus many radical
Jewish intellectuals were able to continue to assert Jewish
superiority, even as they denied their Jewishness." [ROTHMAN/
LICHTER, 1982, p. 121]

Arnold Eisen, in a discussion of Leslie Fiedler (who started out as a socialist) and
other well-known Jewish American "intellectuals," notes the transformative essence of Jewish
identity from traditional Judaism to modern political movements: "Here the entire language of
chosenness -- suffering, witness, mission, reciprocity, exclusivity, covenant, and even
repudiation of Christianity and idol worship! -- has been appropriated and hollowed out in
order to endow the Jewish intellectual with the role of prophet to his own community and the
world." [EISEN, p. 136] Salo Baron goes back further in time, but underscores the same Jewish
identity foundation, which can, however incongruously, simultaneously straddle both
"universalistic" communist movements and "particularist" Zionism:

"Under one guise or another, even the antireligious movements in
19th century Judaism were unable to cast off their messianic yearnings
for an ultimate redemption of their people, or of mankind at large. The
growing secularization of modern Jewry made the transition from
religious messianism to political Zionism appear as but another link
in that long chain of evolution." [BARON, 1964, p. 172]

David Horowitz recalls what it was like growing up in a New York City household with his
communist parents, an environment still founded upon the Jewish religious myths of redemption:

"In the radical romance of our political lives, the world was said
to have begun in innocence, but to have fallen afterwards under
an evil spell, afflicting the lives of all with great suffering and
injustice. According to our myth, a happy ending beckoned,
however. Through the efforts of progressives like us, the spell
would one day be lifted, and mankind would be freed from its
trials." [HOROWITZ, D., 1999, p. 284]

Even the founder of Hadassah (the women's Zionist organization), Henrietta Szold, once
wrote that "the world has not progressed beyond the need of Jewish instruction, but the Jew
can be witness and a missionary only if he is permitted to interpret the lessons of Judaism as
his peculiar nature and his peculiar discipline enable him to interpret them." [GAL, A., 1986,
p. 371] How Zionism, the modern secular expression of traditional Jewish ethnocentrism, is
supposed to "instruct the world that has not progressed beyond the need of Jewish instruction"
is never explained. [Note Zionism's implicit racism and oppressive policies against non-Jews
in the later chapter about Israel].

With the erosion of the New Left in America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and
Israel's 1967 victory in its war with surrounding Arab states, distinctly Judeo-centric
political configurations arose out of the Jewish universalistic left-wing community that, as
Mordecai Chertoff notes, "affirm[ed] Zionism ... and Judaism ... as socialists and radicals."
[CHERTOFF, p. 192] Such organizations included the Jewish Student Movement, the Jewish Action
Committee, Kadimah, the Jewish Student Union, the Maccabees, American Students for Israel, the
World Union of Jewish Students, Na'aseh, Jews for Urban Justice, the New Jewish Committee, the
Jewish Liberation Project, the Youth Commitee for Peace and Democracy in the Middle East, and
the Committee for Social Justice in the Middle East. Such organizations produced between 20
and 40 periodicals with a combined circulation of over 300,000. [GLAZER, NEW p. 192-193]

"The extreme radical groups of the New Left came out officially in favor of the Arabs,"
notes James Yaffe, "but it generally conceded that there was much opposition from Jews in
those groups. 'Jewish kids in the Movement,' one of them told me, 'have a double standard on
Israel. A non-Jewish leftist is much more likely to condemn Israel than a Jewish leftist."
[YAFFE, J., 1968, p. 193]

"There are still those [Jews] who are impressed," wrote Nathan Glazer in 1971, "by what
seems to be the New Left concern for all of mankind, but more and more ... are discovering ...
that there is a limit to the number of trumpets one can respond. [Jews] are responding, in
greater numbers to their own." [GLAZER, p. 196] "How many times," complained anti-Vietnam War
activist Gabriel Ende in the same year, "have committed Jews joined with others in Vietnam and
student power rallies, only to have their erstwhile companions stab them in the back with
boorish anti-Israel remarks on the morrow?" [ENDE, G., 1971, p. 59]

Traditional Jewish tendency to cluster and control is likewise evidenced in the opposite
political field -- American conservatism. Pat Buchanan -- the outspoken conservative newspaper
columnist and former candidate for the President of the United States (widely despised in
Jewish circles as an "anti-Semite") -- has attacked the 'neo-conservative' movement of Irving
Kristol and others (many Jewish), who Buchanon likens to "fleas who conclude they are steering
the dog, their relationship to the [conservative] movement has always been parasitical."
[SHAPIRO, Pat, p. 226]

In more recent history, reflecting another popular angle of Jewish chauvinism under the
guise of universalism (in a theme to be discussed at length later), Eli Weisel, the well-known
semi-official spokesman for Jewish suffering in the Holocaust, wrote a formal report to the
President of the United States about what the proposed $168 million United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum in Washington DC would be. While up to six million Jews were killed in the
Nazi extermination programs (and over three times that number of non-Jews may have been
killed, [MILLER, p. 253] depending upon how one defines "Holocaust," Weisel, true to Jewish
particularist/univeralist form, noted that the museum would focus mainly on Jewish victims:

"The Holocaust was the systematic bureaucratic extermination of six
million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators as a central act of state
during the Second World War; as night descended, millions of other
peoples were swept into this net of death ... The event is essentially
Jewish, yet its interpretation is universal. The universality of the
Holocaust lies in its [Jewish] uniqueness." [MILLER, p. 255]

A poignant -- and current -- example of this worldview is the aforementioned Michael
Lerner, a man who has been provided precious moments in the national spotlight by an
influential admirer, Hillary Clinton. Incredibly, Lerner frames American universalistic ideals
themselves as oppressors of American Jewry. "Jews have been forced," complains Lerner," to
choose between a loyalty to their own people and a loyalty to universal ideals." [LERNER, p.
5] What moral person of any faith or ethnicity is not "forced to choose" -- by his or her own
conscience -- between what Lerner cannot openly state: selfish, exclusionist self-interest
club interests versus sacrifice for the common good? That Lerner imagines only Jews have faced
such a dilemma in the American -- or any -- context is but evidence of the blind depth of
Judeo-centrism. Lerner is enraptured, overwhelmed, by his own sense of Jewishness. True to
form, "it is [a] hidden vulnerability," insists Lerner, "that constitutes the uniqueness of
Jewish oppression." [LERNER, p. 65]

Leftist, rightist, Orthodox, atheist, or anything else, the origins of Jewish incessant,
undying obsession with their "uniqueness," "exceptionality," "difference," "messianism," et al
is to be found in the Judaic religious record. As Adam Garfinkle sees it:

"The mission of Israel, as the Prophets defined it, is to spread
monotheism and the moral code that flows from it around the world,
but not to make everyone part of a great Israelite tribe. .... The Jews
do not merge with the nations or convert them. They are, said Balaam,
in Numbers 23:9, a people destined to live alone. Although Jewish ideas
are universalistic, [?] traditional Jews see themselves in exclusionist
terms, a self-perception that has caused endless confusion and
resentment among non-Jews. Jewish apologists like to emphasize the
special burdens of this role and point to the costs it has extracted on the
Jewish people in history -- no doubt all true. But that does not change
the basic fact, as even a casual reading of central Jewish texts show,
that Jews have believed themselves special, closer to the Divine than
other people." [GARFINKLE, p. 10]

[Pyzol]

Anti-Semitism: ..... What Is It?

by Laureen Moe
SUMMARY:
The word "anti-Semitism" is inadequate. It is a misnomer. The word was
coined in 1879 from the Greek words "anti", meaning "against" and "Semite",
meaning a descendant of Shem. The word was first used by Wilhelm Marr a
German agitator, who created it to explain the current anti-Jewish campaigns
in Europe. Since the Arab peoples are also Semitic people it is not the best
expression. Anti-Jewish, and Jew- hatred, are more descriptive. It is more
than just prejudice. The word came into general use in the past hundred
years and encompasses all forms of hostility manifested toward Jews
throughout history.

There can be economic and social or racial anti-Semitism. It didn't reach
epidemic proportions until 175 B.C. Previous uprisings against Jews were not
really anti-Semitic. It began almost exclusively in countries which later
became part of the Roman Empire. Prejudice flared it seems because Jewish
people in honouring their Jewish laws, appeared to be in defiance of Gentile
governments. The false assumption began to emerge that Jews didn't have any
respect for whatever was held in esteem by the rest of humanity.

In the Greek Hellenistic period no other nation denied the gods of it's
neighbours; on the contrary they recognized those gods, identifying them
with their own deities. These heathen "gods" created a social bond between
people in their domains. None of the people refrained from dining at table
with their neighbours and from partaking of the sacrifices offered to their
gods except the Jews. None of the peoples refused to send gifts to its
neighbours temples, except the Jews. None of the peoples was unequivocally
hostile to intermarriage except the Jews.

In the eastern Mediterranean area friction arose over the difference in
occupations between Jews and Gentiles. The Jewish population was engaged
primarily in small scale farming; the non-Jewish population occupied itself
primarily in commerce. The sea trade was almost entirely in the hands of the
trans-Jordanian cities, which connected Syria, Asia Minor and the regions of
the Euphrates with the Arabian countries. The inhabitants of Eretz Israel
had connections abroad. Non-Jews also knew that Jews looked upon their land
as their divine inheritance.

The first serious manifestation of anti-Semitism was in the days of the
Syrian, Antiochus Epiphanes in 175 B.C. Hellenistic rulers saw the
unfriendliness of the Jews as obstacles to the cultural scene. He undertook
to destroy those laws of the Talmud that he regarded as unacceptable to
humanity. To this end he desecrated their place of worship by sacrificing a
pig on their altar in Jerusalem, and ordered that the residual juices be
sprinkled over the Holy Books containing these Jewish laws.

Greek authors in the first century portrayed the Jewish people as
descendants of a mob of lepers. They further stated that because of this
uncleanness Jews shunned the flesh of pigs, since pigs were more prone to
contract disease. The Gentiles knew that their own pagan religions and
practices rendered them unclean in the eyes of the Jews.

The fact remains that even after four thousand years the idea of a covenant
between the Jews and Jehovah is still alive; and is mentioned daily in
prayers in synagogues throughout the world. The idea of a covenant with God
has remained constant. Because Jehovah is immortal He never dies and because
He never dies He never has to be reincarnated. Thus the Jews dispensed with
the reincarnation rites of the pagans. The Jews' God was invisible. The
concept of "one God", Jehovah, being completely withdrawn from sexuality led
to a curb of licentious impulses through inner discipline. By contrast ,the
Greek gods themselves set the pattern for the unbridled lust and perversion
which finally weakened the moral fibre of that people; whereas the Jews,
even when they later came in contact with the Greeks, refused to indulge in
the Grecian sexual excesses, which included even temple prostitution. The
Jewish religion did away with all fertility rites.

As a consequence of the Jewish dietary laws, intermarriage was forbidden and
no real social intercourse with gentiles was possible. Also, Jews refused to
enter into Emperor worship. It was considered to be an expression of loyalty
to the state. About their own religious practices a libel began to circulate
that Jews actually sacrificed humans on their altars, allegedly using the
blood for Passover rites. Further it was said that the sacrificed person
must be a Christian or one of their children. This became known as the
"Blood Libel" against the Jews. It mattered not that it was a total
fabrication.

Another libel circulating was that unclean leprous people were expelled from
Egypt, and that the Jews were these people. Therefore, being foreigners, it
was stated that the Jews had no right to claim ancient Israel as their
divinely given land.

The destruction of the temple by Titus in 70 AD was seen as hatred by God of
the Jews, and as punishment. Jews in Rome felt the barbs of Roman writers.
Nero's teacher was anti-Semitic. Cornelius Tacitus wrote about every
libellous fabrication against Jews that he could find in Greek anti-Semitic
literature. Juvenal wrote a poem revealing that to him the Jews were hateful
not only to man but to the gods as well.

In the fourth century AD, when Constantine became the Roman Emperor and
supposedly converted to Christianity, he harnessed Political power to
Religion and passed anti-Jewish laws, whereby Jews were excluded from every
sphere of political influence, and denied civic rights.

The Gospel accounts began to be the source from which wrong teachings grew,
until the word "Deicide" meant the Jews killed God, and were labelled
"Christ-killers". Matthew 27:25 which spoke of some Jewish leaders was used
instead to apply to all Jews: "His blood be on us and on our children...Ye
are of your father the devil."

Converts to Christianity and converts to Judaism sparked a seriously
divisive rivalry. Religious competition began between the Greek fathers of
the Church, and Jews. Church laws were passed whereby Jewish relations with
Christian women was now punishable by death. Anti-Semitism at this time was
mainly limited to the clergy, who were the educated minority.

Islam arose in the seventh century AD, and also attacked the Jews because
the Jews did not recognize Muhammad as a legitimate Prophet. The Koran
contained their writings; and many statements in it were hostile to Jews. In
the Middle Ages church councils legislated to prevent contact with the Jews
because Christians were saying after visiting synagogues that the Jews were
better priests.

This historical background of centuries of anti-Semitism eventually exploded
in the 20th century "Holocaust". The hostility and hatred manifested in the
holocaust was therefore not new. As we have stated ancient writings contain
much anti-Semitism. In pre-Roman times most people did not read or write. At
times, Rome tried to eradicate Judaism and "Jewishness". Followers were
assumed to be treasonous and subversive. This in turn led to major revolts
on the part of the Jewish community.

The following is a brief summary of Incidents involving Jews in History...
135 B.C
Antiochus Epiphanes desecrates Second Jewish Temple; leading to Hasmonean
Revolt against Rome.

70 A.D.
Titus took Jerusalem - second revolt. Over one million Jews killed.

136 A.D.
580,000 men destroyed, 985 towns destroyed - third revolt.

300 A.D.
Purim festival celebrating God's deliverance to Mordecai and the Jews
through Esther and the fasting. Lies spread that Jews kill Christians for
sacrifice. Emperor Severus also said the Jews purchased 90,000 Christians to
kill them.

306 A.D.
Council in Spain banned Christians & Jews meeting or marrying.

325 A.D.
Constantine changed the celebration of Easter on the calendar so that it did
not coincide with the Jewish Passover.

379 A.D.
Vicious writing by St. John Chrysostom and St. Ambrose in Milan who said:
"The Jews are the most worthless of all men. They are lecherous, greedy,
rapacious. They are perfidious murderers of Christ. They worship the Devil.
Their religion is a sickness. The Jews are the odious assassins of Christ
and for killing God there is no expiation possible, no indulgence or pardon.
Christians may never cease vengeance, and the Jew must live in servitude
forever. God always hated the Jews. It is essential that all Christians hate
them." He was called the Bishop with the Golden Tongue. St. Ambrose, Bishop
of the Church offered to burn the synagogue himself.

395 A.D.
St. Gregory of Nyssa in sermons and writings characterized Jews as assassins
of the Prophets, companions of the Devil, a race of vipers, a Sanhedrin of
Demons, enemies of all that is beautiful, hogs and goats in their lewd
grossness.

415 A.D.
Bishop Severus BURNED THE SYNAGOGUE IN THE VILLAGE OF MAGONA. BISHOP OF
ALEXANDRIA, ST. CYRIL EXPELLED JEWS FROM ALEXANDRIA AND GAVE THE MOB JEWISH
PROPERTY.
ACCUSATION of Ritual murder by the Jews during Purim. Christians confiscated
synagogues in ANTIOCH.
These were not hooligans but Church Fathers!
AUGUSTINE, JEROME, AMBROSE AND LESSER SAINTS AS ST. CHRYSOSTROM AND CYRIL,
added to untruths the new ones that Jews were dishonest and prone to sexual
perversions.

717 A.D.
Jews had to wear special yellow garb. Originated in Islam.

1012 A.D.
Emperor Henry II of Germany expels Jews from Mainz, the beginning of
persecutions against Jews in Germany.

1096 A.D.
First Crusade. Crusaders massacre the Jews of the Rhineland.

1144 A.D.
First recorded blood libel. In Norwich it was alleged that the Jews had
"bought a Christian child before Easter, tortured him with all the tortures
wherewith our Lord was tortured and on Friday hanged him on a rood in hatred
of our Lord." (England)
This notorious allegation that Jews murder non-Jews, especially Christians,
in order to obtain blood for the Passover or other rituals is a complex of
deliberate lies, trumped up accusations, and popular beliefs about the
murder-lust of the Jews and their blood-thirstiness, based on the conception
that Jews hate Christianity and mankind in general. It is combined with the
delusion that Jews are in some way not human and must have recourse to
special remedies and subterfuges in order to appear at least outwardly, like
other men. The blood libel led to trials and massacres of Jews. Its origin
is rooted in ancient almost primordial, concepts concerning the potency and
energies of blood. It is one of the most terrible expressions of human
cruelty and credulity. These blood rituals are expressly forbidden in
Judaism. (See Leviticus 17;11 etc.)

1190 A.D.
Massacre of Jews in England.

1215 A.D.
The Jewish badge introduced.

1240 A.D.
Talmud burned in France.

1290 A.D.
Jews expelled from England.

1298 A.D.
Massacre of thousands in Germany, in 146 localities.

1306 A.D.
Expulsion from France.

1348 A.D.
JEWS blamed for the BLACK DEATH. Charge laid to the Jews that they POISONED
the wells to kill CHRISTIANS.

1389 A.D.
MASSACRES in Bohemia, Spain.

1421 A.D.
270 JEWS BURNED AT THE STAKE. In the 14th and 15th centuries the Inquisition
was more intense because the Church and State joined forces. Just being
Jewish guaranteed persecution

1480 A.D.
Inquisition in Spain - Jews and Christians burned at the stake.

1483 A.D.
EXPULSIONS from Warsaw, Sicily, Lithuania, Portugal.

1492 A.D.
ALL JEWS EXPELLED FROM SPAIN.

1506 A.D.
Murders in Lisbon - 4000, "conversos", men, women, and children thrown from
windows to street mobs below, due to preaching by Dominicans against the
Jews.

1510 A.D.
EXPELLED from Brandenburg, Germany.

1516 A.D.
Venice initiates the ghetto, the first in Christian Europe.

1544 A.D.
The Reformation. At the end of Martin Luther's life the German reformer
vilified the Jews in violent pamphlets which could not fail to exert their
influence. But because Calvinists were steeped in Old Testament theology,
the Dutch people respected the Jews as "the Chosen" people; and were not
anti-Semitic in their faith. The reformation was a time of turmoil as the
Roman Church and feudalism lost their supremacy. There was a rising up of
Nationhood and Luther was a German nationalist. The Talmud was seized and
burned everywhere by Papal authority. Jews in Catholic countries and Polish
Jews suffered greatly. Luther's anti-Semitic writings were later used in
anti-Semitic literature.

1553 A.D.
Rome seized and burned the Talmud by order of the POPE.

1559 A.D.
12,000 copies of Talmud burned in Milan.

1569 A.D.
POPE PIUS V ordered all Jews out of the Papal states.

1593 A.D.
EXPULSIONS from Italy and Bavaria.

1598 A.D.
Ritual murder charge that sent three Jews to their deaths. Execution of the
supposed guilty was done by QUARTERING. (In his book the "Birth of the
Prison" Michel Foucault describes at length the quartering of a condemned
man in 1757. It was done eventually by six horses instead of the four
original ones and other means had to come in to play due to the failure even
of six horses as the prisoners limbs were tied to ropes harnessed to the
horses. Each horse pulled in a different direction. One horse fell to the
ground unsuccessfully. Knives had to be used for severing...)

1614 A.D.
JEWS attacked and driven out of Frankfurt, Germany.

1624 A.D.
GHETTO established in Ferrara, Italy.

1648 A.D.
Leader of the Cossacks, in the Ukraine massacres 100,000 Jews and destroyed
300 communities.

1655 A.D.
Massacres of Jews in war against Sweden & Russia by Poland.

1715 A.D.
POPE PIUS VI issues edict against Jews.

1768 A.D.
20,000 Jews in Poland killed.

1805 A.D.
MASSACRE of Jews in Algeria.

1840 A.D.
BLOOD LIBEL in DAMASCUS.

1853 A.D.
BLOOD LIBEL in RUSSIA.

1858 A.D.
THE MORTARA CASE: Catholics abduct a 7 yr. old Jewish child. A Catholic
servant baptized a Jewish child when the child was seriously ill and the
church of Rome seized the child. Outcry had no effect on the POPE.

1879 A.D.
Word anti-Semitism comes into existence.

1881 A.D.
POGROMS BEGAN. The word is of Russian origin. It designates attack,
accompanied by destruction, looting of property, murder, rape. There were
three major outbreaks in Russia. The word designates more particularly the
attacks carried out by the Christian population. Each pogrom surpassed the
other in savagery.
KIEV, ODESSA; Here murder of whole families was a common occurrence. Partial
data are available for 530 communities in which 887 major pogroms and 349
minor pogroms occurred. There were 60,000 dead and several times that many
were wounded.

1882 A.D.
FIRST ANTI-JEWISH CONGRESS HELD. In Dresden, Germany.

1894 A.D.
ALFRED DREYFUS TRIAL in France. Details follow further on in this summary.

1903 A.D.
APPEARANCE of a new issue of the PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION. In Russia.
This spectre of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy aiming at reducing the
Gentiles to slavery or extermination loomed up in the medieval Christian
imagination and grew out of legends about well poisonings and plague
spreading. It was concocted in Paris by an unknown author working for the
Russian secret police. It was an alleged conference of the leaders of World
Jewry. It was translated into all the world languages. In 1963 a Spanish
edition was published. During World War II, the Protocols of the elders of
Zion became an implicit justification for the GENOCIDE of the Jews and Nazi
propaganda relied on them until the last days of the Third Reich. Smaller
pamphlets of it have been distributed in B.C. 1983 published in
California... Required reading in most Arab countries, in schools, to this
day.

1905 A.D.
Russian pogroms continue. Also in Morocco, Ukraine, 300 dead.

1919 A.D.
3000 Jews killed in Hungarian pogroms.

1920 A.D.
Appearance of ADOLPH HITLER. Also Henry Ford the 1st believes the Protocols;
and publishes anti-Jewish articles in his newspaper, the Dearborn
Independent.

