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By Yair Sheleg
Haaretz (Israeli newspaper) June 28, 2005
Russia's examination of the Kitzur Shulhan Arukh - the abbreviated codex of Jewish law - to ascertain whether it constitutes racist incitement gave Prof. Yisrael Yaakov Yuval, who researches Jewish-Christian relations in the Middle Ages, the feeling of a "return to the 13th century."
Like Yuval, others who know Jewish history could only be astounded by the sensation that the Dark Ages are making a comeback. The probe of a Jewish umbrella organization in Russia for distributing a Russian translation of the book, reported in yesterday's Haaretz, is only the latest incident in a history rife with investigations of Jewish religious books containing phrases thought to be "against non-Jews." These have generally ended with mass book burnings, pogroms and anti-Semitic decrees.
The best-known such incident took place in Paris, in 1240, when Jewish apostate Nicolas Donin complained of anti-gentile comments in the Talmud. Apostates often figured in the troubles afflicting the Jews, as they were able to tell the Christians all about the Talmud. The Roman Catholic Church ordered a religious "disputation," a type of public trial in which the Jews had to defend their texts against the Christians. A short time later, the pope ordered copies of the Talmud to be captured and handed over to Dominican monks for examination.
In the decade following this edict, many copies of the Talmud were publicly burned across Europe. In 1241 the tempest led to Jewish riots in Frankfurt.
But in 1247 the Jews managed to extract an agreement from Pope Innocent IV that the Talmud, which was agreed to be essential to the Jewish faith, would no longer be burned.
In 1413 another Jewish apostate, Joshua Halorki from Spain, brought charges that the Talmud contained anti-gentile texts. Once again the Jews were summoned to a public trial in the city of Tortosa. The trial, which lasted for two years, dealt with the Talmud's purported "mistakes and heresy and insults to the Christian religion." The trial ended with decrees discriminating against Jews.
In 1509 Johannes Pfefferkorn, who had also converted from Judaism, came out against the Talmud in Germany. But this time the Jews were defended by a Christian scholar, Johannes Reuchlin, who argued that the Talmud was full of evidence that validated the truth of Christian beliefs, and this time the Talmud was not burned.
There is no doubt that Jewish law (halakha), especially that which is expressed in the Talmud, relates to Jews differently from non-Jews. This contrast is particularly evident in the Mishne Torah written by Maimonides, in which he organized all the halakhic rulings of the Talmud. For instance, it's forbidden for non-Jews to study Torah or keep the Sabbath, since these are sacred elements created for the Jews; the sentence for non-Jews who violate these injunctions is death. According to other rulings, Jews must not return lost objects belonging to non-Jews, or at most should return them only to maintain good relations.
Kabbalistic works and the writings of those influenced by the kabbala contain even more essential distinctions between Jews and gentiles. In the 20th century Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook wrote that "the difference between the Israelite soul... and the souls of all non-Jews, no matter what their level, is bigger and deeper than the difference between the human soul and the animal soul."
The Shulhan Arukh, a code of halakha compiled in the 16th century, is actually considered fairly free of these kinds of comments and rulings. Here and there some remnants exist, like the ruling (on which the Russians are apparently basing their claim) that the baby of "a non-Jewish woman should not be delivered on the Sabbath," since doing so would entail the violation of the Sabbath, and it must not be violated for the sake of a non-Jew.
Yuval, the professor of Jewish-Christian relations, said the Shulhan Arukh has been edited by Jews and by Christian censors, which was made possible by the printing press, which allowed for greater supervision of content before books were published.
The internal and external censorship has increased since the publication of the code of Jewish law, said Yuval, with the 19th-century Kitzur ["Abridged"] Shulhan Arukh, the subject of the Russian probe, even freer of anti-gentile comments than its predecessor.
"This is the first time I have come across polemic against the Shulhan Arukh," he said.
Jewish commentators have tried to remove the sting from rulings against non-Jews. In the 13th century, Rabbi Menachem Hame'iri wrote that such rulings don't apply to monotheistic religions such as Christianity or Islam, only to idol worshipers.
In any case, the discussion of Jewish law should be left to Jews, without the involvement of Russia's state prosecutor. The issue that requires reaction is the return of the darkest kind of anti-Semitism.
by Michael A. Hoffman II
Copyright © 2005 revisionisthistory.org
The author of the preceding article, the Israeli journalist Yair Sheleg, mixes "Revelation of the Method" (admitting rabbinic writings contain racist teaching about gentiles) set within familiar prognostications of a howling lynch mob ever ready to run amok on a moment's notice, as soon as any scholar casts a critical eye on the Talmud (in this case the post-Gemara lawbook of Yosef Karo, the "Shulchan Aruch").
Shehelg admits that the proto-Zionist Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook does indeed hold that "the difference between the Israelite soul... and the souls of all non-Jews, no matter what their level, is bigger and deeper than the difference between the human soul and the animal soul." In that case, Russians are right to regard that rabbinic doctrine as hate speech.
The "defense" in this instance is to invoke the spectre of a frenzied mob of (who else?) gentiles with their " mass book burnings, pogroms and anti-Semitic decrees."
The supposition here is that rabbis don't burn books, don't order the massacre of gentiles and don't issue anti-gentile decrees, which is credible only if you are captive to the George Bush/NY Times-defined concept of "American democracy" (i.e. pro-Zionist gatekeepers in command of the major media constitutes democracy).
