THE TIME HAS COME TO CONFRONT JEWISH INTOLERANCE
AS WELL AS ANTISEMITISM
BY
ALLAN C. BROWNFELD
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While
the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Israeli Government and others
have launched a campaign against antisemitism, which has been redefined
to include criticism of Israel, little attention has been paid to
growing Jewish intolerance and the promotion of contempt for non-Jews in
Jewish literature, including the Talmud.
A
recent headline in Al-Monitor (June 19,2023) declared: “Christians
Horrified by Hate Crimes in Jerusalem.” It reports that Tag Meir, an
Israeli anti-racism organization, has documented an increasing number of
hate crimes against Christians. These include a case of two young
Israeli Jews spitting at a disabled priest upon his leaving the Greek
Orthodox monastery in Jerusalem’s Old City and then threatening with
pepper spray another priest who was trying to help their victim. In
another case, a young Jewish man entered the Tomb of the Virgin Mary on
Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives with an iron bar to threaten worshipers.
Tag
Meir documents hate crimes against Christians and Muslims and tracks
the authorities’ response to them. The group’s chair, Gadi Gvaryahu,
believes that these attacks can be attributed to the current right-wing
coalition. He says there has been a “disturbing” rise in violent
attacks and incidents of vandalism targeting Christian pilgrims, clergy
and institutions. Victims have been jostled and spat at, religious
symbols and icons defaced and inflammatory graffiti has appeared near
Christian institutions. Most of the attacks have taken place in
Jerusalem’s Old City, near churches and monasteries.
Segregation of Jewish and Arab Mothers
He
noted that most Knesset members from the Jewish Power party, headed by
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, advocate for segregation of
Jewish and Arab mothers in hospital maternity wards. They believe Jews
are forbidden from renting or selling apartments to Arabs and that there
is no such thing as Jewish terrorists.
On
May 28, demonstrators, including Jerusalem’s Deputy Mayor Aryeh King,
protested against Christians visiting the Western Wall. They carried
banners reading “Missionaries Go Home!” Father Francisco Patten, the
Vatican Custodian of Christian Sacred Sites in the Holy Land, says, “I
am very concerned as I watch the rise in acts of violence and hatred
against Christians. Not a week goes by without Christians being heckled
and spat at, graffiti, vandalism and other forms of harassment.
Israeli authorities know what to do, but they do not want to put an end
to this serious phenomenon.”
To
determine whether the claims of increased violence and hate crimes
directed against Christians were true, on June 26 the Israeli newspaper
Haaretz sent one of its journalists dressed as a priest into downtown
Jerusalem. Within five minutes, the journalist, Yossi Eli, was derided
and spat at, including by a child and a soldier. A bit later, a man
mocked him in Hebrew, saying “Forgive me Father for I have sinned.”
After this, an 8-year-old child spat at him as did another soldier when
a group of troops passed by later on.
Contempt Toward Non-Jews
Jewish
fundamentalism shows contempt toward non-Jews, and this dangerous
tendency is growing in Israel. Rabbi Kook the Elder, the revered father
of the messianic tendency in Jewish fundamentalism, said, “The
difference between a Jewish soul and the soul of non-Jews—-all of them
in all different levels—-is greater and deeper than the difference
between a human soul and the souls of cattle.”
Rabbi
Kook’s entire teachings, which are followed devoutly by, among others,
those who have led the settler movement in the occupied West Bank and
many in Israel’s current right-wing government, is based upon the
Lurianic Cabbala. In their book, “Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel,”
Norton Mezvinsky and Israel Shahak note that this school of Jewish
mysticism dominated Judaism from the late 16th to the early 19th
century.
“one of the
basic tenets of the Lurianic Cabbala,” the authors write, “is the
absolute superiority of the 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. If an influential bishop or
Islamic scholar argued that the difference between the superior souls
of non-Jews was greater than the difference between the human soul and
the souls of cattle, he would incur the wrath of all and be viewed as an
antisemite by most Jewish scholars.”
Differentiation Between Jews and Non-Jews
Common
to both the Talmud and the Halacha (Orthodox religious law) is a
differentiation between Jews and non-Jews. The respected Rabbi Menachem
Mandel Schneerson, who headed the Chabad movement and wielded great
influence in the U.S., explained that, “The difference between a Jewish
and a non-Jewish person stems from the common _expression_, ‘Let us
differentiate.’…We have a case between totally different species. The
body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality than the
bodies of (members) of all nations of the world…A non-Jew’s entire
reality is only vanity…The entire creation of a non-Jew is only for the
sake of the Jews.”