1925 A.D.
MEIN KAMPH appears. Hitler's Plan published in Germany.

1933 A.D.
HITLER appointed chancellor in Germany.

1935 A.D.
Hitler writes his Nuremberg Laws which lead to his Final Solution.

1938 A.D.
Burning in AUSTRIA & GERMANY of Synagogues. Jews sent to concentration
camps. Beginnings of the Holocaust.

1939 A.D.
Germany overruns Poland.

1940 A.D.
Gassing, shootings in Polish Ghettos (Jewish).

1941 A.D.
EXPULSION of Jews from the German Reich to Poland. Riots against Jews in
Iraq.

1942 A.D.
Mass transports of Jews to Belgium & Holland.

1944 A.D.
EXTERMINATION OF HUNGARIAN JEWS.

1945 A.D.
HOLOCAUST Final Count: 6,000,000 Jews slaughtered.

1946 A.D.
Pogroms in Poland - 42 Jews murdered.

1948 A.D.
BIRTH OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL. Also Jewish intellectuals shot in Russia.

1952 A.D.
Jews murdered byCommunists, and others disappear. Prague trials. Murder of
Yiddish intellectuals in Russia and many sent to work camps..

1956 A.D.
Jews expelled out of EGYPT.

1967 A.D.
SIX DAY WAR. Also new publication of Elders of Zion in Arabic.

1968 A.D.
Emigration of last remaining Jews in Poland.

1969 A.D.
JEWS EXECUTED IN IRAQ.

1970 A.D.
Beginning of imprisonment in Russia of PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE.
("Refuseniks")

1980 A.D.
Russian imprisonments carry on throughout the 70's to the 80's.

1982 A.D.
War in Lebanon begins after many years of terrorist attacks against the Jews
in the Upper Galilee area from the vantage point of Beaufort Castle. Many
Lebanese killed over long period of time, but was ignored by the News Media.
War in Lebanon gets slanted coverage.

1983 A.D.
Word from Christians in Israel that the PLO planned their next battleground
to be Canada via Quebec. Documented proof that Russia planned in 1982 to
attack Israel.

CONCLUSION:
The above catalogue is only the tip of the iceberg! One would think that
anti-Jewish atrocities would have ended with the nightmare of the Holocaust.
One-third of the world's Jews were murdered by an ungodly German conspiracy
that had accused the Jews of "conspiracy". It is not often emphasized that
two-thirds of the world's Jews survived; and that due to the faithfulness of
their G-d. God has again, as in times past, protected them from total
extermination, as He promised. (the Book of Esther, and Jeremiah 31:35-37)
The Holocaust was the final catalyst which led to the re-creation of the
State of Israel in 1948. But we have to go back at the very least to the
DREYFUS CASE to understand the long range process.

Alfred Dreyfus was the son of a wealthy Alsatian family in France. He
entered the French Army in 1892 and became a Captain, and the only Jew. He
was framed by a fellow officer for allegedly giving secrets to the enemy,
arrested and tried for treason. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Eventually Emile Zola took up the fight proclaiming the man's innocence and
published an open letter to the President of France titled "I ACCUSE."
Dreyfus was eventually declared unjustly convicted by the Parliament of
France. The injustice was totally motivated by Jew-hatred.

During the course of the trumped-up trial a Jewish journalist became
involved; and he was the man that was to lead the Jews back to their Land.
His name was THEODORE HERZL (1860 - 1904 A.D.) and he called European Jewry
together in Basle, Switzerland in 1897 at the now famous "First World
Zionist Congress". There in 1897 he publicly predicted to friend and foe
alike that the Jews would be back in "the Land" of Palestine "within 50
years". In 1947, exactly fifty years later the United Nations passed the
"Resolution For the Partition of Palestine", which lead to the declaration
of Statehood on May 14,1948.

With the shouts of "death" to the Jews still ringing in his ears from the
Dreyfus Trial, Herzl became convinced that the only solution was the mass
exodus of the Jews from their present places of residence to a territory of
their own... So out of the suffering of the Dreyfus family came the State of
Israel. Herzl became the father of Political Zionism and founder of the
World Zionist organization.

Herzl was born in Budapest. He left a German students society in 1883 in
protest against his first encounter with anti-Semitism. He came across this
"Jewish problem" again and again in his life. Although he graduated in 1884
with a doctorate of law he left the legal profession and became a famous
writer. He wrote many literary works, some of them plays.

In 1891 he became the Paris correspondent of a Vienna newspaper. He pursued
politics and organized the first Zionist Congress is Basle in 1897. (In
1960, Israel issued a centenary stamp with a well known painting of Herzl on
the bridge at Basle.) The World Zionist organization was formed. He was
chairman and remained so for the next five congresses. He knew Great Britain
would be the deciding factor in the realization of Zionist aims. In 1917 the
Balfour Declaration became the launching-pad for the founding of the modern
Jewish state.

Herzl did not have an easy task. Even his own people were difficult on this
issue. His heart failed in 1904. He did not live to see the creation of
Israel in 1948. But in 1949 he was laid to rest, reinterred in a place that
was named in his honour Mount Herzl, in Jerusalem. A Herzl monument stands
nearby. The anniversary of his death on the 20th of Tammuz was declared a
National Memorial Day in Israel. In the April 1983 issue of the NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC, following a report on Jerusalem there is a picture that could be
titled: "The sorrow of the Jewish People". There are three young Israeli
ladies, soldiers, who happen to be very beautiful standing or kneeling at
the Herzl Tomb site where there are three new graves...the first soldiers to
die in the 1982 conflict in Lebanon.

1983 was the 50th anniversary of Hitler's rise to power; since he was made
chancellor in 1933. There was an extensive report on this subject in the
April 1983 issue of the Jerusalem Post. Their man in Bonn stated: "There has
been no substantial break with the past. Therefore West German Democracy
must continue to be subject to question by Germans more than by anyone
else." The Post also offered these words which are worth contemplating.
Perhaps you never considered this. I had not...

"The destruction that Hitler brought on his own people ranks only after the
mass murder he committed on the Jews and the destruction and death rained
upon the Soviet Union. He left Germany not only physically ruined, but
stripped of its' self respect, ashamed of its' place in human history,
uncertain of its' identity, seeking refuge in the compulsive reconstruction
of material damage."
They also mentioned...
"The war Hitler unleashed and the organized mass murder that was a central
part of his design cost the lives of 40 million human beings in Europe
alone. Among them 6,000,000 Jews - two-thirds of the Jews in Europe. More
than 6,000,000 of his own people also died and others were left hungry."
God promised Abraham: "I will bless those who bless you (and your
descendants); and I will curse those who curse you" (Genesis 12:1-3) We can
see that the Germans have paid an awful price for allowing this man to lead
them down a path contrary to Scripture, by declaring them to be a super
race. The man who wanted to obtain the whole world, gained nothing but
eternal damnation. He and those who followed him lost everything.
What about Canada?
Most of us would be quick to say that our hands are clean. A truly shocking
indictment of our role in the Holocaust can be found in the book "None is
Too Many". This title was taken from a statement made by an immigration
official when a delegation of Jews went to Ottawa in 1939 to ask: "How many
Jews will Canada take in?" The Immigration Minister answered "None is too
many".

The authors, Irving Abella and Harold Troper, published this book in 1982
and was on the Canadian Best Sellers List. They received an award early in
1983 for it. It is thoroughly researched and documented proof that our top
bureaucrat in the Immigration Department, Fred Blair, a professing
Christian, wanted no Jews in Canada and did everything he could in the way
of roadblocks to prevent it. In studying it I find I want to scream with the
agony of our shame.

MacKenzie King didn't want them. Perhaps he was too busy talking to his dead
mother and his dead dog as he gazed into his crystal ball (all told in his
published diaries). The authors record that Canada's Prime Minister thought
Hitler had a good face and that he was sweet. King was deathly afraid of
what Quebec would do if he gave in and allowed in refugees. The
French -Canadian press was very hostile to Jews (Le Devoir). There was also
a very vocal fascist Party in Quebec; headed by Adrianne Arcand.

Blair had the opportunity to rescue thousands, but wouldn't budge on his
restrictive policy. He just didn't want any Jewish immigrants.

Lester Pearson said that we didn't have a boat. Ottawa would not listen
either to the pleas of George Vanier; even though he was Canadian Ambassador
to France and was there on the scene.

Conservative Robert Manion didn't want any either. In the midst of all of
the obstruction the Toronto Globe & Mail asked at one point "Does Canada
stand for anything?" Manion wanted no Jews as long as Canadians were
unemployed. Ernest LaPointe of Quebec and the Le Devoir newspaper and
Vincent Massey of External Affairs wanted Jews kept out of Canada. Massey
was a fringe member of the Pro-German anti-Semitic Cliveden set centred
around Lord and Lady Astor in London; where Vincent was Canadian High
Commissioner.

We had one social worker on the scene and her name was Charlotte Whitton,
outspoken Mayor of Ottawa. She fiercely fought not to have Jewish children
here as she favoured British children. She led a movement to evacuate
endangered British mothers and children. The Canadian Jewish Congress saw
her as an enemy of Jewish immigration. Oscar Cohen said she "almost broke up
the inaugural meeting of the congress on Refugees by her insistent
opposition and very apparent anti-Semitism."

The saddest story I have ever read in my life is the whole chapter from the
Abella book titled "The children that never came." It takes care of any
pride we may have in being Canadians. It is documented evidence 25 pages in
length of continuous pleading on behalf of officials in places like France
and Poland to take children whose lives were in immediate danger. Blair's
hard hearted efforts lead to the declaration in the end of that chapter that
reads: "There were no more schemes to help...save the refugee children. None
were needed." By the time of the allied invasion of France in June 1944 most
of these children had been murdered. NOT ONE of them had made it to Canada!
They had been talking at times about as many as 5000.

I am happy to report that good has come out of the publishing of this book.
The authors report that Lloyd Axworthy, current Minister of Immigration,
apologized for the behaviour of predecessors and promised that it would
never happen again. But also having read some papers by these authors prior
to publication, Ron Atkey, former Conservative Minister of Immigration, took
the responsibility and opened the doors to the BOAT PEOPLE because he did
not want to be known as another Frederick Blair.

In "Bridges for Peace", the 1983 issue from Tulsa, Oklahoma we read about
the state of anti-Semitism as in this day, media coverage is slanted.

"While some would have you believe the world is becoming a better place and
anti-Semitism is on the wane, I believe that careful observation will prove
otherwise. In the last two years, we have seen a growing double standard
used by the media in reporting events concerning Israel. And as we saw this
past summer in Greece, Italy, and France, this very distorted, even false
media reporting about Israel's involvement in Lebanon resulted in attacks
against local Jewish communities solely because they were Jewish; regardless
of their affiliation with Israel. For example: In France a video tape of a
Palestinian boy holding his bleeding, dying sister was repeatedly shown as
the result of an aggressive Jewish attack on civilians in Lebanon. Local
Frenchmen, incensed by this news, staged an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish march
which culminated in the bombing of synagogues and Jewish owned businesses
killing many. It was later proven that this video tape was six years old and
showing the destruction of the Tel-Zatar refugee camp by the SYRIANS in
1976. Jews were NOT even involved but the ugly head of Anti-Semitism had
already shown itself."
AND SO IT NEVER SEEMS TO END.
But it will. One day the Bible says we shall take the hem of the Jews' skirt
and go with them to Zion because we know God is with them. Zechariah tells
us that the Lord will come and place His feet on the Mount of Olives. He
will fight for His people Israel against all the nations of the world. All
the land of Israel will dwell in safety and peace when the Messiah comes. He
will rule and reign from Jerusalem, the Son of David, sitting on David's
throne. (Read 2 Samuel 7:11-16; and Psalm 2:6-8;and 89:20-37)
Regardless of Israel's sins of the past the Lord will forgive, cleanse, and
restore (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
Christians throughout the world are awakening to a call to stand by the side
of the Jewish people. Beginning in 1979 Christians in Jerusalem rallied to
her side when the governments of the World began to pull their embassies out
of Jerusalem in fear because of the Arab oil power. The "International
Christian Embassy, Jerusalem" was established. With people like Jan Willem
Van Der Hoeven and the Comfort Zion ministry of Merv and Merla Watson, Jews
are beginning to be provoked to jealousy. They are watching Christian love
in action; and hope is being reborn when they see 5000 Christians
celebrating during the Jewish "Feast of Tabernacles", dancing with joy on
Mount Zion and supporting them in their hour of need.

If Canada's Joe Clark had kept his promise to move our embassy to Jerusalem
from Tel Aviv, he would have done better. Six months after breaking his
promise he ceased to be Prime Minister; and twelve months later he was
removed as Leader of the Progressive-Conservative Party.
Coincidence? God hears our promises; even "election promises". The Scripture
says God will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse her.
Every nation that has persecuted the Jews has, in the long run, inherited
the negative side of God's promise to Abram: "and I will curse those who
curse you (and your descendants)."

SO IN CONCLUSION:
Anti-Semitism is a venomous condition of the heart of man and not just
prejudice, hatred or discrimination. Jealousy and envy of the Jew more than
anything else seems to be the main root of this condition. It is a spiritual
problem. But Jeremiah said it best and it is truth from God's Word... "The
heart is deceitful, and desperately wicked; who can know it?".

Anti-Semitism engages man in a conduct that is: inconceivable, unbelievable,
shocking, grotesque, incomprehensible, unthinkable, inhumane and
intolerable.

"M.T.T. " <east...@hworks.com> wrote in message
news:3c2c922f...@netnews.worldnet.att.net...

[brotherjustice.com]

Brother Justice ROCKS!!!
http://www.brotherjustice.com

east...@hworks.com (M.T.T. ) wrote in message news:<3c2c9464...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>...

> 禅hou shalt not kill.' The Moabites declined the offer because they felt they could not accept
> the commandment 禅hou shalt not commit adultery.' The Ishamaelites [traditional ancestors of

> today's Arabs] refused it because they could not square their habits with the commandment,

> 禅hou shalt not steal.'" [JOSPE, p. 14]

[Emilia Wisniewska]

A sciepa wciaz patrzy jak Pyzol nadaje oszczertwa
i przekrety.

I po co ona wysyla to do "Irish culture" I JESZCZE "JEWISH CULTURE"

Czyja kultura sie ona nam tam obnosi?

Pyzol wrote:

> Anti-Semitism: ..... What Is It?

BELOW ARE PYZOL'S EXCERPTS ON THE SUBJECT OF HER EXPERTISE:

> 1483 A.D.
> EXPULSIONS from Warsaw, Sicily, Lithuania, Portugal.
>

> 1655 A.D.
> Massacres of Jews in war against Sweden & Russia by Poland.

> 1939 A.D.
> Germany overruns Poland.

Rzeczywiscie

> 1940 A.D.
> Gassing, shootings in Polish Ghettos (Jewish).

Aha!

> 1941 A.D.
> EXPULSION of Jews from the German Reich to Poland. Riots against Jews in
> Iraq.

Tez robi sens

> 1946 A.D.
> Pogroms in Poland - 42 Jews murdered.

> 1968 A.D.
> Emigration of last remaining Jews in Poland.

Tez prawda!

Zabili Pyzolowi kochanka! I to w Warszaw8ie, gdzie juz w 1483 wyrzycono
wszystkich zydow. Tylko kto:)? I jakim cudem on sie tam wciaz wkrecil do tej
Warszawy
( CZY KTOS WCIAZ UMIE TO WYJASNIC?)

> They also mentioned...
> "The war Hitler unleashed and the organized mass murder that was a central
> part of his design cost the lives of 40 million human beings in Europe
> alone.

Who are now Jewish!

> Anti-Semitism is a venomous condition of the heart of man and not just
> prejudice, hatred or discrimination.

Rzeczywiscie widac, ze nastawienie przeciw innym to nie dosc - trzeba sie
wykazac kompletnym zapalem w kierunku ukazywania innych w zlyw swietle. Kazdy
przekret dobry.

Pozniej sie bedzie Pyzol i jej podobni martwic jak to sie stalo,
ze sa ta szalenie popularni w swiecie.

> Jealousy and envy of the Jew more than
> anything else seems to be the main root of this condition. It is a spiritual
> problem.

Indeed. As set forth by Pyzol.

> But Jeremiah said it best and it is truth from God's Word... "The
> heart is deceitful, and desperately wicked; who can know it?".

Czy nasi sciepowi logicy nie mogliby sie poswiecic i wyslac swiatu
solidnie napisana informacje po angielsku o tym jak powyzsze cytaty
pozwalaja na znieksztalcanie historii i przyczyniaja sie do poczucia
izolacji u niktorych zydow, ktorzy np. uwierza Pyzolowi

[Jdr]

It's always the best when the sources are quoted and - for the rest of
public, who
hardly have heard about who's Laureen Moe - here is more news from the same
source.

http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo/summanti.html

Our Goals;
a.. Counter the increasing proliferation of destructive anti-semitism
and anti-Israel misinformation, expose the prevailing Anti-Israel bias in
mainstream media.

b.. Expose and counter Holocaust denial and revisionism.

c.. Support just Jewish causes, combat wrongful treatment of Jews and
hostility towards the modern state of Israel and its' still chosen people as
God moves to fulfil their destiny according to His covenant with them as a
people.

d.. Expand Christian-Jewish dialogue in the broadest sense in order to
improve the relationship between Christians and Jews, but also between
Church and Synagogue, emphasizing Christian repentance, the purging of
anti-Jewish attitudes and the false "Replacement" theology rampant
throughout Christian teachings.

e.. Continue and further the good work done by repentant Christian
groups in Europe resulting from the 1934 "Barmen Declaration" by the German
Evangelical "Confessing Church", the post-WW2 1980 "Declaration of the
Rheinland Synod of the German Evangelical Church", and others, whereby past
Christian attitudes and teaching were fundamentally changed in reference to
the Jewish people.

f.. Be a research source in respect to the above mentioned matters.

"Pyzol" <py...@home.com> wrote in message
news:LV1X7.1849$L4.1...@news2.calgary.shaw.ca...

> Anti-Semitism: ..... What Is It?
>
> by Laureen Moe
> SUMMARY:
> The word "anti-Semitism" is inadequate. It is a misnomer. The word was
> coined in 1879 from the Greek words "anti", meaning "against" and
"Semite",
> meaning a descendant of Shem. The word was first used by Wilhelm Marr a
> German agitator, who created it to explain the current anti-Jewish
campaigns
> in Europe. Since the Arab peoples are also Semitic people it is not the
best
> expression. Anti-Jewish, and Jew- hatred, are more descriptive. It is more
> than just prejudice. The word came into general use in the past hundred
> years and encompasses all forms of hostility manifested toward Jews
> throughout history.
>

8<<<<<<<<<

>
> The first serious manifestation of anti-Semitism was in the days of the
> Syrian, Antiochus Epiphanes in 175 B.C. Hellenistic rulers saw the
> unfriendliness of the Jews as obstacles to the cultural scene. He
undertook
> to destroy those laws of the Talmud that he regarded as unacceptable to
> humanity. To this end he desecrated their place of worship by sacrificing
a
> pig on their altar in Jerusalem, and ordered that the residual juices be
> sprinkled over the Holy Books containing these Jewish laws.
>

8<<<<<<<< friendly snip <<<<<<

8<<<<<<<< 8<<<<<<

8<<<<<<<<<<<<

> > A fundamental current of Talmudic discourse, however, is noted by
> Herman Wouk: "Talmudic
> > political judgment often shows the bitterness of a people trodden by
wave
> after wave of
> > oppressors." [WOUK, p. 201] And what of its legal and moral direction
> which shifted in
> > emphases so much over the centuries as was politically expedient? This
> from Wouk again, a
> > devout Jew: "Since the Talmud reports the sayings of hundreds of savants
> over many centuries,
> > it abounds in contradictory maxims, in conflicting metaphysical guesses,
> in baffling switches
> > from cynicism to poetry, from misanthropy to charity, from dislike of
> women to praise for them
> > .... In a word, one can say almost anything about this recording of the
> talk of wise men
> > through seven centuries, and then find a passage to support it." [WOUK,
p.
> 201]
> >

8<<<<<<<<<<

Laureen Moe
http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo/summanti.html

Our Goals;
a.. Counter the increasing proliferation of destructive anti-semitism
and anti-Israel misinformation, expose the prevailing Anti-Israel bias in
mainstream media.

b.. Expose and counter Holocaust denial and revisionism.

c.. Support just Jewish causes, combat wrongful treatment of Jews and
hostility towards the modern state of Israel and its' still chosen people as
God moves to fulfil their destiny according to His covenant with them as a
people.

d.. Expand Christian-Jewish dialogue in the broadest sense in order to
improve the relationship between Christians and Jews, but also between
Church and Synagogue, emphasizing Christian repentance, the purging of
anti-Jewish attitudes and the false "Replacement" theology rampant
throughout Christian teachings.

e.. Continue and further the good work done by repentant Christian
groups in Europe resulting from the 1934 "Barmen Declaration" by the German
Evangelical "Confessing Church", the post-WW2 1980 "Declaration of the
Rheinland Synod of the German Evangelical Church", and others, whereby past
Christian attitudes and teaching were fundamentally changed in reference to
the Jewish people.

f.. Be a research source in respect to the above mentioned matters.

[wies...@algonet.se]

Jdr wrote:
>
> It's always the best when the sources are quoted and - for the rest of
> public, who hardly have heard about who's Laureen Moe

and we do not miss her

> - here is more
> news from the same source.

> http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo/summanti.html

You idiot antisemit You are starting again..

W

[Jdr]

<wies...@algonet.se> wrote in message news:3C2CC8...@algonet.se...

... morons and fascist of any kind - like Mr KOCHANSKI -
do not need to respond....;-)

Jdr

[wies...@algonet.se]

Jdr wrote:

> ... morons and fascist of any kind - like Mr KOCHANSKI -
> do not need to respond....;-)

Fasicist and antysemit is you
not only this but as usual in those
cases - stupid as the iron.

W.

[Susan Cohen]

"M.T.T." wrote:

> 2
> THE CAUSES OF HOSTILITY TOWARDS JEWS: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
>
>
>
> "Reason and documentation ... attest to the fact that anti-Jewish
> hostility has not been (and is not) constant and ubiquitous. If it
> had been, the conclusion is obvious: Jews could not have survived individually or
> collectively, religiously or ethnically."
> Alan Edelstein

This is an exaggeration. Jew-hatred *is* constant *&* ubiquitous.
Sometimes, however, it is relatively harmless.
There have always been entire groups of people ready to stand
around and shriek "KIKE!" whenever they so much as think there's
a Jew around. This is not the same as, say, laws against Judaism or
Jews. So this guy is wrong.

> "Medieval Jewry, much as it suffered from disabilities and contempt, still was a privileged
> minority in every country in which it was tolerated at all."
> Salo Baron, p. 259, 1972

Well, if this post is going to contain ridiculous statements like this
(I won't bother to call it a lie - the writer would have had to know
what he was writing was untrue & said it anyway), then the post
is obviously useless - excepot to expose the poster as someone
who likes to blame the victims.