But if you have alternate sources of information, then you may be privy to the slightly inconvenient fact that the Talmud orders the burning of Christian books; and the massacre of gentiles was ordered as recently as 2001 by the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of "Israel," Ovadia Yosef.
Anti-gentile decrees are issued with greater frequency nowadays than at any time in the past. Last year the authoritative rabbinic holy book, "Romemut Yisrael Ufarashat Hagalut" ("Jewish Superiority and the Question of Exile") was issued by Rabbi Sadya Grama of Lakewood, New Jersey.
Grama is an alumnus of Beth Medrash Govoha, a prestigious Orthodox yeshiva (Talmud school). In his book-length decree, Rabbi Grama issued the following statement, "The Jew by his source and in his very essence is entirely good. The goy, by his source and in his very essence, is completely evil. This is not simply a matter of religious distinction, but rather of two completely different species."
Yair Shehelg in his article for "Haaretz" newspaper relates with some horror the case of "apostate" Judaic converts to Christianty such as Nicholas Donin and Johannes Pfefferkorn. Donin participated in a debate with rabbis over the authentic contents of the Talmud. It was a fair fight and the rabbis lost, as they do in any fair debate with a competent Christian scholar of the Talmud. 800 years later they are still smarting from that loss and Donin remains toward the top of their perpetual, ritual hate list as a "rodef."
A few centuries later, the Judaic convert to Christianity, Pfefferkorn, heroically took on the whole of the western occult establishment during the Renaissance, when the Kabbalists had made mighty inroads into the Catholic Church through the agency of Pico della Mirandola, Franciscan Fr. Francesco Giorgi (who may be said to be the secret father of Tudor Protestantism), and Johannes Reuchlin. Sheleg writes, "Reuchlin... argued that the Talmud was full of evidence that validated the truth of Christian beliefs, and this time the Talmud was not burned."
Actually Reuchlin made this argument mainly on behalf of the Kabbalah, not the Talmud. It was equally specious, but since the contents of the Kabbalah were not well known, the fraud at first escaped detection, while Pfefferkorn was libeled and ritually denounced as a reactionary hater for daring to accuse the Kabbalah of containing pagan black magic and anti-gentile polemics.
The Kabbalah also calls Jesus and Mohammed "dead dogs," but only a few elite scholars were aware of that fact during the Renaissance and for that matter, thanks to the toadying of Pat Buchanan, Latin Mass magazine, the New American magazine and similar right wing personalities and publications of our time, few are aware of it even now.
Hopefully the Left will do a better job in disseminating the truth on this vital subject. The ominous fact that the Sanhedrin was reconstituted last October in Tiberias for the first time in 2,000 years, ought to cause sufficient alarm in at least one highly-placed editor or publisher somewhere in America who will then, at long last, grow himself a pair of testicles and expose Judaism the way Islam is being relentlessly "exposed."
But of course it costs no American publisher anything to gouge Islam, whereas to skewer Judaism in print, an editor or a publisher must steel himself and risk everything to actually practice that which the Christian Savior preached, and few "Christian" conservatives have been willing to do anything as "rash" as that. That would just be too radical a step. We might start to have victory if conservative publications were to engage in so bold an initiative.
Sheleg reports: "Jewish commentators have tried to remove the sting from rulings against non-Jews. In the 13th century, Rabbi Menachem Hame'iri wrote that such rulings don't apply to monotheistic religions such as Christianity or Islam, only to idol worshipers."
Rubbish. Christianity is hated and dsespised throughout the Talmud. Any cosmetic modifcation of the rulings are strictly for gentile consumption and are conducted episodically, whenever Judaic supremacy is obstructed and Judaic subjugation is in force. In the latter case, euphemisms and loopholes are employed and concocted in order to hoodwink and appease aroused gentiles.
Israel Shahak documents this rabbinic stratagem in his magisterial work "Jewish History, Jewish Religion" in which he shows that Judaic physicians withheld medical treatment from gentiles in certain circumstances during times of Judaic supremacy, and treated them almost without exception during times of Judaic subjugation.
Sheleg retails in the last paragraph of his article the perennial proof of the Talmudic mentality-- he argues for the exceptionalism which is the hallmark of the rabbinic mind. He writes: " In any case, the discussion of Jewish law should be left to Jews..."
Why is that? After all, the discussion of Islamic law is permitted to the New York Times, Daniel Pipes, Bernard Lewis, Franklin Graham, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and a slew of other non-Muslims.
It is permissible for non-Muslims to sift, scrutinize and deplore Islamic law, to demand an end to "anti-Israel incitement" in Islamic texts, but for gentiles to critically examine the Judaic law and call for an end to anti-gentile incitement in rabbinic holy books, it is an automatic precursor to "mass book burnings, pogroms and decrees"?
How many Arabs and Muslims have been murdered in a New Dark Ages crusade due to contemporary rabbinic decrees from the likes of Ovadia Yosef?
How many works like this writer's book "Judaism's Strange Gods" are banned (the modern day version of book-burning) by Barnes and Noble at the behest of the ADL?
Here is the Talmudic halakha par excellence, as exhibited by the Judaic journalist Sheleg: one rule for the sub-species gentile, and another for the lords of the universe, the rabbis.
The Talmud states that the rabbis even managed to defeat God in debate. How then would a mere "goy" dare to question them?
Available on DVD: 53 minute documentary, "Bloody Hell: Kosher Slaughter"
To learn more about the Talmud and Kabbalah read:
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