Among
the religious settlers in the occupied territories, the Chabad Hasidism
constitute one of the most extreme groups. The Hebron mass murderer
Baruch Goldstein was one of the members of this group. Rabbi Yitzhak
Ginsburgh, who wrote a chapter in a book in praise of Goldstein and his
massacre of Muslim worshipers in the Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron is
another member of this group. He speaks freely of Jews’ genetic-based
spiritual superiority over non-Jews. “if you saw two people drowning, a
Jew and a non-Jew, the Torah says you save the Jewish life first,”
Ginsburgh states: “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.”
Shahak and Mezvinsky point out that, “Changing the words ‘Jewish ‘ to
‘German’ or ‘Aryan’ and ‘non-Jewish’ to ‘Jewish’ turns the Ginsburgh
position into the doctrine that made Auschwitz possible in the past.”
The
views that characterize Israel’s now dominant right-wing are understood
by few Americans. At the funeral of the ultra-Orthodox extremist
Goldstein, Rabbi Yaakov Perrin stated that, “One million Arabs are not
worth a Jewish fingernail.” Shmuel Hacohen, a teacher in a Jerusalem
college, said, “Baruch Goldstein was the greatest Jew alive, not in one
way, but in every way. There are no innocent Arabs here.”
Intolerance in the Jewish Tradition
Intolerance
can be found throughout the Jewish tradition. Most Jewish Americans
are unfamiliar with this material and it is certain that the vast
majority would find it objectionable. The earliest code of the Talmudic
law which is still of major importance is the Mishneh Torah, written by
Moses Maimonides in the late 12th century. The most authoritative code
is the Shulhan Arukh , composed by R. Yosef Karo in the late 16th
century. According to religious law, murder of a Jew is a capital
offense. When the victim is a Gentile, the position is quite
different. A Jew who murders a Gentile is guilty of what Talmudic law
calls a “sin against the laws of heaven,” to be punished by God rather
than man in a court of law. To cause the death of a Gentile indirectly
is no sin at all.
One
of the two most cited commentaries on the Shulhan Arukh explains that
when it comes to a Gentile, “One must not lift one’s hand to harm him,
but one may harm him indirectly, for instance by removing a ladder after
he had fallen into s crevice…There is no prohibition here, because it
was not done directly.” However, an act leading indirectly to a
Gentile’s death is forbidden if it may cause the spread of hostility to
Jews. A Gentile murderer who happens to be under Jewish jurisdiction
must be executed whether the victim was Jewish or not. However, if the
victim was Gentile and the murderer converts to Judaism, he is not to be
punished. Perhaps the most troubling rabbinic statement about non-Jews
is attributed to the Second Century sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yohar: “The
best of the Gentiles should be killed.”
Maimonides,
in his interpretation concerning prohibitions on intercourse, writes:
“But an Israelite who has intercourse with a Gentile woman…she is to be
killed; since she caused Israel trouble, as if she was a beast of
burden.”
Christian Churches And Antisemitism
For
many years, Jewish organizations have been in the forefront of urging
Christian churches to remove from their sacred literature those elements
which have helped to produce religious intolerance, in particular
antisemitism. The Christian world has, in large measure, responded to
those calls and has formally apologized for the narrow teachings of the
past which led to widespread persecutions.
In
1985, for example, the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with
the Jews produced “Notes on the Correct way to present Jews and Judaism
in Preaching and Catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church.” Here the
church took up the anti-Judaic language in some of the Gospels. Matthew
27:25, for example, has the Jews saying “His blood be upon us and our
children.” The “Notes” reflected the views of Pope John Paul II on the
subject of Judaism and he was a key source and motivator of the Catholic
rethinking. The covenant between God and the Jews, he said, in the
Mainz, Germany synagogue in 1980, “has never been revoked.” Speaking in
the synagogue in Rome in 1986, the Pope declared: “With Judaism…we
have a relationship we do not have with any other religion. You are our
dearly beloved brothers and, in a certain way, it could be said that
you are our elder brothers. It is not lawful to say that the Jews are
repudiated for the Jews are beloved of God, who called them with an
irrevocable calling.”
The
General Convention of the American Lutheran Church in 1974 dealt
specifically with the anti-Jewish writings of Martin Luther: “American
Lutherans are the heirs of a long history of prejudicial discrimination
against Jews…Lutherans bear a special responsibility for this tragic
history of persecution because the Nazi movement found a climate of
hatred already in existence…That the Nazi period fostered a revival of
Luther’s own medieval hostility toward Jews…is a special cause of
regret. Those who study and admire Luther should acknowledge
unequivocally that his anti-Jewish writings are beyond any defense.”