Susan

[czeslaw mr.d.]

"Emilia Wisniewska" <art...@bellatlantic.net> wrote in message
news:3C2CE06C...@bellatlantic.net...

Polish-catholic anti-Semitism:
In F a i t h a n d F r a t r i c i d e: The Theological Roots of
Anti-Semitism (1974), the American theologian, Rosemary Redford Ruether,
correctly points out that these anti-Jewish trends were not an
accidental excess of later Christian generations. They did not derive
from later developments; they were present in the Gospels from the very
beginning. In fact, they lie at the core of the New Testament preaching.

CzD

[OpusRex]

Please, Please, Pretty Please with sugar on top... please do not post this
crap here.

Thank you :)

"M.T.T. " <east...@hworks.com> wrote in message
news:3c2c922f...@netnews.worldnet.att.net...

[czeslaw mr.d.]

"Jdr" <r...@world.com> wrote in message:

> SO IN CONCLUSION:
> Anti-Semitism is a venomous condition of the heart of man and not just
> prejudice, hatred or discrimination. Jealousy and envy of the Jew more
> than
> anything else seems to be the main root of this condition. It is a
> spiritual
> problem. But Jeremiah said it best and it is truth from God's Word...
"The
> heart is deceitful, and desperately wicked; who can know it?".
>
> Anti-Semitism engages man in a conduct that is: inconceivable,
> unbelievable,
> shocking, grotesque, incomprehensible, unthinkable, inhumane and
intolerable.

:-)))))))))))

[klaptus]

czeslaw mr.d. <..@org> wrote in message
news:fb7X7.201193$WW.11...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...

ladies and gentlemen, a smile from chester dziadul, a rampant racist, who by
his own admission, chooses his primary care physician based on his/her
ethnicity...........
>
>
>

[czeslaw mr.d.]

"OpusRex" <Azar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message:

> "M.T.T. " <east...@hworks.com> wrote in message:

To understand the anti-Semitism, you have to go to the source--the
Gospels.

The mere name "Christians" worried the Romans. Early Christianity, which
was now busily spreading itself through the Roman Empire, could not
afford to make propaganda for a Messiah who had been executed by the
Roman authorities as a political offender. Far better to present Jesus
as an innocent man persecuted and betrayed by his own compatriots and
fellow believers, a man in whom the Roman procurator found 'no guilt'
and whom his representative of Rome had even tried to set free.

And so the four Gospels--written between A.D. 70 and 95--faced a
political task: to establish better preconditions for the Church's
missionary activity. Specifically, they had to shift the burden of
responsibility for the death of Christ from the Romans to the Jews. The
Gospels carried out this assignment by means of great anti-Jewish
manipulation of history. Part of this plan was the story of the traitor
Judas, the deputy and namesake of his people. From the kiss of Judas to
Pilate's washing his hands stretches the arch of twisted truth, an arc
of centuries-long Christian guilt that began with the lie with the Jews
as the Christ-killers and that would last all the way to Auschwitz. (A n
n a l s trans. John Jackson [Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press (LCL),
1981], XV, xliv.; LCL, p.283).

CzD

[Emilia Wisniewska]

Emilia Wisniewska wrote:
>
> A sciepa wciaz patrzy jak Pyzol nadaje oszczertwa
> i przekrety.
>
> I po co ona wysyla to do "Irish culture" I JESZCZE "JEWISH CULTURE"
>
> Czyja kultura sie ona nam tam obnosi?
>
> Pyzol wrote:
>
> > Anti-Semitism: ..... What Is It?
>
> BELOW ARE PYZOL'S EXCERPTS ON THE SUBJECT OF HER EXPERTISE:
>
> > 1483 A.D.
> > EXPULSIONS from Warsaw, Sicily, Lithuania, Portugal.

Bede musial spraedzac to w wielu zrodlach. Sama nic jeszcze nie wiem na temat
Warszawy:) Co innego Pyzol.

> > 1655 A.D.
> > Massacres of Jews in war against Sweden & Russia by Poland

Itp. ppodobne przekrety, ktore pomoga innym nawiedzonym uwierzyc
jaka okropna jest ta Polska (z ktorej nb. juz raz sie sam wyniesli).

> Czy nasi sciepowi logicy nie mogliby sie poswiecic i wyslac swiatu
> solidnie napisana informacje po angielsku o tym jak powyzsze cytaty
> pozwalaja na znieksztalcanie historii

Wyglada na to ze sama bede sie musiala zabrac do tej pracy.
Kleczkowski napewno nie ma jeszcze gotowych cytatow. Inaczej juz by cos
podrzucil.

E

[Emilia Wisniewska]

Emilia Wisniewska wrote:
>
> A sciepa wciaz patrzy jak Pyzol nadaje oszczertwa
> i przekrety.
>
> I po co ona wysyla to do "Irish culture" I JESZCZE "JEWISH CULTURE"

Ba, ALTERNATIVE sie tam tez dostala, i jeszcze sie okazuje ze Pyzol
lubi REWIZJONIZM

[czeslaw mr.d.]

"klaptus" <kla...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:wp7X7.3716$5c4.4...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...

Of course...I trust Jewish physicians and besides, I want the best for
myself and my family...Why should I have inferior Polish, when I can
afford the best-Einstein's?:-)))

CzD

[OpusRex]

Awwww... Maaaannnn... I thought I said pretty please. No I am not
Anti-Semitic, I am Anti-Extremist. My step grandpapies Native American Tribe
does not even exist, why because a bunch of people used the Bible to justify
the bulldozing of teepees, murdering children and gradual encroachment
peoples home lands... hmmmm... sounds familiar here, kind of like Israel is
doing to the Palestinians. So just whose side do you think that I am going
to take on that issue???

Hey what about those Cathars, hmmm... they got even worse treatment from the
Christians. You know guy life has been very tough for the minorities through
out history, get over it.

"czeslaw mr.d." <..@org> wrote in message

news:LL7X7.201226$WW.11...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...

Of all of the briliant Jewish Philosophers, Writers, Thinkers and Scientists
that existed through out history I wish that one, just one lived durring
Biblical times.

[klaptus]

czeslaw mr.d. <..@org> wrote in message

news:Eb8X7.201255$WW.11...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...

ah, the old school, racist and proud of it, fortunately, you don't have much
time left........
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

[czeslaw mr.d.]

"klaptus" <kla...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:M09X7.3877$5c4.4...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...

A ile mam czasu, klaptusiu?
BTW, nie pien sie na reala, bo cie krew zaleje... on ma racje.

Cz:-D

[klaptus]

czeslaw mr.d. <..@org> wrote in message

news:Qd9X7.201348$WW.11...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...

im mniej, tym lepiej,
wnioskujac po demonstrowanym stanie chestera umyslu, naprawde
niewiele.........

> BTW, nie pien sie na reala, bo cie krew zaleje... on ma racje.
>
> Cz:-D

mmmm, powiedzmy realo wlasnie mial okazje przekonac innych co do swojej
"racji", nie wyszlo...........
chester, moje szczere opinie na temat daniela-terorysty nie sa pinieniem
sie, sa najodpowiedzniejsza forma komunikowania sie z nim, czyzbys mial
jakies obiekcje ?
>
>
>

[Tavish]

Once non-Jews learn how Jews really view them and what Jewish Rabbis teach about
non-Jews and the Jewish involvement with communism it is only natural to have an
intense dislike of Jewry in general. My sig line tells a lot about you too!

Doc Tavish

---
>I ask-- why do we never see Jews criticize the communism
>which existed before Stalin took control?

"Because there was very little to criticize."
Susan Cohen - January 24, 2001
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=&rnum=4&selm=3A6F230F.3AFF4272%40his.com

[wally]

just read the talmud to see what they are like. if a jew discloses the
secrets of the talmud he is comdemned to death because they are so
damning .
www.wcotc.com has some facts on what it says.
a jew can fuck a 3 yr old goyim girl if he likes , it is not a crime.
when the jews take over the world they will each have 3800
slaves(theyre getting close to that in israel now)
of course a jew can rape and kill goyim if he likes and his oaths to a
goyim are worthless and he must lie to us to advance jews always.
the jews are an evil force that abuse the maladjusted altruism of
nordic man .
we have a death wish, that is a trait that has made nordic man
unafriad and willing to follow orders. however it did not evolve to
allow nordics to be destroyed by pseudo-semites.

Tavish <t-a--v-i...@i-x.n-e-t-co--m.co--mRemoveHyphens2Mail> wrote in message news:<7pnq2us21cbfgvke0...@4ax.com>...

[wally]

most of the brilliant jews were only possible because of the wealth
accumulated by their ancestors at the expense of the goyim.jews donot
do so well in israel as they are forbidden from charging interest on
each other.
we should learn from the jews and not be exploitedby them.
it is weakness in white man that makes us the prey of parasites.
judaism should be banned along with other secret societies.
judaism is basically a secret society which you are born into.
it is also a very hateful creed.

"OpusRex" <Azar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<w%7X7.24246$%u.99...@typhoon.austin.rr.com>...

[Harry Merrick]

wally wrote:

> most of the brilliant jews were only possible because of the wealth
> accumulated by their ancestors at the expense of the goyim.

What ever has wealth got to do with IQ? - Brilliance goes hand in hand with IQ. Are you saying that to do
well in life you have to have money?? - I don't think so!

> jews donot
> do so well in israel as they are forbidden from charging interest on
> each other.

You don't know that! :-))

>
> we should learn from the jews and not be exploitedby them.

I agree fully here, apart from the exploitation bit. Since when were *you* exploited by Jews?

>
> it is weakness in white man that makes us the prey of parasites.

How so? Blacks and Coloured's are also equally exploited, See Hitler/German Nation, and lately,
Taliban/Afghan Nation. Just two easy examples.

>
> judaism should be banned along with other secret societies.

No, it is not a secret society. And even if it were, why should it be banned? - I think you are mixed up
over élitism, are you not?

>
> judaism is basically a secret society which you are born into.

LOL! So is Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Church of Ireland
.........!

>
> it is also a very hateful creed.

No more so than any of the others cited above, not mentioning the many hundreds of other examples available!

Actually, in many ways I am sure that the Jews have got it right. Jesus was not the Son of God at all, just
a very energetic minor Prophet at the time, who used his opportunities to best advantage. If we were not all
so well educated today, why, even Ian Paisley might by now be being proclaimed as the Son of God!!! - ROTFL!
- (God forbid!!).

Harry Merrick.

[SilentOtto]

On 29 Dec 2001 04:30:29 -0800, irelan...@yahoogroups.com (wally)
wrote:

>most of the brilliant jews were only possible because of the wealth
>accumulated by their ancestors at the expense of the goyim.jews donot
>do so well in israel as they are forbidden from charging interest on
>each other.
>we should learn from the jews and not be exploitedby them.
>it is weakness in white man that makes us the prey of parasites.
>judaism should be banned along with other secret societies.
>judaism is basically a secret society which you are born into.
>it is also a very hateful creed.

One thing is for sure. Nobody spent any money educating you.

[wies...@algonet.se]

wally wrote:
>
> just read the talmud to see what they are like. if a jew discloses the
> secrets of the talmud he is comdemned to death because they are so
> damning .
> www.wcotc.com has some facts on what it says.

And wcotc.com is a source of this kind informations..::)

Administrative Contact:
n/a
Victor White
PO Box 25
New York, NY 10025
US
Phone: (555)555-5555
Email: creat...@hushmail.com

....:))

W.

[wies...@algonet.se]

wally wrote:
>
> most of the brilliant jews were only possible because of the wealth
> accumulated by their ancestors at the expense of the goyim.jews donot
> do so well in israel as they are forbidden from charging interest on
> each other.

........:)) how old you are...:))

W.

[Joe Bruno]

irelan...@yahoogroups.com (wally) wrote in message news:<914462ca.01122...@posting.google.com>...

I think it is significant that those who are hostile to Jews are
usually also hostile to Blacks and other racial minorities. That
observation would lead one to conclude that Jews are not doing
anything special to create hostility.

Joe Bruno

[OpusRex]

Hmmm... first off wally, I think that you are a shill. Meaning that you come
on to Newsgroups like this and play the Bad Evil Neo-Nazi, then you make
lame arguments and use flawed judgment. Of course on the other side is the
Good Kind Hate Fighting "whom ever", that is Grammatically Correct and uses
reasonable logic. With the net effect of "whom ever" being the winning
side, we are all supposed to then join whom ever in battling the well hidden
neo-nazi's (in reality moderates) that make reasonable demands and well
thought out arguments. I am not interested in this silly little game.

"wally" <irelan...@yahoogroups.com> wrote in message
news:914462ca.01122...@posting.google.com...

[czeslaw mr.d.]

"Harry Merrick" <merr...@agencies.dnet.co.uk> wrote in message

> Actually, in many ways I am sure that the Jews have got it right.
Jesus was not the Son of God at all, just
> a very energetic minor Prophet at the time, who used his opportunities
to best advantage. If we were not all
> so well educated today, why, even Ian Paisley might by now be being
proclaimed as the Son of God!!! - ROTFL!
> - (God forbid!!).
>
> Harry Merrick.
>

I think you've got right, especially about Jesus. True, he was not a
messiah and didn't want to be. He only wanted to be a rabbi in
Jerusalem.

At the time, many Jews, including some of his disciples, would have
liked him to Messiah. And his expectation that people had of him must
have been the reason why he was executed. But then the problem arose for
Christians that a crucified messiah is the opposite of a victorious
messiah, which is what the Messiah was supposed to be. They then tried
to solve his problem with their unspeakable theory of substitutionary
atonement-- in other words that God sacrificed his son for us and other
such barbaric horrors.

CzD
PS.Ian Paisley, indeed fits better the ancient concept of messianic
priestly or military lords, tan Jesus- teacher of 'The lame, crippled,
the lame, and the deaf".

[Richard Phillips]

Joe Bruno wrote:

=====================================
Phillips

WHY would it lead to such a conclusion -- that Jews are not doing
anything special to create hostility? It strikes me as entirely possible that people might detest Jews for one set of reasons and detest
blacks for a different though related set of reasons.

The black people are a dire threat to us for four reasons:

--Their very large numbers - something like 1 in 8 of the general population
--Their very strong propensity for violence
--THe fact that they are not as highly evolved in those mental faculties needed to earn a good salary today
--The fact that --thanks to post Civil War madness-- they posses full citizenship rights.

The Jews are to be damned because, more than any other group, they have actively promulgated the insanity that it is possible for whites and
blacks to live together on a basis of full political, social, and economic equality. The Jews might possibly be forgiven if they actually
believed this bilge, but they don't. They know exactly what they are doing. Their object is to destroy America's sense of itself, its sense of
who and what it is.
=================================================================

[Jeffrey G. Brown]

In article <3C2DE48F...@earthlink.net>, Richard G. 'Thank God for those
murders' Phillips <rgp...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> THe fact that they are not as highly evolved in those mental faculties
> needed to earn a good salary today

Coming from a senile bigot that actually believes that it can give two mutually
exclusive accounts of its financial history and retain its credibility, that's a
real knee-slapper...

JGB

---------

Richard "Thank God for those murders" Phillips expresses his condolences to the
World Trade Center victims:

"As for your priceless World Trade Center... my only regret
is that they didn't demolish the obscenities totally by
crashing into them at a much lower point."

-- From: "Richard G. Phillips" <rgp...@earthlink.net>
-- Subject: Re: Regarding Tuesday's terrorist attack
-- Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 14:56:37 GMT
-- Message-ID: <3BA0C85C...@earthlink.net>

=====================================================================
Jeffrey G. Brown jeffre...@mailandnews.com
For centuries, philosophers and theologians have debated what it means
to be human. Perhaps the answer has eluded us because it is so simple.
To be human is to choose. - "The Outer Limits: Feasibility Study", 1997

[OpusRex]

"czeslaw mr.d." <..@org> wrote in message
news:LL7X7.201226$WW.11...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...

The root problem was political, during the time of Constantine the Great
(whom by all accounts was not even a Christian himself). There were
essentially three Persian religions all trying to gain supremacy with in the
Empire; Marathas, Manicheans and Christianity. This was causing dissension
and infighting in the various parts of the Empire, the logic was to
universalize the religions of the Empire and gain a unity amongst the
various regions (big mistake). Obviously the first two had Persian Prophets
and simply would not work, mainly because Persia was a major threat to Rome.
Christianity had an immense advantage in that Jesus was Jewish and Jews were
not a superpower at that time.

The Dichotomy was that in order for Christianity to be true, Jews had to
exist. Furthermore the Jews where Gods Chosen. This is in direct conflict
with a Roman Supremacy over the people. The first thing that Constantine
did after he converted to "Christianity" was to kill all of the Jews on the
Iberian Peninsula (regardless of religion) to eliminate the threat to the
Roman Nobles control of the Empire. From there I will agree with your
conclusions.

We have to remember that until the time shortly after Constantine, there was
no Universally accepted Bible or Scriptures amongst the Christians. Most
Christians rejected the Old Testament, however issues like the Divine Right
could not be justified by the New Testament alone. From there the Roman
Nobles set about establishing a universal Doctrine that would ensure Roman
Nobles position for a long time to come.
>
>

[Joe Bruno]

Richard Phillips <rgp...@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<3C2DE48F...@earthlink.net>...

>>Really? Let's test this idea against reality. I know two Black
physicians and several Black lawyers. My old department head, a Black
Man, earned a salary of over $100,000. My old boss, a Black Woman,
pulled down around $75,000 a year. Tell us what advanced degrees you
have earned and how much you make annually.

> --The fact that --thanks to post Civil War madness-- they posses full citizenship rights.
>
> The Jews are to be damned because, more than any other group, they have actively promulgated the insanity that it is possible for whites and
> blacks to live together on a basis of full political, social, and economic equality.

>>"More than any other group?" You've got to be kidding. Social
Liberals count some Jews in their ranks, but far from the majority.
Judaism's tiny numbers make it almost impossible for them to dominate
any school of thought here in America, where majority rules.Jews make
up about 3% of the USA. Blacks are at 15%. Hispanics are at 14%.You
are so squirrelly, Richard, that you actually believe that a handful
of Jews can outvote two groups whose numbers are each 5 times as large
as theirs and that they can dominate the Christian Whites who have 20
times their number.

The Jews might possibly be forgiven if they actually
> believed this bilge, but they don't.

>>Really? Have they told you this? Do you have a crystal ball that can
read their minds? I believe what you call "bilge" wholeheartedly and I
am not known as someone who hides his true feelings.

They know exactly what they are doing. Their object is to destroy
America's sense of itself, its sense of
> who and what it is.

>>Please give us the details of your military service so we can
evaluate your patriotism-you already know mine.

Joe Bruno

=================================================================

[Brian Blank]

On 29 Dec 2001 04:00:26 -0800, irelan...@yahoogroups.com (wally)
wrote:

>just read the talmud to see what they are like. if a jew discloses the
>secrets of the talmud he is comdemned to death because they are so
>damning .

Which is why you can buy copies of the Talmud at bookstores. You can
also obtain copies at decent public libraries.

Still, I don't suppose you know what bookstores or libraries are.

>www.wcotc.com has some facts on what it says.

Facts? Let's see.

> a jew can fuck a 3 yr old goyim girl if he likes , it is not a crime.

Funny how you can't produce a quote that says that.

>when the jews take over the world they will each have 3800
>slaves(theyre getting close to that in israel now)

Here we have the complete answer to your problem. You are simply
another bigot with the intellect of a drunken baboon.

Assuming a Jewish population of about 4,000,000 in Israel and you
saying that they are now close to this crazy figure of 3,800 slaves
each (let's say 3,000 for simplicity) that would mean that there are
12,000,000,000 slaves in Israel.

>of course a jew can rape and kill goyim if he likes and his oaths to a
>goyim are worthless and he must lie to us to advance jews always.
>the jews are an evil force that abuse the maladjusted altruism of
>nordic man .

And this claim of yours is more credible than that of Israel having
enslaved over twice the entire world's population, because of what
exactly? Oh yes, because you are a certifiable, bigoted lunatic.

>we have a death wish, that is a trait that has made nordic man
>unafriad and willing to follow orders. however it did not evolve to
>allow nordics to be destroyed by pseudo-semites.

Nordics?

Thanks for proving that you are a Wally, Wally.

Regards,

Brian Blank

[Emilia Wisniewska]

Nadaje wciaz dziewczyna. E

[czeslaw mr.d.]

"OpusRex" <Azar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:JBmX7.4022$4d.3...@typhoon.austin.rr.com...

You'd have to provide proof for this accusatory statement.
Remember the so-called Donation of Constantine. In it Emperor
Constantine (d. 337) showed great generosity toward the Church:
Constantine, the absolute monarch gave the pope all of the western Roman
Empier; and the popes became the successors of the Roman emperors in
the West. Constantine himselsf was content with the East.
Yet it was all a swindle, a handmade-homemade inside job, an
acclesiastical forgery.

So, please tell me whjo kill all the Jews on the Iberian Peninsula?
Think again? Wasnn'it the Church?

> We have to remember that until the time shortly after Constantine,
there was
> no Universally accepted Bible or Scriptures amongst the Christians.
Most
> Christians rejected the Old Testament, however issues like the Divine
Right
> could not be justified by the New Testament alone. From there the
Roman
> Nobles set about establishing a universal Doctrine that would ensure
Roman
> Nobles position for a long time to come.

What you said all may be correct, but the events you're describing, are
taking place approximately 250 years after the events I've described,
when
during the period of Jesus' life the whole country also was a political
powder keg. Piches Lapide says that from the time of the Maccabees (ca.
165 B.C.) to the Bar Kochba uprising (A.D. 132-35) the Jews fought
sixty-two wars of independance, and sixty-one of them began in Galilea
(Er. predigte in ihren Dynagogen [1987], p. 39).
In those days, after an uprising was crushed, thousands of rebels would
be executed the Roman style - crucified. The Zealots who refused to pay
taxes and fought in the resistance were religious freedom fighters in
their own eyes, although the Roman occupying forces (and Josephus)
disparagingly called them the robbers. (Familiar?)

As to the Bible, the canon was not definitely fixed by Jewish scholars
until A.D. 90 after centuries of controversy. Incidentally, Daniel is
the last book in the Bible (of Old Testament) only for Jews and
Protestants. For Catholics that would be the Wisdom of Solomon, which
was composed sometime between 80 and 30 B.C. The Catholic canon of the
Old Testament adds seven more books, some of which were written after
the book of Daniel. Unlike Jews or Protestants, Catholic follow not the
first or Hebrew canon, but the second, the Greek or Alexandrian canon.

CzD

[Susan Cohen]

wally wrote:

> just read the talmud to see what they are like.

Yes, please, do so!

http://www.geocities.com:80/Athens/Cyprus/8815/index.html

&

http://www.aish.com/seminars/whythejews/

[Susan Cohen]

Tavish wrote:

> On Fri, 28 Dec 2001 16:41:20 -0500, <3C2CE6FF...@hers.com> Susan Cohen
> <fla...@hers.com> wrote:
>
> >"M.T.T." wrote:
> >

[snip one other stupid quote]

>
> >> "Medieval Jewry, much as it suffered from disabilities and contempt, still
> >> was a privileged minority in every country in which it was tolerated at all."
> >> Salo Baron, p. 259, 1972
> :
> >Well, if this post is going to contain ridiculous statements like this
> >(I won't bother to call it a lie - the writer would have had to know
> >what he was writing was untrue & said it anyway), then the post
> >is obviously useless - excepot to expose the poster as someone
> >who likes to blame the victims.
> >
> >Susan
>
> Once non-Jews learn how Jews really view them and what Jewish Rabbis

As opposed to those non-Jewish rabbis....

> teach about
> non-Jews and the Jewish involvement with communism

Which you, & other bigots like you, have not once chronicled correctly

> it is only natural to have an intense dislike of Jewry in general.

As always, I WANT people to read whatthe Talmud has to say, and
to learn the truth about why there are those who insist on hating Jews.

http://www.geocities.com:80/Athens/Cyprus/8815/index.html

&

http://www.aish.com/seminars/whythejews/

> My sig line tells a lot about you too!

Yes, it tells everyone that I am a good deal smarter than you,
about communism as well as just about anything else.

> Doc Tavish - Scotty Bradbury, lying loser at
> large.

[Susan Cohen]

Richard Phillips wrote:

> Joe Bruno wrote:
> >
> > I think it is significant that those who are hostile to Jews are
> > usually also hostile to Blacks and other racial minorities. That
> > observation would lead one to conclude that Jews are not doing
> > anything special to create hostility.
> >
> > Joe Bruno
>
> =====================================
> Phillips
>
> WHY would it lead to such a conclusion -- that Jews are not doing
> anything special to create hostility?

Because it would have to.

http://www.geocities.com:80/Athens/Cyprus/8815/index.html

&

http://www.aish.com/seminars/whythejews/

[snip lies about "black" people]

[Susan Cohen]

SilentOtto wrote:

> On 29 Dec 2001 04:30:29 -0800, irelan...@yahoogroups.com (wally)
> wrote:
>
> >most of the brilliant jews were only possible because of the wealth
> >accumulated by their ancestors at the expense of the goyim.jews donot
> >do so well in israel as they are forbidden from charging interest on
> >each other.
> >we should learn from the jews and not be exploitedby them.
> >it is weakness in white man that makes us the prey of parasites.
> >judaism should be banned along with other secret societies.
> >judaism is basically a secret society which you are born into.
> >it is also a very hateful creed.
>
> One thing is for sure. Nobody spent any money educating you.

Now, that's not necessarily true. Some people are *agressively*
ignorant, and money won't solve that. Only the truth.

http://www.geocities.com:80/Athens/Cyprus/8815/index.html

&

http://www.aish.com/seminars/whythejews/

Susan

[Anonymous]

... blah, blah, blah, ...

> do not merge with the nations or convert them. They are, said Balaam,
> in Numbers 23:9, a people destined to live alone. Although Jewish ideas
> are universalistic, [?] traditional Jews see themselves in exclusionist
> terms, a self-perception that has caused endless confusion and

...

The fact that you considered Balaam to be such an esteemed figure seem
to show where your sympathies lie.

This set of postings has a lot of viable bits of information on
various sets of historical phenomenon, and has an array of historical
facts worth reviewing if one has the time.

Nonetheless, it still has a basic intrinsic defect. Like a wide array
of infinitely wordy, and yet propogandistic tracts that you see these
days, it starts with an initial precept (with this post set, that the
Jews are evil), and then sets forth an infinite array of facts related
to the subject, but in an imbalanced fashion, with distortions and
perjoritives on one side, and minimisations of the counterbalancing
destruction that had been faced on the opposite side.

The slavery under the Egyptian Empire, the persecutions and warfare by
Antiochus Epiphanes, and later the Romans with the dispersion and the
Bar Cocheba revolts are glossed over at best. The idea of trying to
extend some of the virtues of Judiasm throughout the world as a
universal concept through Christianity and Muhhumadism is forgotten.
More modern times are portrayed in a similar unbalanced fashion.

It seems a shame that someone who would spend all of the time to
collect all of these historical facts would stoop to quazi-Neo-NAZI
propogandising.

Nonetheless, even though that may be the case, I must admit that there
are a vast array of books on many, many, subjects that are much, much,
... ... , much, much, longer than these set of posts, all with the
same basic defects.

They start with an initially flawed premise. They produce an infinite
amount of facts in an unbalanced way in order to erroneously 'prove'
their flawed premise. Nonetheless, in the end, the flawed premise
itself is never debated or questioned throughout the vast number of
pages written, thus, in the end, an erroneous 'proof' is presented in
the end that has no real value.

This is not solely the product of the vast amount of items that the
printing press can put forth or the information that can be made
available through T.V. and the radio. This form of 'assumed premise'
that is never debated, type of logic, at times also extends to human
speech and mannerisms in an abbreviated form.

I do not think that the Jews are evil. I would guess that there are
some problems nowadays with respect to the Jewish people and the
Moslem people who are in Palestine, from what I sometimes hear on the
radio every now and then about the subject.

You may disagree with this. I will simply leave it at that.

[czeslaw mr.d.]

spelling correction...

"czeslaw mr.d." <..@org> wrote in message

news:xOxX7.315340$W8.11...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...

> Empire; and the popes became the successors of the Roman emperors in
> the West. Constantine himself was content with the East.

> Yet it was all a swindle, a handmade-homemade inside job, an

> ecclesiastical forgery.
>
> So, please tell me who kill all the Jews on the Iberian Peninsula?
> Think again? Wasn't the Church?

>
> > We have to remember that until the time shortly after Constantine,
> there was
> > no Universally accepted Bible or Scriptures amongst the Christians.
> Most
> > Christians rejected the Old Testament, however issues like the
Divine
> Right
> > could not be justified by the New Testament alone. From there the
> Roman
> > Nobles set about establishing a universal Doctrine that would ensure
> Roman
> > Nobles position for a long time to come.
>
> What you said all may be correct, but the events you're describing,
are
> taking place approximately 250 years after the events I've described,
> when
> during the period of Jesus' life the whole country also was a
political

> powder keg. Pinches Lapide says that from the time of the Maccabees

(ca.
> 165 B.C.) to the Bar Kochba uprising (A.D. 132-35) the Jews fought

> sixty-two wars of independence, and sixty-one of them began in Galilee

[wally]

listen , are all the palestinians neo-nazis?
no.
either you are on the side of truth , or you are on the side of the
jews.
some jews are on the side of truth but most are not and are the
enemies of civilisation.
devoid of their global power im sure the jews would be as harmless as
the mongolian herders who once genocided the indo-european homelands
are today.
any group who opposes free speech is the enemy of all men and women of
integrity.
www.jewwatch.com for the facts as you wont see on talmud vision.

Susan Cohen <fla...@hers.com> wrote in message news:<3C2EC235...@hers.com>...

[wally]

www.jewwatch.com
have you no shame for your evil tribe ?
arthur koestler did and denounced them.
so did benjamin freedman , and he was a really powerful man .
jewish leaders have created antiseitism throughout history as a mean
of keeping the group together.
every country in europe expelled you, dosent that start to ring some
bells?
drop the mad hatred and will to power because now that you have global
power you only destroy .
why cant we have culture on television instead of jewish braindead
shit?
www.stormfront.com/whitehistory to contrast the great aryan race to
semitic shit and lies.

Susan Cohen <fla...@hers.com> wrote in message news:<3C2EC1FB...@hers.com>...

[wally]

have a look at the talmud , if you can get a copy .
martin luther read it and immediately denounced the jews.
judaism is just a tribal hate cult .
non jews are 'goyim' cattle , and we have no souls and it isnt a sin
for a yid to kill us. the laws in israel reflect this . jews can rape
non-jewish women and it isnt a crime there.
they have always had a fanciful imagination about genocides and give
delightful accounts of ones practiced by themselves.
we are living in the middle of a jewish genocide as they turn our mass
media against us , and malignly encourage us to accept subhumans from
the turd-world

they make the nazis and stalin look like boy scouts with their
intolerence, but they force us to be 'tolerent' and waste resources on
subhumans and they brainwash our white women into not having kids.
they control global banking and we all pay taxes to them effectively.
have a look at david dukes site , he talks sense.

Brian Blank <nota...@earthlink.spamblocker.net> wrote in message news:<8gus2ukdeo050bbu4...@4ax.com>...

[Patricia Heil]

The cause of hostility toward Jews is people who hate.
Don't blame the victim.

"M.T.T." wrote:
>
> 2
> THE CAUSES OF HOSTILITY TOWARDS JEWS: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
>
>
>
> "Reason and documentation ... attest to the fact that anti-Jewish
> hostility has not been (and is not) constant and ubiquitous. If it
> had been, the conclusion is obvious: Jews could not have survived individually or
> collectively, religiously or ethnically."
> Alan Edelstein
>
>

> "Medieval Jewry, much as it suffered from disabilities and contempt, still was a privileged
> minority in every country in which it was tolerated at all."
> Salo Baron, p. 259, 1972
>

> "If Judaism is fundamentally altruistic in an evolutionarily meaningful sense, it would be
> expected that Jews [through history] would characteristically engage in self-sacrificing
> behavior on behalf of gentiles -- a thesis for which there is absolutely no evidence."
> Kevin MacDonald, p. 64
>
> "Indeed, the more religiously conservative a Jew is today, the less likely he or she is to
> identify with universalistic ideologies or with the non-Jewish 'poor and downtrodden.'"
> Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter,
> 1982,
>
> p. 112
>
> "My God," she gasped with grief. "Who died?" "Don't worry for nothing," Max assured her. "It's
> nobody.They're burying a man called Blenholt today. He's not a Jew."
> Daniel Fuchs, fiction, "Homage to
> Blenholt
> [in BERSHTEL, p.113]

>
>
> 2
> THE CAUSES OF HOSTILITY TOWARDS JEWS : A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
>
>

> In order to understand the present and prospects for the future, something must be
> understood about the past. Jews claim their origins to a seminal patriarch, Abraham, in the
> land of Ur (today part of Iraq) 4,000 years ago. Abraham was not a farmer or village member of
> a settled community. He was likely one of the "wandering" tribes of his time, a citizenship
> less, "outsider" social class known as the "Apiru," or "Habiru" (Hebrews) who were scattered
> across a wide area of the Middle East, from Syria to Egypt. [ANDERSON, p. 33] According to
> traditional Jewish religious belief, God is reputed to have singled out 75-year old Abraham
> among all people on earth and struck an arrangement with him, providing his progeny the
> consummate family inheritance: "If Abraham will follow the commandments of God, then He, in
> His turn, will make the descendants of Abraham His Chosen People and place them under His
> protection ... God at this time stipulates only one commandment, and makes only one promise."
> [DIMONT, p. 29] The initial agreement, by modern standards, seems extraordinarily peculiar.
> God's commandment was that all males by the eighth day of birth must have the foreskin of
> their penises cut off, a painfully literal branding of Jewish distinction around the male
> procreative organ:
>
> "God ... said to Abraham ... You shall circumcise the flesh of
> the foreskin and that shall be the Covenant between Me
> and you." GENESIS: 17:9-13
>
> With this physical marking, notes Barnet Litvinoff, “no male child born of Jewish
> parentage is ever allowed to forget he is a Jew ... it reminds him of the doctrine of the
> chosen people.” [LITVINOFF, p. 5] "As a sign of this sacred bond, of being special seed,
> Chosen," note Herbert Russcol and Margarlit Banai, "The Lord of the Universe commands Abraham"
> to circumcize "every man child among you." And as the Torah states it: "I will establish my
> covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting
> covenant." [RUSSCOL/BANAI, 1970, p. 173] Is this alleged commandment by God to the Abrahamic
> "seed" in Jewish tradition not racial?
>
> "Circumcision," says Lawrence Hoffman, "has thus remained the sine qua non of Jewish
> identity throughout time. Jews came to believe that it warded off danger, and even saved Jews
> from damnation, that the sign of circumcision was tantamount to carrying God's ineffable name
> carved in the flesh, that it was a means of attaining mystical unity with the creator, and
> that it brought about visionary experience." [HOFFMAN, p. 11] It also symbolized, on the male
> genitals, special attention to the genetic continuance of the progeny of Abraham, that -- if
> they obeyed the laws and demands of God -- they would someday be as "numerous as the stars."
>
> “By the very sexual act itself,” says Philip Sigal, in explaining traditional thinking,
> “the circumcized mystically transmits the covenant to the foetus.” [SIGAL, p. 20] Until the
> 20th century, it was normal that during the mezizah phase of the circumcision ritual, the
> mohel (the expert who performed the circumcision) took the infant's "circumcized member into
> his mouth and with two or three draughts sucks the blood out of the wounded part. He then
> takes a mouthful of wine from a goblet and spurts it, in two or three intervals, on the
> wound." [ROMBERG, p. 45] Today, notes Rabbi Immanuel Jacobovits, "the original method of
> sucking by mouth tends to be increasingly confined to the most orthodox circles only."
> [JACOBOVITS, p. 196]
>
> In exchange for circumcision and following God's orders, the Jews were promised the land
> of Canaan (the land mass of today's Israel, more or less), a place that was already inhabited.
> [DIMONT, p. 29] This land for circumcision exchange is the root of Jewish tradition, from
> which centuries of rules, regulations, dictates, interpretations and other additions have
> followed. God's spiritual link to Jews is understood to have originated, of all things, around
> a piece of real estate commonly understood to be part of the "Covenant,” which, says Alfred
> Jospe, “is the agreement between God and Israel by which Israel accepts the Torah [Old
> Testament] .... The concept of covenant signifies the consciousness of what the truth is.”
> [JOSPE, p. 15] “The covenant,” adds Will Herberg, “is an objective supernatural fact; it is
> God’s act of creating and maintaining Israel for his purposes in history.” [EISENSTEIN, p.
> 274]
>
> "For Israel," notes Edward Greenstein, "God's immanence found expression in the
> perception of God as a superperson." [GREENSTEIN, E., 1984, p. 89] The idea that God was some
> kind of tradesman, and that he was a distinctly dialectical Other to humanity, as a Lord,
> King, Patriarch, Commander, and even Warlord of a worldly provenance has -- with the religious
> commentaries and meta-commentaries that evolved from His commands in Judaism -- provided fuel
> for modern scholarly debate about Jewish (and linked strands of Christian) creations in the
> world of secular affairs, most particularly in their materialist, rationalist, and patriarchal
> flavors. The result, in today's Orthodox Judaism, says Evelyn Kaye, is a "community [that] has
> developed an insular, single-minded approach which is completely intolerant of any views that
> differ from its own." [KAYE, p. 23]
>
> Whatever else they believed, Jews have traditionally understood themselves to be -- by
> hereditary line -- special, intrinsically better than other people: they were divinely
> esteemed. The Old Testament stated it plainly:
>
> "For you are people consecrated to the Lord your God: of all the
> peoples on earth the Lord your God chose you to be His
> treasured people." [DEUTERONOMY 7:6]
>
> The notion that Jews -- originally defined racially as the Israelite progeny of Abraham
> (and a special lineage through his son Isaac, then Jacob, and so on) -- are the "Chosen
> People" of God is the bedrock of Jewish self-conception and it resonates deeply in some form
> to Jewish self-identity to this day. What exactly such a mantle of greatness confers has, for
> most, changed drastically over (particularly recent) centuries, and is still a delicate source
> for self-reflection and debate, ranging from traditional racist theories against non-Jews
> (still entertained by many Orthodox Jews, and most of Zionism) to more modern, liberalizing,
> and even secular notions that Jews are destined to lead humankind to some kind of redemptive
> glory.
>
> The extraordinary self-perpetuating ethnocentric premises of traditional Judaism have
> been remarked upon by many modern scholars. Likewise, they have often addressed the
> drastically different ethical and spiritual views of Judaism and Oriental religious faiths
> (such as Hinduism and Buddism). Such a gap is poignantly illustrated in this story by the
> great popular folklorist, Joseph Campbell:
>
> "A young Hindu gentleman came to see me, and a very pious
> man he proved to be: a worshipper of Vishnu, employed as a
> clerk or secretary of one of the Indian delegations at the UN.
> He had been reading the works of Heinrich Zimmer on Indian
> art, philosophy and religion, works that I had edited many years
> before, and which he wanted to discuss. But there was
> something else he wanted to talk about too.
> "You know, " he said after we had begun to feel at home
> with each other, "when I visit a foreign country I like to acquaint
> myself with its religion; so I have bought myself a Bible and for
> some months now have been reading it from the beginning; but
> you know" ... and here he paused, to regard me uncertainly, then
> said, "I can't find any religion in it!"
> ... Now I had of course been brought up on the Bible and I
> had also studied Hinduism, so I thought I might be of some
> help. " Well," I said, "I can see how that might be, if you had
> not been given to know that a reading of the imagined history of
> the Jewish race is here regarded as a religious exercise. There
> would then, I can see, be very little for you of religion in the
> greater part of the Bible."
> I thought that later I should perhaps have referred him to
> the Psalms; but when I then turned to a fresh reading of these
> with Hinduism in mind, I was glad that I had not done so; for
> almost invariably the leading theme is either the virtue of the
> singer, protected by his God, who will "smite his enemies on
> the cheek" and "break the teeth of the wicked;" or, on the other
> hand, of complaint that God has not yet given due aid to his
> righteous servant: all of which is just about diametrically opposed
> to what an instructed Hindu would have been taught to regard as
> religious sentiment.
> In the Orient the ultimate divine mystery is sought beyond
> all human categories of thought and feeling, beyond names and
> forms, and absolutely beyond any such concept as of a merciful
> or wrathful personality, chooser of one people over another,
> comforter of folk who pray, and destroyer of those who do not.
> Such anthropomorphic attributions of human sentiment is -- from
> the point of view of Indian thought -- a style of religion for
> children." [CAMPBELL, Myths, pp. 93-94]
>
> "If you will obey my voice," God tells Jews in their seminal religious text, the Torah,
> "and keep my Covenant, you shall become my own possession among all people, for all the earth
> is mine." [EXODUS 19:5] This anthropomorphized model of the Israelite God is someone
> profoundly concerned with ownership, allegiance, and control -- key values in the
> self-promotive tenets of classical Judaism and their practical application in history. After
> all, the seminal Jewish religious text -- the Torah (in Christian tradition the first five
> books of the Old Testament) -- was created as a kind of Jewish family album, an ancient
> listing of Israelite genealogies and pedigrees that codifies sacred recipes for group
> solidarity, self-aggrandizement (land conquest, et al), and self-preservation for those with
> direct ancestral linkage to Abraham.
>
> "The biblical faith [of the Old Testament]," writes scholar Bernhard Anderson, "to the
> bewilderment of many philosophers, is fundamentally historical in character. It is concerned
> with events and historical relationships, not abstract values and ideas existing in a timeless
> realm." [ANDERSON, p. 12] "The halakah [Jewish religious law] does not aspire to a heavenly
> transcendence," notes influential modern rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, "nor does it aspire to
> soar upon the wings of some abstract, mysterious spirituality. It fixes its gaze on the
> concrete, empirical reality and does not let its attention be diverted from it."
> [SOLOVEITCHIK, p. 92] "There is no Valhalla [afterlife Paradise] in Judaism," notes Chaim
> Bermant,
>
> "and no Garden of the Houris, and while there was paradise and hell, both were to
> be experienced mainly on earth ... Neither heaven with all its joys, nor hell with all
> its torments (which, as described in the Talmud, are akin to those of Tantalus)
> have a central place in the Jewish faith, Judaism is of this world and in so far
> as it believes in the Kingdom of Heaven at all it is as somethng which will become
> manifest on earth." [BERMANT, C., 1977, p. 16]
>
>
> Beyond Israelite genealogies, the Torah (the Old Testament) includes an ancient
> compilation of rules and regulations, elaborated upon in metacommentaries by later Judaic
> religious texts, especially the Talmud, which codifies correct behavior for all the minutia of
> daily living. In Jewish tradition, “the whole keynote of being,” says sociologist Talcott
> Parsons, “starting with the creation, was action, the accomplishment of things.” [PARSONS, p.
> 103] (And one of the "keys to Jewish success," says Jewish business author Steven Silbiger, is
> to "be psychologically drivent o prove something.") [SILBIGER, S., 2000, p. 9]
>
> “Judaism is not a revealed religion,” wrote the great German-Jewish philosopher Moses
> Mendelssohn, “but revealed legislation. Its first precept is not ‘thou shalt believe’ or not
> believe, but thou shalt do or abstain from doing.” [GOLDSTEIN, D., p. 43, in Jerusalem] "A
> constant motif of post-Enlightenment ethics," says rabbi Jonathan Sacks, "is the rejection of
> religious authority as an external command to which one submits. For this reason [philosopher]
> Hegel is sharply critical of the Jewish structure of law. 'Of spirit,' he writes of Judaism,
> 'nothing remained save pride in slavish obedience.' Much of Nietzsche’s work is a deepening
> set of variations on this theme. Judaism, he says, introduced 'a God who demands.' The
> autonomous self, central to modern ethics, is radically incompatible with the structures of
> Jewish spirituality, built as they are on the concept of mitzvah, command." [SACKS, J., p.
> 100-101]
>
> The all-encompassing and dictatorial manner of Jewish Orthodoxy in the Talmudic (and
> other) interpretations of the Old Testament is reflected in this observation by Gerson Cohen:
>
> "The Torah encompasses and seeks to regulate every moment of
> life ... Nothing human is beyond the scope of judgment and its
> program of prescription. It is for this reason that Torah is often
> called a way of life, for its purpose is to teach the Jew how to act,
> think, and even feel." [COHEN, in KLEINE, p. 92]
>
> The obsessive nature of even modern Jewish Orthodoxy within a tight web of restrictive
> daily dictates, and the surrender to what Israeli scholar Israel Shahak calls its innate
> "totalitarianism," [SHAHAK, p. 15] is reflected in this comment by Egon Mayer:
>
> "What are the first words that one should utter upon awakening? There
> is a rule. How many steps may one take from one's bed before washing
> at least the tips of one's fingers. There is a rule." [MAYER, Suburb]
>
> Michael Govrin notes that
>
> "A Jew is born into an already articulated biography. In the traditional
> context of Halacha -- the Jewish Law (which until two hundred years
> ago was the only way a Jews could define him or herself) -- a Jew's
> life is codified to a unique extent. From rising in the morning to the moment
> of falling asleep at night, from birth to death and burial, the myriad
> of gestures, thoughts, and intentions is pre-articulated, forming a specific
> mold into which the life is poured. The private life in a given historical
> moment is a personal variation on that generic mold; always seemingly
> only a re-enactment -- not an 'invention' -- of a preexisting role in an ongoing
> plot that started with the first Jews, and is still unfolding." [GOVRIN, M.,
> 2001]
>
>
> Charles Liebman and Steven Cohen note that the "halakaha [Jewish religious law] commands
> that before eating bread a Jew must recite a blessing, and before this blessing the hands must
> be washed and a blessing recited over the hand washing. Even the manner in which the hands are
> washed is prescribed: the kind of utensil used, the order in which the hands are washed, the
> number of times each hand is washed." [LIEBMAN/COHEN, p. 125]
>
> "It is a commonplace," adds Eunice Lipton, "that an abiding and secularized aspect of
> Jewish tradition is its valuing of sensual satisfaction. Jewish law acknowledges appetite; one
> is even is told how often one should make love ... One might say that Jewish validation of the
> senses results from the emphasis on human life in the present as opposed to any interest in
> any afterlife." [LIPTON, p. 289] Evelyn Kaye, who grew up in an Orthodox community, notes
> that "Orthodox Judaism plans to regulate every minute, every action and every thought of life
> ... [KAYE, p. 126] ... The code of Jewish law dictates a range of regulations for sexual
> intercourse, including when and where it may be experienced, as well as what to think about
> during the act." [KAYE, p. 125] "It is forbidden," says the Code of Jewish Law, "to discharge
> semen in vain. This is a graver sin than any other mentioned in the Torah ... It is equivalent
> to killing a person ... A man should be extremely careful to avoid an erection. Therefore, he
> should not sleep on his back with his face upward, or on his belly with his face downward, but
> sleep on his side, in order to avoid it." [GANZFRIED, p.17] "There are even rules," says Kaye,
> "about what you may think about while you sit on the toilet." [KAYE, p. 17]
>
> Israel Shahak underscores Orthodox Judaism's complex honing of regulations to the point of
> hairsplitting for even purely theoretical concerns that appear to be extraordinarily esoteric
> in a modern context:
>
> "During the existence of the Temple, the High Priest was only allowed
> to marry a virgin. Although during virtually the whole of the talmudic
> period there was no longer a Temple or High Priest, the Talmud devoted
> one of its more involved (and bizarre) discussions to the precise
> definition of the term 'virgin' fit to marry a High priest. What about a
> woman whose hymen had been broken by accident? Does it make any
> difference whether the accident occurred before or after the age of three?
> By the impact of metal or wood? Was she climbing a tree? And if so,
> was she climbing up or down?" [SHAHAK, p. 41]
>
> One of the most profoundly important dimensions of traditional Judaism (one that has had
> enormous repercussions for Jewish relations throughout history with their non-Jewish
> neighbors) is its injunction to fellow members that Jews must -- conceptually, and through
> most of history, physically -- live “apart,” “separate,” distinct from other human beings.
> Jewish self-conception, from its early days, was antithetical and antagonistic to other
> peoples. "Separation of Israel from the nations [non-Jews]," says Moshe Greenberg, "in order
> to be consecrated by God took the extreme form of condemning to death any who worshipped or
> tempted others to worship alien gods." [GREENBERG, p. 28]
>
> In later years, throughout the Jewish diaspora, this developed into the Jewish
> self-conception as a "nation apart" -- physically as well as conceptually distanced from all
> other peoples. "In their determined efforts to prevent assimilation and loss of identity as a
> small minority in the midst of a hostile majority," notes the Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish
> Religion, "the rabbis deliberately set up barriers for the explicit purpose of preventing
> social interaction with gentiles [non-Jews], and decrees were enacted to erect barriers
> against this danger. The partaking of meals with gentiles was forbidden ... food cooked by
> gentiles was banned." [WERBLOWSKY, p. 269]
>
> Such a "nation apart" admonition is part of classical Jewish religious (and related to
> secular Zionist) belief to the present day. Jewish author Alfred Jospe notes that
>
> “when a male Jew is called to the Torah, he recites the traditional
> blessing, asher bahar banu mi’kol ha’amim, praising God ‘who
> has chosen us from among all other nations.’ When Jews recite their
> daily morning prayer they say the benediction, she’lo assani goy,
> thanking God ‘that he has not made [us] gentiles.’ When they
> pronounce the benediction over the Sabbath [Saturday] wine, they
> declare that God has chosen and sanctified Jews from all other
> peoples in the same way which he has distinguished between Sabbath
> and weekday. When Jews make Havdalah on Saturday night, they
> recite the traditional ha-mavdil, glorifying God for setting Jews apart
> from all other peoples just as He set apart the sacred from the profane
> and light from darkness.” [JOSPE, p. 10-11]
>
> "Unlike many religions," notes Steven Silbiger,
>
> "Judaism is more than simply a belief system that anyone can adopt. To
> become Jewish means enlisting in a tribe. The relationship or covenant
> is between God and the Jewish people, rather than between God and
> individual Jews. Judaism is a religion with a strong ancestral component."
> [SILBIGER, S., 2000, p. 11]
>
>
> In the ancient Greek and Roman worlds people were polytheists, and relatively tolerant
> of each other’s theology. Judaism, however, was expressed throughout their diaspora as an
> elitist, confrontational faith, engendering ill will everywhere. "It was not sensible," says
> Jasper Griffin, "nor was it good manners [in the ancient world] to allege that other peoples'
> gods did not exist. Only a madman makes fun of other peoples' religious practices, says the
> historian Herodutus in the fifth century BCE ... The response of the Jews [to other religions]
> was felt to be shocking and uncouth, as well as dangerous for everybody." Jewish rejection of
> the religions and communities in which they lived "placed an inseparable barrier between them
> and full acceptance into the classical world; as later on, even more acutely, it did with
> Christians." [GRIFFIN, p. 58]
>
> *****************
>
> The seminal source of Jewish history and sacred law is recorded in the Torah (the
> Old Testament of the Bible in Christian tradition, consisting of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
> Numbers, and Deuteronomy). Biblical scholars tend to believe that the Old Testament (which
> sometimes cites conflicting facts in various places) was essentially four different written
> narratives eventually combined together, each section originally written between 800 to 1600
> years after the events described allegedly occurred. Within these texts we read that Abraham
> and the early Israelites settled tentatively in the land of the Canaanites, but that famine
> eventually drove them towards Egypt. The ancient Hebrews were reportedly enslaved in Egypt, (a
> period of momentous impact even in current Jewish collective memory), but were ultimately led
> back to Canaan -- the Promised Land -- by Moses in a 40-year trek across the desert in the
> thirteenth century BCE. Moses became instrumental in mediating God's demands to the Hebrew
> people and instituting laws of behavior and belief for them, known today as the Mosaic code.
>
> Eventually the Israelites forcibly reestablished themselves in the land of Canaan and
> over the following centuries divided into sub-clans, fighting and warring among themselves,
> and against others. The most drastic intra-Jewish schism was the establishment of two
> conflicting monarchies -- Israel, in the northern areas, and Judah, in the south. When ancient
> Israel joined a coalition of non-Jewish states in threatening the southern Jewish kingdom,
> Judah joined the powerful Assyrian kingdom which destroyed Israel in about 723 BCE. Judah was
> destroyed, in turn, in 586 BCE, by Babylonian invasion, concluding the first Jewish expulsion
> from their proclaimed homeland. Jews were allowed to return in 538 BCE under the sovereignty
> of the Persian monarch, Cyrus; the Romans were masters of the Palestine area by about 100 BCE.
> The Jews were ultimately expelled en masse again, this time by the Romans, when Israelites
> repeatedly revolted against Roman rule. By the third century CE most Jews were scattered all
> across the Roman Empire, from India to Spain. In Jewish lore, this is the solidification of
> the Jewish "galut" (a term meaning exile, with derogatory connotations) in non-Jewish lands,
> i.e., the Diaspora (dispersion).
>
> It is necessary to again underscore, against the grain of modern popular (and largely
> secular) Jewish opinion, that the Old Testament is a compilation of stories, genealogies, and
> Godly dictates that were intended by its Jewish authors to be purely intra-Jewish in scope.
> The ten commandments of Moses -- "Love your neighbor, "Thou shalt not kill," and all the rest
> of it -- did not represent in origin for Jews a universalistic creed. "Love your neighbor”
> meant love your fellow Israelite. "Thou shalt not kill" meant don't kill those of your own
> people. "[Jewish] tradition," says Charles Liebman, "argued that the essence of Torah is the
> obligation to love one's neighbor as oneself, with the term 'neighbor' implying only 'Jew.'"
> [LIEBMAN, Rel Tre, p. 313] John Hartung notes that careful inspection of the Torah/Old
> Testament "Love Thy Neighbor" commandment make this clear, for example, in Leviticus 19:18:
>
> "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children
> of thy people but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." [Jewish
> Publication Society translation: other translations include the
> same qualifier; HARTUNG, 1995]
>
> As Louis Jacobs observes:
>
> "Among both Jews and Christians the injunction is read simply as 'love
> thy neighbour as thyself' ... [but] in the original context the [Love Thy
> Neighbor] verse means: even when someone has behaved badly
> towards you, try to overcome your desires for revenge but rather
> behave lovingly towards him because, after all, he, too, is a human
> being and a member of the covenant people as you are and
> therefore entitled to be treated as you yourself wish to be treated ...
> The golden rule to love the neighbour applies only to the neighbour
> who is a Jew." [JACOBS, L., 1995, p. 323, 324]
>
> As Menachem Gerlitz explains the "neighbor" passage:
>
> 'And you shall love your neighbor like your own self' -- this is an important
> rule of the Torah. Every Jew must love his fellow Jew with all his heart. The
> Baal Shem Tov [founder of the ultra-Othodox Hassidim] used to explain
> this as follows: Our Torah teaches us to 'love Hashem your G-d with all
> your heart.' How can we prove to ourselves that we are really fulfilling
> this commandment? Only through the commandment of loving our fellow
> Jew like our own selves. Only by truly loving each and every Jew, every
> son of the Chosen People which Hashem selected from all other nations
> to love, just like a person loves the son of a dear friend." [GERLITZ, M.,
> 1983, p. 195]
>
> Judeocentrism, not human universalism, is the core of traditional Jewish understanding of
> the Old Testament. The influential medieval Jewish theologian, Maimonides, advised that “It is
> incumbent on everyone to love each individual Israelite as himself as it is said, ‘Thou shalt
> love thy neighbor as thyself.’” [MANKIN, p. 37] Although there were some Jewish apologetics
> with this notion as early as Philo, it was Christian and Enlightenment influences that
> universalized the Ten Commandments, and liberalizing Jews, mainly since the eighteenth
> century, began to follow suit, bending and broadening the tenets of Judaism (carefully
> selecting from contradictory religious references) to encompass a humanistic concern for
> non-Jews in step with modern universalist-oriented values.
>
> Mosaic law or not, the only time-- till the modern state of Israel -- that Jews have had
> the opportunity to practice Moses' commandments and the rest of their beliefs (towards
> themselves or anybody) from a position of co