No Effort To Cleanse Jewish Sacred Literature
While
Christian churches have sought to excise from their tradition those
teachings of the past which led to intolerance, there has not been a
similar effort to cleanse Jewish sacred literature of its own hostility
to those of other traditions and backgrounds. Instead, in Israel, such
hostility is growing. The respected Israeli sociologist Baruch
Kimmerling, citing evidence from a study conducted by other scholars,
declared: “The values of the (Jewish) religion, at least in the
Orthodox and nationalistic form that prevails in Israel, cannot be
squared with democratic values. No other variable—-neither nationality,
nor attitudes about security, nor social or economic values, nor ethnic
descent nor education—-so inflames the attitudes of (Israeli) Jews
against democratic values as does religiosity.”
Mordechai
Nisan, a lecturer at the Hebrew University, wrote in an official
publication of the World Zionist Organization, relying upon Maimonides,
that a non-Jew permitted to reside in the land of Israel “must accept
paying a tax and suffering the humiliation of servitude.” He said that,
“non-Jews must not be appointed to any office or position of power over
Jews.”
When it comes to
Maimonides, his view of non-Jews is less than positive. His “Guide To
The Perplexed” (Book 3, Chapter 51) discusses how various sections of
humanity can attain the supreme religious value, the true worship of
God. He identifies the following groups who are “incapable of even
approaching this: “some of the Turks, i.e., the Mongol race and the
Nomads of the North and the Blacks and Nomads in the South, and those
who resemble them in our climates. And their nature is like the nature
of mute animals, and according to my opinion, they are not on the level
of human beings, and their level among existing things is below that of a
man and above that of a monkey, because they have the image and
resemblance of a man more than a monkey does.”
Maimonides And Blacks
In
the popular translation of Maimonides’ “Guide To The Perplexed” (1925),
the Hebrew word Kushim, which means blacks, was simply transliterated
and appears as Kushites, a word which means nothing to those who have no
knowledge of Hebrew. Israel Shahak points out that, “During all those
years, not a word has been said to point out the original deception…and
this throughout the excitement of Martin Luther King’s campaigns, which
were supported by so many rabbis, not to mention other Jewish figures,
some of whom must have been unaware of the anti-black racist attitude
which forms part of their Jewish heritage.”
“The
Book of Education,” a popular Orthodox religious manual subsidized by
the Israeli government, was written by an anonymous rabbi in early 14th
century Spain. A central aim of this book is to emphasize the “correct”
meaning of the Bible with respect to such terms as “fellow,” “friend,”
and “man.” Thus, #219, devoted to the religious obligation arising from
the verse, “Thou shalt love thy fellow as thyself” is entitled “A
religious obligation to love Jews.”
In
#322, dealing with the duty to keep a Gentile slave enslaved forever
whereas a Jewish slave must be set free after seven years, the following
explanation is given: “And at the root of this religious obligation
(is the fact that) the Jewish people are the best of the human
species…and worthy of having slaves to serve them.”
The
authors of the Bible used magnanimous language such as “Thou shalt love
thy fellow as thyself.’ (Leviticus 19:13) but is interpreted by
Orthodox Judaism as an indication to love one’s fellow Jew, not any
fellow human being.
Taught That “The Arab Is Amalic”
In
his book “Arab and Jew,” David K.Shipler, who served as The New. York
Times correspondent in Jerusalem, writes: “As the 11-and-12 year old.
Boys in Kiryat Arba explained, they are learning in their yeshivas that
the Arab is Amalic, the enemy tribe that God instructed the Jews to
fight eternally and destroy.”
All
through history, we have seen great horrors inflicted upon mankind in
the name of one or another narrow view of religion and God’s will. Jews
have all too often been the victims of such religious-mandated
intolerance. It is a hopeful sign that Christian churches have rejected
the antisemitism that some of them preached in the past. As we have
seen, there is much ethno-centric contempt for those who are not Jewish
to be found in Jewish sacred literature. It is now time that Judaism be
purged of its own intolerant teachings.
Reform
Judaism, at its beginning, abandoned the ethno-centric bigotry to be
found in the Talmud and other Orthodox religious writing. It looked to
the God of the Prophets, who was not a God for Jews alone, but the Lord
of all creation. Second Isaiah proclaims God the God of all people. In
chapter 56 of the Book of Isaiah we find the famous passage epitomizing
universalism: “My house will be called a house of prayer for
all,peoples.”
A Universal God
The
idea of one God for a particular people was not the unique contribution
of the Jews. There had been other peoples who promoted such ideas.
Judaism’s unique contribution was the idea of one God for all peoples,
representing a single standard of morality with one set of moral values
applying universally. This was the revolution in religious thinking
the Hebrew Prophets brought about.