[czeslaw mr.d.]

Ignorant "SBobrow940" <sbobr...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20011230020453...@mb-cn.aol.com...

> Ces, nie dosc ze bredzisz (nie chce powiedzic ze klamiesz) ale rowniez
piszesz
> coraz bardziej na wzorach
> czerwonego pawiana scp-y"

"OpusRex" <Azar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

> "czeslaw mr.d." <..@org> wrote in message

I was merely answering (see below, second par., ref. to the killed
Jews). If you know ancient church history, let's hear it...SBobrowski...

> "OpusRex" <Azar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message:

So, please tell me who "killed all the Jews on the Iberian Peninsula'' ?
Think again? Wasn't it the Church?

> We have to remember that until the time shortly after Constantine,
there was
> no Universally accepted Bible or Scriptures amongst the Christians.
Most
> Christians rejected the Old Testament, however issues like the Divine
Right
> could not be justified by the New Testament alone. From there the
Roman
> Nobles set about establishing a universal Doctrine that would ensure
Roman
> Nobles position for a long time to come.

What you said, may be correct, but the events you're describing, are

[Friend]

You must be penniless then.

wally <irelan...@yahoogroups.com> wrote in message
news:914462ca.01122...@posting.google.com...

> most of the brilliant jews were only possible because of the wealth
> accumulated by their ancestors at the expense of the goyim.jews donot
> do so well in israel as they are forbidden from charging interest on
> each other.
> we should learn from the jews and not be exploitedby them.
> it is weakness in white man that makes us the prey of parasites.
> judaism should be banned along with other secret societies.
> judaism is basically a secret society which you are born into.
> it is also a very hateful creed.
>
>
>
>
>

> "OpusRex" <Azar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:<w%7X7.24246$%u.99...@typhoon.austin.rr.com>...
> > Awwww... Maaaannnn... I thought I said pretty please. No I am not
> > Anti-Semitic, I am Anti-Extremist. My step grandpapies Native American
Tribe
> > does not even exist, why because a bunch of people used the Bible to
justify
> > the bulldozing of teepees, murdering children and gradual encroachment
> > peoples home lands... hmmmm... sounds familiar here, kind of like Israel
is
> > doing to the Palestinians. So just whose side do you think that I am
going
> > to take on that issue???
> >
> > Hey what about those Cathars, hmmm... they got even worse treatment from
the
> > Christians. You know guy life has been very tough for the minorities
through
> > out history, get over it.
> >

> > "czeslaw mr.d." <..@org> wrote in message

[Waldo]

"Susan Cohen" <fla...@hers.com> wrote in message

news:3C2CE6FF...@hers.com...

>
>
> "M.T.T." wrote:
>
> > 2
> > THE CAUSES OF HOSTILITY TOWARDS JEWS: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
> >
> >
> >
> > "Reason and documentation ... attest to the fact that anti-Jewish
> > hostility has not been (and is not) constant and ubiquitous. If it
> > had been, the conclusion is obvious: Jews could not have survived
individually or
> > collectively, religiously or ethnically."
> > Alan
Edelstein
>

> This is an exaggeration. Jew-hatred *is* constant *&* ubiquitous.
> Sometimes, however, it is relatively harmless.
> There have always been entire groups of people ready to stand
> around and shriek "KIKE!" whenever they so much as think there's
> a Jew around. This is not the same as, say, laws against Judaism or
> Jews. So this guy is wrong.

Unfortunately for you, Susan, the statement started with a premise that is
entirely foreign to you:

"Reason and documentation".

If you had read what you snipped, (a large of which was penned by JEWISH
authors and historians) you would have learned some important facts about
your tribe.

Of course, the material effectively destroys many commonly believed MYTHS
about Jews and their history, myths which have served (and continue to
serve) Jews very well, so it is understandable that you would want to
dismiss the material as quickly and quietly as possible.

> > "Medieval Jewry, much as it suffered from disabilities and contempt,
still was a privileged
> > minority in every country in which it was tolerated at all."
> > Salo
Baron, p. 259, 1972
>

> Well, if this post is going to contain ridiculous statements like this
> (I won't bother to call it a lie - the writer would have had to know
> what he was writing was untrue & said it anyway),

Of course you wouldn't call it a lie. It's the truth!

Who is this "Salo Baron", who's statements on Judaism Susan claims to be
"ridiculous"?

****

http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/jewish/jaboutco.html

" Two new chairs in Jewish Studies--the first ever at Stanford--have been
established, and there has been a corresponding growth in the Libraries'
collections supporting these two chairs. Central to this new commitment on
the part of the Libraries to Jewish Studies was the acquisition in December
1985 of the library of Salo Wittmayer Baron, an outstanding scholarly
collection of some 20,000 volumes."

****

Rabbi Gilbert Kollin said, on April 7, 2000:

****

http://www.pjtc.net/rabbi/all%20popes%20are%20not%20created%20equal%20april%
207%202000.htm

" Dr. Salo Baron, who used to come over from Columbia where he had a
professorship in Middle Eastern History to teach us rabbinical students at
the Jewish Theological Seminary, took issue with that Lachrymose view of
history. He argued ( and being the good historian he was he backed that
argument with lots of research) that while Jewish experience was indeed
punctuated by periods of pain and punishment through most of their history
Jews lived as well and often better than those among whom they dwelt. The
Holocaust and the Spanish Inquisition are not the Norm. If they were we
would long ago have given up and ended up in the scrap-heap of history that
our enemies eagerly sought to consign us to."

****

(Incidentally, the idea that Jews were subject to scrutiny under the Spanish
Inquisition **because they were Jewish** is a BIG LIE)

This is a LONG one, Susan. Do you think you can handle it???

****

http://learn.jtsa.edu/topics/parashah/5759/beharbehukotai.shtml

" Ismar Schorsch is the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

This commentary was written by Chancellor Schorsch in 1997.

The greatest Jewish historian in America of the last generation was Salo
Wittmayer Baron, who died in 1989 at the age of 94. Born in Galicia and
trained in Vienna, he became the first professor of Jewish history at an
American university in 1930, when invited to join the prestigious history
department of Columbia University. With unmatched erudition and energy,
Baron wrote authoritatively on nearly every aspect of Jewish history. In
1937 he published a highly original three-volume synthesis of all of Jewish
history, which he called by the balanced title of A Social and Religious
History of the Jews. After the Holocaust he transformed it into a second
edition that would grow to 18 volumes by the time of his death, without
going beyond the middle of the seventeenth century.

The heart of this monumental achievement is a relentless protest against
what Baron termed "the lachrymose conception" of Jewish history, which
dominated the field since its inception in Germany in the first half of the
nineteenth century. According to this reading of the past, Jewish history in
the Diaspora is little more than the dark consequences of Christian
contempt. Oppression, persecution and expulsi are the staple of medieval
Jewish life. The decimation of Galician and Ukrainian Jewry by Russian
soldiers and hordes of Cossacks during and after World War One only
reinforced this melancholy view, given its classic formulation by Simon
Bernfeld in the mid-1920's in a three volume history of Jewish suffering
bearing the blunt title, The Book of Tears.

With every fiber of his aristocratic being, Baron repudiates over-wrought
and self-pitying portrait. His broader canvas and more dispassionate study
reveal long stretches of stability and interaction. Jews in feudal Europe
enjoyed a far less humiliating status than the serfs. The Papacy, if not the
lower clergy, advocated a theology of toleration towards Jews. And the
tightly organized Jewish community provided Jews on the margins of the body
politic with a measure of political leverage and internal security. Jews
were more than victims; they were also hardy and astute economic pioneers,
political bargainers, institution builders and religious pragmatists.

Yet Baron died utterly out of sync with his time. The Holocaust had wreaked
havoc with his stubborn persistence to recast the terms of Jewish history.
Inexorably, it changed from historical event into world view, vindicating
the deep-seated Jewish suspicion that every gentile was but a latent
anti-Semite. How ironic that the historian invited to testify at the
Eichmann trial on the world destroyed by the Nazis was none other than Salo
Baron!"

****

> then the post
> is obviously useless - excepot to expose the poster as someone
> who likes to blame the victims.
>
> Susan

Now, what was that statement that Susan Cohen called "ridiculous"??? Oh yes:

****

"Medieval Jewry, much as it suffered from disabilities and contempt, still
was a privileged
minority in every country in which it was tolerated at all."
Salo
Baron, p. 259, 1972

****

It must be both frustrating and embarrassing for you to have to stoop to
insinuating that YOUR knowledge of Medieval Jewry is superior to that of
Salo Baron, called the "greatest Jewish historian in America of the last
generation".

I would pity you and your fellow Jews for their pathetic need to cling to
this utterly false and contrived notion of perpetual Jewish victimhood, but
I know too well that the members of your tribe USE this MYTH as a shield to
avoid any criticism as you work your machinations against the hated Goyim.

When the mask of false victimhood is removed, the true face of Judaism is
ugly indeed!

Good luck in your efforts to keep the myth alive, Susan. (G-d knows what
would happen should the TRUE history of your tribe ever become widely known)

Have a nice day!

Waldo

Observer at Large

[Joe Bruno]

irelan...@yahoogroups.com (wally) wrote in message news:<914462ca.01123...@posting.google.com>...

The causes of hostility toward Jews is generally the same as the cause
for hostility toward many minority groups-they are different. Every
immigrant group that came to the USA went through it when they first
arrived: Irish, Germans, Italians, Chinese, Poles,etc. When immigrant
groups first arrived here, they were generally poor and uneducated, so
they had to take menial jobs to survive. That meant they were
competition for the menial workers already here and thus the hostility
began. The fact that they spoke no English or broken English made them
more different-some people are suspicious and afraid of anyone they
don't understand.

In Europe, Jews were always a small minority whereever they lived, so
their differences made some people suspicious of them. Unscrupulous
politicians like Hitler used Anti-Semitism and scapegoating to grab
power by blaming all the problems on the Jews.
If you can make people believe Jews cause all the problems and you can
get rid of them, solving the problems, it's a way of gaining power.
Hitler was not the first politician to do it. He is just the first one
who tried to kill all the Jews.

Joe Bruno

[aryan]

the jews control what you read and see . they are very evil and a
threat to civilisation.no other group has ever been expelled from
every european country repeatedly.no other group is ethnocentric to
such extremes and has a religeon which just amount to a hate cult.
the jews are hated because they need to be hated to remain cohesive as
a group.
it is well known that the zionists were avid nazi supporters and
recieved funding on occasion from them.

Holocaust History
An interesting reflection:

http://ihr.org/jhr/v01/v01p-43_App.html
&#8230;.if there were the slightest likelihood that the Nazis had in
fact executed six million Jews, World Jewry would scream for subsidies
with which to do research on the question, and Israel would throw its
archives and files open to historians. They have not done so. On the
contrary, they have persecuted anyone who tries to investigate
impartially and even call him an anti--Semite.
&#8230;.Those who throw around large round numbers, like six
million gassed, four million in Auschwitz, two million by mobile units
in Russia, let them come up with the proofs -- the graves, the bones,
the ashes. Six million corpses do not just disappear.

Do Israel's records really remain closed? One would certainly have
thought that the basic principle of 'more research is necessary' would
have asserted itself once the sacred figure of 'six million' [Jews
holocausted] was revised downwards by most Western historians through
the 1990's.

[Kenneth McVay, OBC]

In article <82ff0c9a.01123...@posting.google.com>,

aryan <admira...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>the jews control what you read and see . they are very evil and a

Yet another anti-Gentile moron rears his hate-filled head out of the
slime....

"The Jews control the media!"
"The Jews control the media!"
"The Jews control the media!"

..... but what this foolish mantra is really saying is this:

"Non-Jews are too stupid to think for themselves."
"Non-Jews are too stupid to acquire capital, or invest in the media."

The same morons who contend that Non-Jews are near-terminal in
their stupidity, and completely incapable of using their minds, also
reinforce this hatemongering hysteria by insisting that

"The Jews control the government!"
"The Jews control the government!"
"The Jews control the government!"

.... which is, of course, clear evidence that they also believe that

"Non-Jews are too stupid to govern themselves!"

.... having already told White folks that they're too stupid to think
for themselves, or govern themselves, they feel compelled to add
insult to injury by insisting that

"The Jews control the monetary system!"
"The Jews control the monetary system!"
"The Jews control the monetary system!"

.... which means, it is obvious, that

"Non-Jews are too stupid to manage their own money!"

As if these things were not enough, these "white racialists" that
"love Non-Jews" also say:

"The Holocaust is a hoax!"
"The Holocaust is a hoax!"
"The Holocaust is a hoax!"

.... which means that they believe a people who represent less than 2%
of the entire world's population have duped not only every _white_ person
in the world, but indeed every _other_ person as well! How's _that_
for "You folks are REALLY stupid"?

.... and yet the authors of these gratuitous racial slurs continue to
insist ("nudge nudge, wink wink...") that they are "advocates for
Non-Jews!

Go figger.

--
IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany
and America's Most Powerful Corporation, by Edwin Black
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0609607995/thenizkorproject/
The Nizkor Project: http://www.nizkor.org

[Susan Cohen]

Joe Bruno wrote:

> irelan...@yahoogroups.com (wally) wrote in message news:<914462ca.01123...@posting.google.com>...
> > have a look at the talmud , if you can get a copy .
>

http://www.geocities.com:80/Athens/Cyprus/8815/index.html

Susan

[Susan Cohen]

Waldo wrote:

> "Susan Cohen" <fla...@hers.com> wrote in message
> news:3C2CE6FF...@hers.com...
> >
> >
> > "M.T.T." wrote:
> >
> > > 2
> > > THE CAUSES OF HOSTILITY TOWARDS JEWS: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > "Reason and documentation ... attest to the fact that anti-Jewish
> > > hostility has not been (and is not) constant and ubiquitous. If it
> > > had been, the conclusion is obvious: Jews could not have survived
> individually or
> > > collectively, religiously or ethnically."
> > > Alan
> Edelstein
> >
> > This is an exaggeration. Jew-hatred *is* constant *&* ubiquitous.
> > Sometimes, however, it is relatively harmless.
> > There have always been entire groups of people ready to stand
> > around and shriek "KIKE!" whenever they so much as think there's
> > a Jew around. This is not the same as, say, laws against Judaism or
> > Jews. So this guy is wrong.
>
> Unfortunately for you, Susan, the statement started with a premise that is
> entirely foreign to you:
>
> "Reason and documentation".

Gee, this projectionism of your must be a real pain.

> If you had read what you snipped, (a large of which was penned by JEWISH
> authors and historians) you would have learned some important facts about
> your tribe.

Again, you are wrong. These were opinions, and opinions only.
There was no documentation involved, but the cites for the opninions.
This only proves that someone wrote the opinions, not thatthe opinions are true.

Only a fool as stupid as you would claim otherwise.
As I posted before, I started to rebut them, only to find that they
grew progressively sillier, and realized they were a total waste of time.

>
>
> Of course, the material effectively destroys many commonly believed MYTHS

No, it does not. It is a colleciton of opinions, not validated by fact or
reason, and,
as I began to show, easily torn down by such.

> about Jews and their history, myths which have served (and continue to
> serve) Jews very well, so it is understandable that you would want to
> dismiss the material as quickly and quietly as possible.

Not at all. But I do know that creatures such as yourself will believe anything
you want, the truth & facts notwithstanding. You prove it constantly,and
this post is no exception.

> > > "Medieval Jewry, much as it suffered from disabilities and contempt,
> still was a privileged
> > > minority in every country in which it was tolerated at all."
> > > Salo
> Baron, p. 259, 1972
> >
> > Well, if this post is going to contain ridiculous statements like this
> > (I won't bother to call it a lie - the writer would have had to know
> > what he was writing was untrue & said it anyway),
>
> Of course you wouldn't call it a lie. It's the truth!

Not at all.

> Who is this "Salo Baron", who's statements on Judaism Susan claims to be
> "ridiculous"?

Someone who doesn;t know what he's talking about, as I showed.

>
>
> ****
>
> http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/jewish/jaboutco.html
>
> " Two new chairs in Jewish Studies--the first ever at Stanford--have been
> established, and there has been a corresponding growth in the Libraries'
> collections supporting these two chairs. Central to this new commitment on
> the part of the Libraries to Jewish Studies was the acquisition in December
> 1985 of the library of Salo Wittmayer Baron, an outstanding scholarly
> collection of some 20,000 volumes."
>
> ****
>
> Rabbi Gilbert Kollin said, on April 7, 2000:
>
> ****
>
> http://www.pjtc.net/rabbi/all%20popes%20are%20not%20created%20equal%20april%
> 207%202000.htm
>
> " Dr. Salo Baron, who used to come over from Columbia where he had a
> professorship in Middle Eastern History to teach us rabbinical students at
> the Jewish Theological Seminary, took issue with that Lachrymose view of
> history. He argued ( and being the good historian he was he backed that
> argument with lots of research) that while Jewish experience was indeed
> punctuated by periods of pain and punishment through most of their history
> Jews lived as well and often better than those among whom they dwelt. The
> Holocaust and the Spanish Inquisition are not the Norm. If they were we
> would long ago have given up and ended up in the scrap-heap of history that
> our enemies eagerly sought to consign us to."

None of which bolsters the opinion that we were priviledged.
This simply is not so.

> ****
>
> (Incidentally, the idea that Jews were subject to scrutiny under the Spanish
> Inquisition **because they were Jewish** is a BIG LIE)

(I notice you put this past the quote & offer no documentation
to back up your lie that Jews were not a target of the inquisition.)

> This is a LONG one, Susan. Do you think you can handle it???

You only wish there was something you could dredge up that I can't handle.

> ****
>
> http://learn.jtsa.edu/topics/parashah/5759/beharbehukotai.shtml
>
> " Ismar Schorsch is the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

And what follows is an opinion peice, with no footnotes.

> This commentary

Yes, commentary. At least you are honest enough to admit this.

I guess this was why we had to pay protection money to Kings,
and the serfs were always just tossed out unceremoniously after
their usefulness was over.

> The Papacy, if not the
> lower clergy, advocated a theology of toleration towards Jews.

Now this is ridiculous, and this guy should have known it.
The Inquisition was *started* withthe purpose of catching Marranos.
Of course, the Church considered these people Xians - and obviously
Salo did too. How sad for him to have lost touch with his own Jewishness.

> And the
> tightly organized Jewish community provided Jews on the margins of the body
> politic with a measure of political leverage and internal security.

Some measure. He was definitely painting a bright picture.

> Jews
> were more than victims; they were also hardy and astute economic pioneers,
> political bargainers, institution builders and religious pragmatists.

To point out what was done to us is not the same as having a victim's
mentatlity. Of course we survived - we're still here, aren't we?

You are still trying to pretend this cpmtradicts facts. It does not.

> Yet Baron died utterly out of sync with his time. The Holocaust had wreaked
> havoc with his stubborn persistence to recast the terms of Jewish history.
> Inexorably, it changed from historical event into world view, vindicating
> the deep-seated Jewish suspicion that every gentile was but a latent
> anti-Semite. How ironic that the historian invited to testify at the
> Eichmann trial on the world destroyed by the Nazis was none other than Salo
> Baron!"

And, yet again, this is another opinion. No matter how long it is, it is
still just an opinion.

You are obviously not a scholar, and not involved in academia in any
way, or you would not present these opinions as facts. If you only knew
how many great & respected historians were wrong about so many things
(the last generation being *full* of them!!), you would --- no, you would
never experience any shame for putting out lies and opinions as facts.
You would jsut switch to other ones.

>
>
> ****
>
> > then the post
> > is obviously useless - excepot to expose the poster as someone
> > who likes to blame the victims.
> >
> > Susan
>
> Now, what was that statement that Susan Cohen called "ridiculous"??? Oh yes:
>
> ****
>
> "Medieval Jewry, much as it suffered from disabilities and contempt, still
> was a privileged
> minority in every country in which it was tolerated at all."

Yes, it is a ridiculous statement. "Prviledged" in that it was restircted
from doing what everyone else could do, forced into ghettos and
paying protection money which didn't always work - witness, for
example, the burning of the synagogue at York, even tho' that was
clearly a place where Jews were paying protection money to the King.

>
> Salo
> Baron, p. 259, 1972
>
> ****
>
> It must be both frustrating and embarrassing for you to have to stoop to
> insinuating that YOUR knowledge of Medieval Jewry is superior to that of
> Salo Baron, called the "greatest Jewish historian in America of the last
> generation".

Not at all. Where he is wrong, he is wrong. He has his opinion, and it is
a whitewash of the facts. He wants to consider material possessions and
white collar labor as being in a better position than those who are free
to live where they want & pursue whatever careers they want without
fear of their lives. I don't.

> I would pity you and your fellow Jews for their pathetic need to cling to
> this utterly false and contrived notion of perpetual Jewish victimhood,

Funny how you only take the word of a Jew when it suits your agenda.

> but
> I know too well that the members of your tribe USE this MYTH

Not a myth at all. It is this man's interpretation of history, based on his
own values. Most people with any sense would say he is wrong - which is
doubtless why you lap up his opinion with such gusto.

> as a shield to
> avoid any criticism as you work your machinations against the hated Goyim.

Ah, and the stupid conspiracy theorist raises his empty head.

Well, let's put it another way.

You keep saying we're so strong, so powerful & we've got this big conspiracy?
Fine. Then I guess you're DOOOOOMED, huh??

> When the mask of false victimhood is removed, the true face of Judaism is
> ugly indeed!

Translation: Waldo still doesn't know what he's talking about,
& is still repeating the same junk.

> Good luck in your efforts to keep the myth alive, Susan.

Since there is no myth, I hardly need to expend any effort.
As soon as I re-tool the killfile, I won;t ave to see any of your
garbage again. I notice no one gives you the slightest bit of
credence, so it's not like I'll even see replies to your crap.

> (G-d knows what
> would happen should the TRUE history of your tribe ever become widely known)

Be my guest, moron, Trumpet away.

> Have a nice day!

I always do - especially after I've trashed yet another slimy little bigot.

Susan

[Joe Bruno]

kmc...@veritas.nizkor.org (Kenneth McVay, OBC) wrote in message news:<a0o70s$5s7$1...@news.tht.net>...

This is one of the rare times I actually agree with McVay.
I know that the media in the USA has a Liberal bias and I make the
necessary allowances by being careful who I believe. Every adult that
I know, both Jew and Gentile, is also aware of this bias. The Gentiles
figured it out all by themselves with any help from Jews. Isn't that
terrific? I am fully confident that they can deal with credibility
issues just as well as I can. They can spot a lie just as quickly as I
can. Heartwarming, isn't it?

Joe Bruno

[wally]

no group on history , or on earth has been as hated as the jews, and
thats how they like it.
Israeli soldiers beat Bethlehem housewife to death
2001-12-30 19:25:05

IAP News
30 December 2001

Israeli occupation soldiers last night raided Palestinian homes in
several areas surrounding the town of Bethlehem, killing a young
housewife after beating here savagely on the head using the butts of
their rifles.

Hospital sources said Nujud Muhammed Ghuneim, 27, died of a massive
brain haemorrhage resulting from a severe beating that also caused hr
skull to rupture.

Palestinian sources in Bethlehem said several crack Israeli soldiers
raided Ghuneim's home at the village of el-Khader south of Bethlehem,
and as the young woman sought to prevent the soldiers from vandalizing
her utensils and house appliances, the soldiers reportedly started
beating her savagely on the head until she collapsed.

Here cousin Muhammed Ghuneim described the incident as "extremely
ugly."

"This is a reflection of the brutal ugliness of the Zionist-Jewish
mentality. Here, you had ten soldiers, and all of them ganged up on
the young lady, hitting her on the head without mercy until she died.
So, why doesn't the American media speak about Jewish terror?"

Muhammed said the occupation soldiers understand only the language of
death and murder.

"Nujud didn't pose any threats to those crack soldiers. She is a lady,
does any person in his right mind believe she posed any risk to their
lives?"

"If so why did they kill her? Why?"

Susan Cohen <fla...@hers.com> wrote in message news:<3C2FABB7...@hers.com>...

[Waldo]

"Susan Cohen" <fla...@hers.com> wrote in message

news:3C2FABB7...@hers.com...

All of the documentation of history is made up of "opinions" and
interpretations, airhead. and it just happens that the "opinions" were
penned by some of the most prominent Jewish and Gentile writers and
historians of the last century.

> Only a fool as stupid as you would claim otherwise.
> As I posted before, I started to rebut them, only to find that they
> grew progressively sillier, and realized they were a total waste of time.

More likely you found that you were unable to deal with them, and decided to
cut-n-run. Besides, they contradicted your precious (and totally false)
perceptions about "suffering Jews".

> >
> >
> > Of course, the material effectively destroys many commonly believed
MYTHS
>
> No, it does not. It is a colleciton of opinions, not validated by fact or
> reason, and,
> as I began to show, easily torn down by such.

Then, in the convoluted mind of Susan Co-Hen, history is worthless. Right?

> > about Jews and their history, myths which have served (and continue to
> > serve) Jews very well, so it is understandable that you would want to
> > dismiss the material as quickly and quietly as possible.
>
> Not at all. But I do know that creatures such as yourself will believe
anything
> you want, the truth & facts notwithstanding. You prove it constantly,and
> this post is no exception.

"Gee, this protectionism of your must be a real pain."

> > > > "Medieval Jewry, much as it suffered from disabilities and
contempt,
> > still was a privileged
> > > > minority in every country in which it was tolerated at all."
> > > >
Salo
> > Baron, p. 259, 1972
> > >
> > > Well, if this post is going to contain ridiculous statements like this
> > > (I won't bother to call it a lie - the writer would have had to know
> > > what he was writing was untrue & said it anyway),
> >
> > Of course you wouldn't call it a lie. It's the truth!
>
> Not at all.
>
> > Who is this "Salo Baron", who's statements on Judaism Susan claims to be
> > "ridiculous"?
>
> Someone who doesn;t know what he's talking about, as I showed.

You "showed", Susan?? You call an off-the-cuff remark "showing"?

My, but you are a narcissistic little Jewish Princess, aren't you?

Jews were not only privileged, they OPPRESSED the Gentile peasantry.

The above was to posted to educate *you* as to who Salo Baron, (the esteemed
Jewish historian that you stupidly believe you "showed" was wrong with an
off the cuff, flippant remark) was.

My intent was not to prove that he was correct and you (as usual) are
wrong - but I'll do that further down. :-)

> > ****
> >
> > (Incidentally, the idea that Jews were subject to scrutiny under the
Spanish
> > Inquisition **because they were Jewish** is a BIG LIE)
>
> (I notice you put this past the quote & offer no documentation
> to back up your lie that Jews were not a target of the inquisition.)

It's no lie, and as this subject comes up again further down, we'll deal
with it when we get there. Ok?

> > This is a LONG one, Susan. Do you think you can handle it???
>
> You only wish there was something you could dredge up that I can't handle.

The only way you can "handle" anything is by snipping the material and
running shrieking into the fog.

>
> > ****
> >
> > http://learn.jtsa.edu/topics/parashah/5759/beharbehukotai.shtml
> >
> > " Ismar Schorsch is the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary.
>
> And what follows is an opinion peice, with no footnotes.
>
> > This commentary
>
> Yes, commentary. At least you are honest enough to admit this.

As I said, it was posted to EDUCATE you as to who Salo Baron was, airhead.

In Europe, and particularly in Poland, Jews fared FAR better than did
Gentile peasants. See below.

> > The Papacy, if not the
> > lower clergy, advocated a theology of toleration towards Jews.
>
> Now this is ridiculous, and this guy should have known it.
> The Inquisition was *started* withthe purpose of catching Marranos.

Do you know what Marranos were, Susan?

> Of course, the Church considered these people Xians -

Precisely, the church considered these people **Christians**, NOT Jews, you
hate filled insect

> and obviously
> Salo did too. How sad for him to have lost touch with his own Jewishness.

And the Marranos didn't lose touch with *their* "Jewishness" by converting,
or PRETENDING to convert to Christianity?

You made his point for him, you ethnocentric Jewish Supremacist: The church
did NOT call Marranos before the inquisition **because** they were Jews,
they were called because they PROFESSED CHRISTIANITY, and were believed to
be secretly practicing Judaism - which the church considered HERESY.

Jewish scholar Cecil Roth echoes Baron's opinion:

"Some current historiesappear to assume the Jews
were sole victims of the Spanish Inquisition ... Strictly, this is so far
from the truth that a precisian might retort that [the Jews] never came
under the [Inquisition's] scope, save in exceptional cases, since the
activities were essentially confined to [Christian] apostates and
renegades." [ROTH, p. 141] Those "Jews" who risked trouble were those among
the Marranos/Conversos, who disingenuously represented themselves as
Christians and were thereby subject to the same scrutinization for religious
conformance as that directed upon any other Christian. Widely targeted were
Christian heretics, not the Judaic faith.

[Roth, Cecil. The Most Persecuted People? The Menorah Journal, Jul-Sept
1932, v. xx, no. 2, p. 136-147]

Another Jew, M. Hirsh Goldberg notes,

"Contrary to popular belief, Jews who openly remained Jews were
not tortured or killed as part of the inquisition proceedings. The
Inquisition was specifically authorized by the Church to root out
heresy among Catholics, so only heretical Christians and Jewish
converts to Christianity accused of secretly reverting to Judaism
were prosecuted."

[Goldberg, M. Hirsh. Just Because They're Jewish. If Anything Can Be
Misconstrued about the Jews, It Will Be ... And Has Been. Stein and Day,
Publishers, New York, 1979, p. 16]

Joachim Prinz writes:

"The Inquisitionis considered one of the many traumatic experiences of
Jewish history, and as such, it is always spoken of with dread. But, of
course, the Inquistion had no power over Jews at all. It was established for
the purpose of dealing with Christians who had deviated from their faith.
The Marranos who were called into account for their secret practices
appeared not as Jews but as allegedly heretical Chrisitans ... No
unconverted Jews were ever called to the tribunals."

[Prinz, Joachim. The Secret Jews, Random House, New York, 1973 p. 44]

You see, Schmoozan, the truth is the truth, in spite of your desperate NEED
to believe that Jews always suffered worse than anyone else.

Few, if *any* Jews 'suffered' under the Spanish Inquisition **because of
their Judaism**.

Life sucks when your a Jew with a persecution complex - and this describes
MOST Jews!

> > And the
> > tightly organized Jewish community provided Jews on the margins of the
body
> > politic with a measure of political leverage and internal security.
>
> Some measure. He was definitely painting a bright picture.

What are you comparing their life to? The lives of modern day Palm Beach
Jews?

(Waaaaaaaaatt? No kosha' meals on da plane! My G-d, Ve Jews are STILL
sufferink!)

> > Jews
> > were more than victims; they were also hardy and astute economic
pioneers,
> > political bargainers, institution builders and religious pragmatists.
>
> To point out what was done to us is not the same as having a victim's
> mentatlity.

Say Susan, you don't mind if I point out the exaggerations, embellishments
and LIES told when Jews "point out what happened to them", do you?

> Of course we survived - we're still here, aren't we?

Apparently so - I can hear you whining all the way across the country.

> You are still trying to pretend this cpmtradicts facts. It does not.

What are you yapping about? What 'facts'? you have shown no facts, nothing
but your strident nasal WHINE!

>
> > Yet Baron died utterly out of sync with his time. The Holocaust had
wreaked
> > havoc with his stubborn persistence to recast the terms of Jewish
history.
> > Inexorably, it changed from historical event into world view,
vindicating
> > the deep-seated Jewish suspicion that every gentile was but a latent
> > anti-Semite. How ironic that the historian invited to testify at the
> > Eichmann trial on the world destroyed by the Nazis was none other than
Salo
> > Baron!"
>
> And, yet again, this is another opinion. No matter how long it is, it is
> still just an opinion.

Again, the above was posted to EDUCATE you as to whom you were
contradicting. At least NOW you know who Salo Baron is. (Quick! Plug your
ears so the facts you've just learned don't leak out!)

> You are obviously not a scholar, and not involved in academia in any
> way, or you would not present these opinions as facts.

The only "fact" I presented in my previous post is who Salo Baron was, and
that you are in no position contradict him with your idiotic remarks,
Miffie.

> If you only knew
> how many great & respected historians were wrong about so many things
> (the last generation being *full* of them!!),

Yes - can you believe how few of them were willing to buck the political
pressure and question the Holocaust tales - what a scandal!

> you would --- no, you would
> never experience any shame for putting out lies and opinions as facts.
> You would jsut switch to other ones.

Don't talk with your mouth full, Susan.

> >
> >
> > ****
> >
> > > then the post
> > > is obviously useless - excepot to expose the poster as someone
> > > who likes to blame the victims.
> > >
> > > Susan
> >
> > Now, what was that statement that Susan Cohen called "ridiculous"??? Oh
yes:
> >
> > ****
> >
> > "Medieval Jewry, much as it suffered from disabilities and contempt,
still
> > was a privileged
> > minority in every country in which it was tolerated at all."
>
> Yes, it is a ridiculous statement. "Prviledged" in that it was restircted
> from doing what everyone else could do,

And what EXACTLY were Jews restricted from doing that "everyone else could
do"? (No whining, just FACTS, Suzie)

> forced into ghettos

They built their OWN ghettos and lived there voluntarily because they wanted
to remain separate from the Goyim, dingbat:

"We [Jews] formed the ghetto ourselves," wrote the Zionist leader Vladamir
Zabotinsky, " ... voluntarily, for the same reason for which Europeans in
Shanghai established their separate quarter, to be able to live their own
way."

[Korbonski, Stefan. The Jews and the Poles in World War II. Hippocrene
Books, New York 1989, p. 8]

"The Ghetto was rather a privilege than a disability," notes J. O. Hertzler,
"and sometimes was claimed by the Jews as a right when its demolition was
threatened."

[Hertzler, J. O. The Sociology of Antisemitism Through History. In Graeber,
p. 73]

Boas Evron cites the work of fellow Israeli scholar, Yehezkel Kaufmann, in
noting that

"the popular assumption that external anti-Jewish pressures forced
group identify and exclusivity on the Jews is unconvincing, since
historical evidence shows that Jewish exclusivity and aloofness
preceded outside hostility and were thus its cause, not its result ...
Jewish communities were always borne by host societies ... They
never shared in political, military, administrative, or technological
responsibilities."

[Evron, Boas. Jewish State or Israeli Nation? Indiana University Press,
Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1995, p. 53]

> and
> paying protection money which didn't always work - witness, for
> example, the burning of the synagogue at York, even tho' that was
> clearly a place where Jews were paying protection money to the King.

Where did these poor downtrodden Jews get MONEY, Susan? And what makes you
think that the Goyim masses that the Jews were busily *oppressing* weren't
going to rise up and kick some Jewish ass on occasion?

> >
> >
Salo
> > Baron, p. 259, 1972
> >
> > ****
> >
> > It must be both frustrating and embarrassing for you to have to stoop to
> > insinuating that YOUR knowledge of Medieval Jewry is superior to that of
> > Salo Baron, called the "greatest Jewish historian in America of the last
> > generation".
>
> Not at all. Where he is wrong, he is wrong.

And you've backed your silly opinion up with . . . nothing.

> He has his opinion, and it is
> a whitewash of the facts.

You have shown no facts. Actually, you even showed that you AGREE with Baron
WRT the Marranos!

(Stew in it, Susan)

> He wants to consider material possessions and
> white collar labor as being in a better position than those who are free
> to live where they want & pursue whatever careers they want without
> fear of their lives. I don't.

So you concede that Jews had better lifestyles and more comfortable means of
earning a living than did the Gentile peasantry.

Interesting.

Now, let's deconstruct your false hang-ups about Jews' lack of freedom to
live wherever they want, and pursuing their 'careers' "without fear for
their lives".

(Oh god! you'd better get a Kleenex!)

Focusing on Poland, where the largest single population of Jews dwelt during
the Medieval times, let's compare the lives of your "suffering Jews" to
those of mean, oppressive "anti-Semitic" Gentile peasants:

Speaking about life in Medieval Poland, *Jewish* author, Max Dimont writes:

"[Christian feudal life was like] a vast prison. The bars were the
all-encompassing restrictions placed upon the daily life of the
people. Inside the bars were the peasants, the so-called Third
Estate, who comprised about 95 per cent of the total population.
Outside the bars but tied to them by invisible chains were the other
two estates, the priests and the nobles. Neither inside the prison nor
tied to the bars outside it were the Jews, the unofficial "Fourth
Estate."

"The restrictions placed on the feudal serfs, as the peasants were
called, pursued them from "womb to tomb." There could be no
movement from one estate to another except through the ranks of
the clergy, and then only for the exceptionally gifted child.
Restrictions on travel kept the serf tied to the soil. He usually saw
nothing of the world except that within walking distance. Though he
was technically a free man, he could own no property. He could be
sold with the land by his lord ... The peasant had to grind his flour
in the lord's granary, bake his bread in the lord's bakery -- all for a
fee, paid either in goods or in labor. He could only own wooden
dishes, and one spoon was all he was allowed for his entire family,
no matter what its size. The kind of cloth he could buy, sell, or
wear, was regulated. The lord was allowed to sample everything his
serfs had, including their brides ... "

"None of these restrictions applied to the Jews. They were free to
come and go, marry and divorce, sell and buy as they pleased....
The priests were excluded from work, the nobles did not want to
work, and the serfs were not allowed to enter the bourgeoisie or
middle-class professions. There was no one left to do this work
except the Jews, who therefore became indispensable. The Jews
were the oil that lubricated the creaky machinery of the feudal
state."

[Dimont, Max. Jews, God, and History. A Signet Book from New American
Library, Times Mirror, 1962, p. 247]

Ewa Morawska notes that:

"At the end of the last century in Galicia [a province that is today divided
between Poland and the Ukraine, including the city of Krakow], a region
generally poorer than other provinces of Eastern Europe, about 50,000
peasants annually died of starvation; such catastrophes did not occur
in Jewish society, even among the most deprived, partly because of the
well-organized in-group assistance, but also because of a somewhat
higher general standard of living."

[Morawska, Ewa. Insecure Prosperity. Small Town Jews in Industrial America,
1890-1940. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1996, p. 12]

Jewish scholar Bernard Weinryb tells us:

"Jews in southeastern Poland
were legally on par with the nobles with regard to the amounts paid as
indemnification for being wounded or killed. If we go beyond formality
and consider the prevailing practice the position of the Jew appears in
a more favorable light. If he could not be nobleman, he could be like
one -- or in the place of one. Jewish lessees of the king's or nobles'
villages and towns, or of various taxes and other sources of revenue,
were accorded broad powers and status-bearing functions, often over
large expanses populated by many people, not all of them peasants.
To these Jews were transformed almost Lord's power, mostly including
the perquisites of local justice. A number of Jews actually did behave
like nobles -- conducting themselves haughtily, arrogantly, arbitrarily,
dictatorially, and sometimes even recklessly ... A number of cases are
known in which a non-Jewish tax collector, or nobleman, or a court
usher, was simply afraid to enter the houses of prominent Jews on
business, not wanting to risk being thrown out or beaten up ... Many
... instances are known in which Polish Jewish communities or other
groups refused to follow Polish court summonses or orders from
other offices."

[Weinryb, Bernard D. The Jews of Poland. A Social and Economic History of
the Jewish Community in Poland from 1100 to 1800. Jewish Publication Society
of America, Philadelphia, 1973, p. 162-163]

On the role of Jews as tax collectors, you buddy Salo Baron writes:

"Most widespread was the Jewish contribution to tax farming. The
medieval regimes, as a rule, aided by only small, inefficient, and
unreliable bureaucracies, often preferred to delegate tax collection
to private entrepreneurs who, for a specific lump sum they paid
the treasury, were prepared to exact the payments due from the
taxpayers. Of course, the risks of under collection were, as a rule,
more than made up by considerable surpluses obtained, if need
be, by ruthless methods."

[Baron, Salo W. [Economic History of the Jews. Edited by Gross, Nahum.
Schocken Books, New York, 1976, p. 46]

"Wealthy Jews," notes Bernard Weinryb, "with good connections among those in
power, and on one hand, underworld elements, believed in their own ability
to take care of themselves, or to invoke the protection of the powerful.
They frequently resorted to hard and brutal measures to achieve their ends
... "

[Weinryb, (see site above), p. 164]

"Jews," writes Witold Rymankowki, "in contrast to the millions of serfs
and the impoverished townspeople who were oppressed by the nobility,
constituted a privileged group which ... effectively represented the only
class in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to concentrate finance and
liquid assets in its hands."

[Polonsky, Antony, Ed. Polin: A Journal of Polish Jewish Studies. Blackwell
Publishers for the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies, Oxford, 1991, p.
156]

An old Latin proverb proclaimed that the Polish Commonwealth was "heaven for
the nobles, purgatory for the townsfolk, hell for the peasants, and paradise
for the Jews."

[Hagen, William W. Germans, Poles, and Jews. The Nationality Conflict in the
Prussian East, 1772-1914, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London,
1980, p. 13]

"Jews," notes Hillel Levine, "sometimes even managed whole villages and
oversaw the economic development and exploitation of forests, mines, mints,
custom houses, toll roads, and breweries on the gentry's estates, using serf
labor ... Jews were motivated ... to squeeze profits out of the margins.
These included more rigorous supervision of the serfs and more efficient
collection of rents and taxes, adding to the harshness of the serfs' lives
and by no means making the Jewish arendator [lessee of a business enterprise
from the lords] beloved."

[Levine, Hillel. To Shame a Vision. In Porter, p. 63]

You POOOOR baby Jews? Did you suffer? Tisk tisk.

Don't tell me, you feel like you were cheated because they didn't let you be
the ruling class, right? And you're STILL being mistreated because you're
STILL not a ruling oligarchy, RIGHT?

Jews weren't "persecuted" - they were the PERSECUTORS!

No wonder you love to LIE about your history.

How about some REPARATIONS, Schmoosan???

>
> > I would pity you and your fellow Jews for their pathetic need to cling
to
> > this utterly false and contrived notion of perpetual Jewish victimhood,
>
> Funny how you only take the word of a Jew when it suits your agenda.
>
> > but
> > I know too well that the members of your tribe USE this MYTH
>
> Not a myth at all. It is this man's interpretation of history, based on
his
> own values. Most people with any sense would say he is wrong - which is
> doubtless why you lap up his opinion with such gusto.

Considering what I just posted above, I don't know whether to laugh at your
haughtiness, or pity your ignorance.

> > as a shield to
> > avoid any criticism as you work your machinations against the hated
Goyim.
>
> Ah, and the stupid conspiracy theorist raises his empty head.

Who said anything about a "conspiracy theory"? It's what Jews are - what
they do - what they have ALWAYS done: Prey on and exploit Gentiles. You're
parasites. :-)

In Medieval times, 90% of Gentiles made their living by working the land,
whereas 90% of Jews made their living by working the Gentiles!

> Well, let's put it another way.
>
> You keep saying we're so strong, so powerful & we've got this big
conspiracy?
> Fine. Then I guess you're DOOOOOMED, huh??

I doubt it, Schmoosan.

> > When the mask of false victimhood is removed, the true face of Judaism
is
> > ugly indeed!
>
> Translation: Waldo still doesn't know what he's talking about,
> & is still repeating the same junk.

Times are changing, Ms Co-Hen, and Jews are going to have to learn a
different tune. They'd better start singing quickly.

> > Good luck in your efforts to keep the myth alive, Susan.
>
> Since there is no myth, I hardly need to expend any effort.

Heh heh heh!!!

> As soon as I re-tool the killfile, I won;t ave to see any of your
> garbage again.

Ignorance is bliss, Susan.

Happy New Year, Susan. Do you think this will be a good year for Jews?

Waldo

Observer at Large

.

[Richard Phillips]

>

> Jews were not only privileged, they OPPRESSED the Gentile peasantry.
>
> The above was to posted to educate *you* as to who Salo Baron, (the esteemed
> Jewish historian that you stupidly believe you "showed" was wrong with an
> off the cuff, flippant remark) was.
>
> My intent was not to prove that he was correct and you (as usual) are
> wrong - but I'll do that further down. :-)
>
> > > ****
> > >
> > > (Incidentally, the idea that Jews were subject to scrutiny under the
> Spanish
> > > Inquisition **because they were Jewish** is a BIG LIE)

>
> >
> > (I notice you put this past the quote & offer no documentation
> > to back up your lie that Jews were not a target of the inquisition.)

==============================================
Phillips

My own impression is that a professing Jew was outside of the Inquisition's
jurisdiction.

It was the "conversos" (Jews who had converted to Christianity) they mainly went
after.

=================================================

> [deletia]
>

[Steven Mock]

Waldo wrote:

> "Susan Cohen" <fla...@hers.com> wrote in message

> news:3C2FABB7...@hers.com...

> > > The Papacy, if not the
> > > lower clergy, advocated a theology of toleration towards Jews.
> >
> > Now this is ridiculous, and this guy should have known it.
> > The Inquisition was *started* withthe purpose of catching Marranos.
>
> Do you know what Marranos were, Susan?
>
> > Of course, the Church considered these people Xians -
>
> Precisely, the church considered these people **Christians**, NOT Jews, you
> hate filled insect
>
> > and obviously
> > Salo did too. How sad for him to have lost touch with his own Jewishness.
>
> And the Marranos didn't lose touch with *their* "Jewishness" by converting,
> or PRETENDING to convert to Christianity?
>
> You made his point for him, you ethnocentric Jewish Supremacist: The church
> did NOT call Marranos before the inquisition **because** they were Jews,
> they were called because they PROFESSED CHRISTIANITY, and were believed to
> be secretly practicing Judaism - which the church considered HERESY.

My word, Waldo. Do you have lack any sense of history at all, Waldo, or
are you fully aware of how dishonest this portreyal of the inquisition
really is?

Yes, the Inquisition went after (among others) Marranos who professed
Christianity and were believed to be secretly practicing Judaism. But
why do you think the Marranos were doing this, pray tell? To pull one
over on the old Inquisition? Because they liked being tortured to
death? This can only to be understood in the context of the fact that
Jews - as Jews - were expelled from Spain en-masse in 1492. The only
choice they had, other than to give up their homes, property, livelihood
and posessions was to officially convert to Christianity, are the Jews
to blame for the fact that some took the latter option?

Let's play a little analogy here, Waldo. Let's say your contry was
taken over by the communists, who decided to confiscate all property
from anyone who did not join the communist party. And let's say, since
you happened to like your home and had a lot to lose, you decided to
start paying your party dues. Then, let's say 10 or so years latter
there was a massive purge, and anyone who proved not to be a true,
beleiving communist was executed. When you found yourself against the
wall, would you admit that you were the bad guy and the state was the
victim? That it was really all your fault for feigning communism?...

... or do the Jews have the right to consider themselves victims of an
atrocity in the Inquisition?

But that, too, shows a dismal lack of historical understanding. The
Spanish Inquisition invented the idea of racial anti-Semitism, with the
doctrine of "purity of the blood". Not only Marranos, but also many
honest converts to Christianity - who did not retain a religious
connection to Judaism - were killed or forfeited their property because
of their Jewish descent. Face it Waldo, whatever assets the church and
the crown failed to acquire by means of the expulsion, they got by way
of the Inquisition, with the "purity of the blood" notion merely
increasing the take. The Inquisition - which, in terms of its effect on
Jews, cannot be understood outside of the context of the expulsion order
- was legalized murder and theft on a mass scale. Who do *you* think
were the victims?

> Life sucks when your a Jew with a persecution complex - and this describes
> MOST Jews!

Actually, the only one here with a persecution complex - screaming
bloody murder whenever anyone has the nerve to argue that you're a
mindless anti-Semite - is you. Ironic, isn't it?

Steven Mock
--
"Nobody objects to the truth being written and published, but free
speech does not include the right to peddle vicious lies for profit."
- David Irving
<http://www.fpp.co.uk/Legal/Penguin/books/Guttenplan/SMH0609101.html#note>

[Susan Cohen]

Steven Mock wrote:

> Waldo wrote:
>
> > "Susan Cohen" <fla...@hers.com> wrote in message
> > news:3C2FABB7...@hers.com...
>
> > > > The Papacy, if not the
> > > > lower clergy, advocated a theology of toleration towards Jews.
> > >
> > > Now this is ridiculous, and this guy should have known it.
> > > The Inquisition was *started* withthe purpose of catching Marranos.
> >
> > Do you know what Marranos were, Susan?

I guess this is his way of trying to find out, because he doesn't know.

> > > Of course, the Church considered these people Xians -
> >
> > Precisely, the church considered these people **Christians**, NOT Jews, you
> > hate filled insect

This is even funnier - he knows damned well how wrong he is,
so he's got to start throwing around nasty little ad hominem.,
What he refuses to accept, however, is Marranos were Jews.
They only pretended to accept a false religion to keep from being
persecuted. As always, it didn't work. Conciliating bigots never does.

> > > and obviously
> > > Salo did too. How sad for him to have lost touch with his own Jewishness.
> >
> > And the Marranos didn't lose touch with *their* "Jewishness" by converting,
> > or PRETENDING to convert to Christianity?

Like the bigot hasn't been told this more than once.

> > You made his point for him, you ethnocentric Jewish Supremacist:

Should we bother asking for proof of *this* lie...?
Nah, it would only make him spout more of them.

> The church
> > did NOT call Marranos before the inquisition **because** they were Jews,
> > they were called because they PROFESSED CHRISTIANITY, and were believed to
> > be secretly practicing Judaism - which the church considered HERESY.
>
> My word, Waldo. Do you have lack any sense of history at all, Waldo, or
> are you fully aware of how dishonest this portreyal of the inquisition
> really is?

Yes - yes to both.

> Yes, the Inquisition went after (among others) Marranos who professed
> Christianity and were believed to be secretly practicing Judaism. But
> why do you think the Marranos were doing this, pray tell? To pull one
> over on the old Inquisition? Because they liked being tortured to
> death? This can only to be understood in the context of the fact that
> Jews - as Jews - were expelled from Spain en-masse in 1492. The only
> choice they had, other than to give up their homes, property, livelihood
> and posessions was to officially convert to Christianity, are the Jews
> to blame for the fact that some took the latter option?
>
> Let's play a little analogy here, Waldo. Let's say your contry was
> taken over by the communists, who decided to confiscate all property
> from anyone who did not join the communist party. And let's say, since
> you happened to like your home and had a lot to lose, you decided to
> start paying your party dues. Then, let's say 10 or so years latter
> there was a massive purge, and anyone who proved not to be a true,
> beleiving communist was executed. When you found yourself against the
> wall, would you admit that you were the bad guy and the state was the
> victim? That it was really all your fault for feigning communism?...
>
> ... or do the Jews have the right to consider themselves victims of an
> atrocity in the Inquisition?
>
> > Jewish scholar Cecil Roth echoes Baron's opinion:
> >
> > "Some current historiesappear to assume the Jews
> > were sole victims of the Spanish Inquisition ...

Funny how no one ever really says this.
What a sad little strawman.

> Strictly, this is so far
> > from the truth that a precisian might retort that [the Jews] never came
> > under the [Inquisition's] scope, save in exceptional cases, since the
> > activities were essentially confined to [Christian] apostates and
> > renegades." [ROTH, p. 141] Those "Jews" who risked trouble were those among
> > the Marranos/Conversos, who disingenuously represented themselves as
> > Christians and were thereby subject to the same scrutinization for religious
> > conformance as that directed upon any other Christian. Widely targeted were
> > Christian heretics, not the Judaic faith.
> >
> > [Roth, Cecil. The Most Persecuted People? The Menorah Journal, Jul-Sept
> > 1932, v. xx, no. 2, p. 136-147]

It wouldn't be the first time someone who wa published as a historian
had huge factual errors in the basic remise of his/her work.
I've seen some revisions of the Lowell Mills phenomenon that all but
make me scream.

> > Another Jew, M. Hirsh Goldberg notes,
> >
> > "Contrary to popular belief, Jews who openly remained Jews were
> > not tortured or killed as part of the inquisition proceedings.

Yes, they were subject to all the *other* persecutions, such as Mr. Mock lays out.

> The
> > Inquisition was specifically authorized by the Church to root out
> > heresy among Catholics, so only heretical Christians and Jewish
> > converts to Christianity accused of secretly reverting to Judaism
> > were prosecuted."
> >
> > [Goldberg, M. Hirsh. Just Because They're Jewish. If Anything Can Be
> > Misconstrued about the Jews, It Will Be ... And Has Been.

(Now here's some irony, Mr. Mock - and it's only irony because it's
unintentional.)

> Stein and Day,
> > Publishers, New York, 1979, p. 16]
> >
> > Joachim Prinz writes:
> >
> > "The Inquisitionis considered one of the many traumatic experiences of
> > Jewish history, and as such, it is always spoken of with dread. But, of
> > course, the Inquistion had no power over Jews at all. It was established for
> > the purpose of dealing with Christians who had deviated from their faith.
> > The Marranos who were called into account for their secret practices
> > appeared not as Jews but as allegedly heretical Chrisitans ... No
> > unconverted Jews were ever called to the tribunals."
> >
> > [Prinz, Joachim. The Secret Jews, Random House, New York, 1973 p. 44]
> >
> > You see, Schmoozan,

Such an intellect this boy has! I'm sure we're all impressed.

> the truth is the truth, in spite of your desperate NEED
> > to believe that Jews always suffered worse than anyone else.

Once again, yet another lie. I suppose I could demand that he
repost the post wherein he alleges that I make this comment,
but that would only incite him further.

> > Few, if *any* Jews 'suffered' under the Spanish Inquisition **because of
> > their Judaism**.
>
> But that, too, shows a dismal lack of historical understanding. The
> Spanish Inquisition invented the idea of racial anti-Semitism, with the
> doctrine of "purity of the blood". Not only Marranos, but also many
> honest converts to Christianity - who did not retain a religious
> connection to Judaism - were killed or forfeited their property because
> of their Jewish descent. Face it Waldo, whatever assets the church and
> the crown failed to acquire by means of the expulsion, they got by way
> of the Inquisition, with the "purity of the blood" notion merely
> increasing the take. The Inquisition - which, in terms of its effect on
> Jews, cannot be understood outside of the context of the expulsion order
> - was legalized murder and theft on a mass scale. Who do *you* think
> were the victims?
>
> > Life sucks when your a Jew with a persecution complex - and this describes
> > MOST Jews!
>
> Actually, the only one here with a persecution complex - screaming
> bloody murder whenever anyone has the nerve to argue that you're a
> mindless anti-Semite - is you. Ironic, isn't it?

His lack of reason isn't intelligent enough to aspire to irony.

Susan

[aryan]

July 1994 Deborah Lipstadt, author of the Anti-Defamation League's
blockbuster book Denying the Holocaust--The Growing Assault on Truth
and Memory (The Free Press/Macmillan, New York, 1993) made her third
tour of Australia on a junket paid for by the Australian Institute of
Jewish Affairs, and at the invitation of the no less greasy Gerard
Henderson's Sydney Institute. Both bodies are frantically engaged in
damage control after the two year long controversy over David Irving's
banning from the country has resulted in a situation where, as the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) admitted in July, seventy
percent of the Australians have now heard the claim that the Holocaust
did not happen as legend maintains.

In her book and elsewhere Lipstadt, associate professor of Modern
Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia,
has emphasised that there is a danger that when the last
eye-witnesses, as she calls them, have died, the accepted version of
the Holocaust will die with them.
Seemingly in direct contradiction of this statement, she adds that
there are mountains of documents proving the existence of the gas
chambers and factories of death.

"The documents," she writes on page 226 of her twenty-eight dollar
book, "include work orders, supply requisitions, time sheets,
engineering instructions, invoices, and completion reports. All
clearly indicate that the gas chambers were to be used for nothing but
homicidal gassings."
Barely twenty-four hours into her trip across Australia, she repeated
this lie about the existence of "gas chamber plans" in a radio
interview conducted by Ramona Koval on ABC Radio on Jul.20.
Originalton Lipstadt:

"Our best proof to the Holocaust are the perpetrators. They left us an
incredible amount of documentation, precise documentation. Plans of
the gas chambers, work orders for the gas chambers, precise
requisition forms for building the gas chambers. They left us with
reports of exactly what happened."

November 11, 1994 At a typical lecture to students in Atlanta she went
even further with her lies, claiming to possess "blueprints" of the
gas chambers "showing the holes in the ceiling through which the S.S.
officers tipped in the lethal cyanide crystals."

This was the famous lecture attended, unbeknownst to Lipstadt, by
David Irving himself, whom she had just smeared extensively in her
lecture as an "historian whom no other reputable historian respects".
Invited to state a question, at the meeting's end, he rose and in
front of the ve hundred students attending this compulsory lecture he
plucked a wad of $20 bills from his pocket and challenged:

"Why are you lying to these innocent students! I have here $1,000 in
bills. This cash is yours, Professor Lipstadt, if you can produce the
'blueprint' you just claimed to have in your possession, or if you can
even tell us where to nd it. You know it does not exist. Why do you
lie to the students?"
Lipstadt angrily called on campus security guards to throw Mr Irving
out. (They approached him, but did not attempt to evict him after he
called the students' attention to her unorthodox way of handling
debates.)
At this Atlanta lecture she proudly took the credit form having coined
the ADL's latest phrase, "Holocaust deniers". In the Australian media
however she denied it.
Words mean more than substance to her. During her Australian tour she
emphasised to what the Australian Jewish News called a disappointingly
small audience, "I cannot counsel strongly enough against using the
term 'Holocaust revisionism.' It simply does not exist." She
continued: "Those who seek to debate the Holocaust are not revising
anything. They are simply denying history." "Instead of supporting
Hitler," said Dr Lipstadt, shocked at the convolutions of her
opponents' new tactics, "they condemn him. But they say the Holocaust
was a hoax and they only want scholarly conferences. They only want
the truth." That was where the "deniers" had gained ground.
In a prime-time television programme aired by ABC Television Lipstadt
admitted that she had refused to appear on their programme if they
also invited a representative of the other side of the debate: she
would never debate a "denier", she said.

Sometimes she had no choice. At her Melbourne meeting on Sunday Jul.31
when Dr Frank Knopfelmacher, amidst an uproar, insisted that he had a
copy of Hitler's Order to the extermination of the Jews (there is no
such document in fact) Lipstadt--no historian, she--bluffed, said that
she too was aware of this document, but dismissed it outright.
Knopfelmacher muttered loudly that he was a "true" survivor and he
used a vulgar word to describe those like Lipstadt who wished to
silence him.

Although a professor of religion Lipstadt has problems with seeking,
finding, and even using the truth. Believing that Mr Irving would
never hear of her words, she told shocked audiences in Melbourne and
Sydney that he has a lifesize portrait of Adolf Hitler in his study in
London. If so, thirty years of visiting journalists have never
glimpsed it. The Australian published this letter from David Irving:

I see from Frank Devine

Susan Cohen <fla...@hers.com> wrote in message news:<3C2CE6FF...@hers.com>...

> "M.T.T." wrote:
>
> > 2
> > THE CAUSES OF HOSTILITY TOWARDS JEWS: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
> >
> >
> >
> > "Reason and documentation ... attest to the fact that anti-Jewish
> > hostility has not been (and is not) constant and ubiquitous. If it
> > had been, the conclusion is obvious: Jews could not have survived individually or
> > collectively, religiously or ethnically."
> > Alan Edelstein
>
> This is an exaggeration. Jew-hatred *is* constant *&* ubiquitous.
> Sometimes, however, it is relatively harmless.
> There have always been entire groups of people ready to stand
> around and shriek "KIKE!" whenever they so much as think there's
> a Jew around. This is not the same as, say, laws against Judaism or
> Jews. So this guy is wrong.
>

> > "Medieval Jewry, much as it suffered from disabilities and contempt, still was a privileged
> > minority in every country in which it was tolerated at all."
> > Salo Baron, p. 259, 1972
>
> Well, if this post is going to contain ridiculous statements like this
> (I won't bother to call it a lie - the writer would have had to know

> what he was writing was untrue & said it anyway), then the post

[Kenneth McVay, OBC]

In article <82ff0c9a.02010...@posting.google.com>,

aryan <admira...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>July 1994 Deborah Lipstadt, author of the Anti-Defamation League's
>blockbuster book Denying the Holocaust--The Growing Assault on Truth
>and Memory (The Free Press/Macmillan, New York, 1993) made her third

Dr. Lipstadt's book had nothing to do with the Anti-Defamation League.

From my paperback edition:

"This book is a research project of The Vidal Sassoon International
Center for the Study of Antisemitism of the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem."

--
"...I note that on the few occasions of which I am aware where purveyors of
anti-Semitic propaganda have endeavoured to justify their materials in
court on the facts and the merits, they have been singularly unsuccessful..."
(http://www2.ca.nizkor.org/hweb/people/s/scully-olga/reason.html)

[wally]

Your name is also mentioned on david irving's website www.fpp.co.uk
.He recently posted details of jewish persecution of him.
We need more men like him and less aggresive jewish
pseudo-intellectualism and memic warfare.
It does seem like lipstat is bought and paid for by members of her
tribe and that she is a professor of religion and not history speaks
volumes to the impartial observer.
Why cannot history be discussed in an aryan way? Our law courts have
this jewish adversarial mentality to their impoverishemnt(japan when
it had a choice preferred the french model to adopt). Historians
should be able to talk freely without jewish interference. Jews are
the only people on earth who make money spreading lies and farming the
dumbed down minds of the goyim.

kmc...@veritas.nizkor.org (Kenneth McVay, OBC) wrote in message news:<a0viok$1n6v$1...@news.tht.net>...

[Derek Bell]

Tavish <t-a--v-i...@i-x.n-e-t-co--m.co--mRemoveHyphens2Mail> wrote in message news:<7pnq2us21cbfgvke0...@4ax.com>...
> Once non-Jews learn how Jews really view them and what
> Jewish Rabbis teach about non-Jews and the Jewish
> involvement with communism it is only natural to have
> an intense dislike of Jewry in general. My sig line
> tells a lot about you too!

For those not familiar with him, "Doc Tavish"
(AKA Scott Bradbury) is an antisemite living
in Austin County, Texas. He posts antisemitic
drivel, including, but not limited to, Nazi
propaganda (i.e. ASCII-art renderings of
antisemitic caricatures).

He is well-known in alt.revisionism, where he
has posted about his obsessions for several
years. He even tried (unsuccessfully) to fake
his own death online.

Derek

[wies...@algonet.se]

wally wrote:
>
> just read the talmud to see what they are like. if a jew discloses the
> secrets of the talmud he is comdemned to death because they are so
> damning .

> www.wcotc.com has some facts on what it says.

And they are experts on Talmud..:))
smoe kind like you..:))

For me you are a fucking neonazi rasists...

W

[wies...@algonet.se]

Derek Bell wrote:

> He is well-known in alt.revisionism, where he
> has posted about his obsessions for several
> years. He even tried (unsuccessfully) to fake
> his own death online.

When and were? I'm always missing all fun..:))))
W.

[troll no. 69]

i dont have anything against them, as long as they're locked up in cages

"M.T.T. " <east...@hworks.com> wrote in message

news:3c2c922f...@netnews.worldnet.att.net...

> 2
> THE CAUSES OF HOSTILITY TOWARDS JEWS: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
>
>
>
> "Reason and documentation ... attest to the fact that anti-Jewish
> hostility has not been (and is not) constant and ubiquitous. If it
> had been, the conclusion is obvious: Jews could not have survived
individually or
> collectively, religiously or ethnically."
> Alan
Edelstein
>
>

> "Medieval Jewry, much as it suffered from disabilities and contempt, still
was a privileged
> minority in every country in which it was tolerated at all."
> Salo
Baron, p. 259, 1972
>

> "If Judaism is fundamentally altruistic in an evolutionarily meaningful
sense, it would be
> expected that Jews [through history] would characteristically engage in
self-sacrificing
> behavior on behalf of gentiles -- a thesis for which there is absolutely
no evidence."
> Kevin MacDonald, p. 64
>
>
> "Indeed, the more religiously conservative a Jew is today, the less likely
he or she is to
> identify with universalistic ideologies or with the non-Jewish 'poor and
downtrodden.'"
> Stanley Rothman and S.
Robert Lichter,
> 1982,
>
> p. 112
>
> "My God," she gasped with grief. "Who died?" "Don't worry for nothing,"
Max assured her. "It's
> nobody.They're burying a man called Blenholt today. He's not a Jew."
> Daniel Fuchs,
fiction, "Homage to
> Blenholt
> [in BERSHTEL,
p.113]
>
>
>

> 2
> THE CAUSES OF HOSTILITY TOWARDS JEWS : A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
>
>

> with Hinduism in mind, I was glad that I had not done so;
for

> almost invariably the leading theme is either the virtue
of the
> singer, protected by his God, who will "smite his enemies
on
> the cheek" and "break the teeth of the wicked;" or, on
the other
> hand, of complaint that God has not yet given due aid to
his
> righteous servant: all of which is just about
diametrically opposed
> to what an instructed Hindu would have been taught to
regard as
> religious sentiment.
> In the Orient the ultimate divine mystery is
sought beyond
> all human categories of thought and feeling, beyond names
and
> forms, and absolutely beyond any such concept as of a
merciful

> or wrathful personality, chooser of one people over
another,

> autonomous self, central to modern ethics, is radically incompatible with

> individual Jews. Judaism is a religion with a strong ancestral

srael -- that Jews have had
> the opportunity to practice Moses' commandments and the rest of their
beliefs (towards

> themselves or anybody) from a position of complete empowerment was, even
by their own ancient
> religious standards, a disaster. The pinnacle of ancient Jewish history
was a series of
> monarchial regimes that represented a turbulent time of failures in living
up to Covenantal
> laws, incessant quarreling, fratricide, genocide, wars of conquest with
non-Jewish neighbors,
> repeated intra-Jewish civil wars, and other struggles for power and
control, rife with
> continuous bloodletting, as violent as any in human history. Most of this
is codified as part
> of the Jewish religious faith/history in the Torah.
>
> The well-known historian, Will Durrant, describes the Israelites'
seizure (after the Mosaic
> moral code was accepted) of the Holy Land from the Canaanites who lived
there, like this:
>
> "The conquest of Canaan was but one more instance of a
> hungry nomad horde falling upon a settled community. The
> conquerors killed as many as they could find, and married
the
> rest. Slaughter was unconfined, and (to follow the text) was
> divinely ordained and enjoyed. Gideon, in capturing two
cities,
> slew 120,000 men; only in the annals of the Assyrians do we
> meet again with such hearty killing. [DURRANT, p. 302]
>
> Even in the Book of Exodus, when Moses (deliverer of the admonition
"Thou Shalt Not
> Kill" and all the rest of it) discovered his own people weakening, "out
of control” with
> idolatrous dancing, naked, before a "Golden Calf," he directed the
Levites, the priest caste,
> to slay three thousand of them. [EXODUS 33:27-28]
>
> Considerable portions of the Bible revolve around violent struggles
amongst Israelites
> for power. Both King David and Solomon -- among the most beloved of the
Israelite ancients in
> the myths of modern Jewry -- had half-brothers with rival claims to the
Israelite monarchy
> murdered. Solomon, for example, arranged for Adonijah to be slain as well
as another threat to
> the throne, Joab, who was even murdered in the Holy Tabernacle. (Both
David and Solomon even
> had forced labor gangs of their own Israelite people). Likewise,
Ambimelich, the son of
> Gideon, (who like most powerful Israelite rulers had a harem of wives and
concubines) murdered
> 70 of his brothers to guarantee the throne for himself. Jeru too, in a fit
of ruthlessness,
> killed the King of Israel, Joram, and then murdered Ahaziah, of the
Israelite kingdom of
> Judah, as well as his two brothers. Then he had all 70 sons of King Ahab
decapitated, clearing
> the way for his own leadership.
>
> In King David's family, notes Joel Rosenberg,
>
> "David's adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah is balanced
> by the sexual violation of David's daughter Tamar by David's son
> Amnon, the murder of Amnon by his half-brother Absalom, the
> appropriation of David's concubines and kingdom by Absalom,
> and the slaying of Absalom by David's own servant Joab."
> [ROSENBERG, J., 1984, p. 47]
>
> There is too the story of Gibeah (Judges 19:21). An Israelite,
enraged by the rape-murder
> of his concubine by Jews of another tribe, hacked the corpse into pieces
and sent a section to
> each of the twelve Israelite tribes to make an embittered point about
solidarity. A
> confederation of tribes joined together to exact revenge on the
perpetrators of the crime. The
> ensuing Israelite battle against each other took over 60,000 lives (Judges
20:21). The
> victorious confederation then marched on Jabesh-gilead, a group who had
declined to join the
> coalition against the destroyed Benjaminites. 12,000 soldiers were sent to
"smite the
> inhabitants of Jabed-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and
children." (Judges
> 21) Only female virgins were spared.
>
> Going further along in Jewish religious history, there is the
murder of Simon by his
> son-in-law, Hyrcanus, in another bid for the monarchy, and his son,
Aristobulus I, who killed
> his mother and brother, and imprisoned the rest of his family. After him
came his brother,
> Alexander Jannaeus, to the throne, a "despotic, violent ruler" who reigned
during the civil
> war between warring pro-Greek Israelites (Sadducees) and anti-Greek
Israelites (Pharisees).
> Jannaeus' bloody revenge upon the Pharisees was "as bloody as any in
history." [DIMONT, p.89,
> 90] There was Antipater, "one of history's most unsavory characters,"
whose family had been
> "forcibly converted to Judaism" [GOLDBERG, M., 1976, p. 32] and his son,
Herod, who murdered a
> few sons, one of his wives, and range of others including 45 Israelite
religious leaders.
> [DIMONT, p. 95-96] The Torah tells us that the Israelite prophet Elijah
slew 450 prophets of
> the rival deity Baal (I Kings 18) and military commander Jeru killed "all
the prophets of
> Baal, all his worshippers and priests." (I Kings 10:18-27) [LANG, B.,
1989, p. 120]
>
> Under the ruler Mannasseh there was the reintroduction of pagan
cults, child sacrifices
> and "systematic murders" in the southern Israelite kingdom of Judah; this
kingdom itself had a
> rivalry with the northern Israelite kingdom, Israel, and -- as noted -- it
eventually aligned
> with Assyrian invaders against its Israelite brethren, ultimately to
ancient Israel's complete
> destruction.
>
> The chaos, internecine warring and corruption, the straying from the
“Covenant,” the
> worship of idols and the fraying of the moral codes of Israelite
solidarity resulted in a
> central Jewish belief that took form in later centuries, that Jews had
been scattered in a
> Diaspora (dispersion) throughout the earth in galut (exile) from the land
God gave them,
> Israel. But 2,000 years of exile experience, notes Alfred Jospe, “could
not shatter the image
> Jews had of themselves. Destruction and exile were a national disaster but
not completely
> unforeseen. They were part of the divine plan ... The Jew was persecuted
not because God had
> abandoned or rejected him; [The Jew] suffered because he was not equal to
his moral task. In
> the words of the prayer book, ‘because of our sins, we were exiled from
our land’ ...
> Suffering was defined as punishment and punishment in turn was a call to
duty. Exile was God’s
> call to return to the faithfulness inherent in Israel’s role as the
‘chosen people.’ The
> acceptance of punishment opened the gate to redemption and return to the
land.” [JOSPE, p. 17]
> Such a view of human suffering by Judaism, argues Richard Rubenstein, was
"a colossal,
> megalomaniacal and grandiose misreading of a pathetic and defeated
community's historical
> predicament. To this day Jews can be found who delude themselves with the
notion that somehow
> Jewish suffering and powerlessness have redemptive significance for
mankind." [KREFETZ, p.
> 182]
>
> The key to the Israelite future of divine favoritism, and its
special covenantal
> “mission,” was eventually linked to a Messiah who would triumphantly come
to lead His people
> into a glorious future. Originally the Messiah was understood to be merely
a nationalist
> savior, a great and literal king of the Israelite people; later He was
reconfigured as an
> expression of the one God of the Universe who would lord -- physically and
spiritually -- over
> the earth, not in an after-life, but in the here-and-now. [JOSPE, p.
22-23] "Judaism," notes
> Stephen Whitfield, "in all its forms and manifestations, has always
maintained a concept of
> redemption as an event which takes place on the stage of history and
within the community. It
> is an occurrence which takes place in the visible world, unlike
Christianity, which conceives
> of redemption as an event in the spiritual and unseen realm, an event
which is reflected in
> the soul." [WHITFIELD, American, p. 33]
>
> ****************
>
> Over the centuries the Messiah was not quick in coming, and not
all answers to
> questions about changing times were clearly indicated in the seminal
Torah, so a written
> tradition of commentary, argument, and interpretation by respected Jewish
religious leaders
> evolved and became codified in a second religious text called the Talmud.
Many argue that it
> is not the Torah but actually the Talmud -- this later legalese and
folklore about the seminal
> Torah -- that is the crucial source for day-to-day Orthodox Jewish
decision making about
> religious and secular issues. "The Talmud," observes Jacob Neusner, "is
the single most
> influential document in the history of Judaism." [BORAZ, p. 5]
"Historically speaking," says
> Adin Steinsaltz, "the Talmud is the central pillar of Jewish culture."
[STEINSALTZ, 1976, p.
> 266] "The Talmud," adds Robert Goldenberg, "provided the means of
determining how God wants
> all Jews to live, in all places, at all times. Even if the details of the
law had to be
> altered to suit newly arisen conditions, the proper way to perform such
adaptation could
> itself be learned from the Talmud and its commentaries." [GOLDENBERG, R.,
1984, p. 166]
>
> This many volumed tome, consisting of Judaism's "legal literature,"
is really two
> distinct books merged together, the Mishna (the "oral law," originally
written in Hebrew -- a
> language considerably different than modern Hebrew) and the Gemara
(largely commentaries about
> the Mishna), written mostly in Aramaic three hundred years apart. The
Talmud is so difficult
> to read and so unwieldly that only lifelong experts even think to tackle
the original texts.
> Hence, the Talmud that explains and interprets the Torah has needed plenty
of other vast
> textual explanations to deal with itself; such influential
metacommentaries through history
> include those of Maimonides (including his Mishneh Torah), Joseph Caro
(particularly his
> Shukan Arukh, which has never appeared unabridged in English),
[GOLDENBERG, R, 1984, p. 174]
> and others. Many of such works, too, are so large that they are further
distilled into more
> reasonably digestible abridgements. Rashi's 39 volumes of explanation, for
example, are much
> larger than the talmudic texts it addresses. (Rashi's comments are usually
printed as part of
> the text in Talmudic editions printed since the early Middle Ages).
[GOLDENBERG, R., p. 139]
> It was not until 1920 that the Talmud was translated into another language
(German) for the
> first time. In 1935 it first appeared in English.
>
> Edwin Boraz notes that "the study of the Talmud may be so
formidable, challenging, and
> complex ... [that] one may ask, for what purpose? ... [BORAZ, p. 1] ...
[Aside from the
> 'mishnaic' Hebrew and Aramaic of the original texts] the classic
commentaries to the Talmud
> are written in 'medieval rabbinic Hebrew,' which is a blend of both Hebrew
and Arabic. The
> language barrier alone is arduous." [BORAZ, p. 13] The Talmud also lacks
"an inner order ...
> [it] shift[s] from one subject to another in ways that are not readily
apparent. Often, the
> pronominal references are unclear ... In short, a talmudic passage seems
scattered and
> diffused, rather than a well-reasoned dialectic inquiry." [BORAZ, p.
13-14]
>
> To complicate matters even further, there are even two versions of
the Talmud, of
> Babylonian and Palestinian origin. The latter (called the Yerushalmi),
however, is rarely
> used, even in religious circles. Jacob Neusner notes that "it fills
hundreds of pages with
> barely intelligible writing. [It is] famous for its incomprehensibility
... The Yerushalmi has
> suffered an odious but deserved reputation for the difficulty in making
sense of its
> discourse." [NEUSNER, 1993, p. x]
>
> A fundamental current of Talmudic discourse, however, is noted by
Herman Wouk: "Talmudic
> political judgment often shows the bitterness of a people trodden by wave
after wave of
> oppressors." [WOUK, p. 201] And what of its legal and moral direction
which shifted in
> emphases so much over the centuries as was politically expedient? This
from Wouk again, a
> devout Jew: "Since the Talmud reports the sayings of hundreds of savants
over many centuries,
> it abounds in contradictory maxims, in conflicting metaphysical guesses,
in baffling switches
> from cynicism to poetry, from misanthropy to charity, from dislike of
women to praise for them
> .... In a word, one can say almost anything about this recording of the
talk of wise men
> through seven centuries, and then find a passage to support it." [WOUK, p.
201]
>
> "For any maxim of the haggada," says Leon Poliakov, "one can be
found that states
> precisely the contrary." The haggada are "non-legal teachings,
speculations, stories,
> legends, and prayers" in the Talmud. (The halakah is its "legal"
contents.) "The ancient
> rabbinic sage used two kinds of speech," says Rabbi Samuel Karff, "halacha
and agada [i.e.,
> haggada]. Halacha is the language of Jewish law. It asks and answers the
question: 'What must
> a Jew do to fulfill the covenant?' Agada was the language of the Jewish
faith. It tells the
> story of God's relation to man through his relation to the people of
Israel ... Agada remains
> not only the language of worship, but the language of preaching." [KARFF,
S., 1979, p. 8,
> 11-12]
>

[wies...@algonet.se]

troll no. 69 wrote:
>
> i dont have anything against them, as long as they're locked up in cages

You mean people like MTT.

W

> "M.T.T. " <east...@hworks.com> wrote in message

> thy neighbour a

[Des Higgins]

nak nak nak nak

"troll no. 69" <littero...@wi.net> wrote in message
news:c17_7.9173$zw3.1...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...

[Des Higgins]

blurp
<wies...@algonet.se> wrote in message news:3C3940...@algonet.se...