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From: catamont@[no-spam]concentric.net (Sara)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Quotes From The Talmud
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 1998 16:41:07 -0700
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In article <19980106004300.TAA19929@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
gmc0633@aol.com (GMC0633) wrote:

> "The Editio Princeps of the complete Code of Talmudic Law, Maimonides' Mishneh
> Torah -- replete not only with the most offensive precepts against all
Gentiles
> but also with explicit attacks on Christianity and on Jesus (after whose name
> the author adds piously: 'May the name of the wicked perish') --  was
published
> unexpurgated in Rome in the year 1480." Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish
> Religion: The Weight of 3000 Years (London, 1994).  
> Please read this book before telling us what your modern English-language
> Talmuds say.  
> ov

"GMC,"

Below s part of the text from a Talmudic scholar, who responded to a
question from me regarding the kinds of quotes seen above.

-------BEGIN QUOTE--------

     Deja vu... It seems that the quotations you asked about are the same ones
that appeared in a (forged) pamphlet called "facts are facts" that I had to
refute when I served as expert witness at the second Keegstra trial in 1992--he
was teaching that material in his infamous Eckville classroom. Most of the
quotes are blatantly fictitious and very easy to discount.

Yes, these are the same texts that were taught in Mr. Keegstra's
classes, and have long been circulated by various American antisemitic groups.
Most of them are garbled from a work by I.V. Pranaitis, a slimy turn-of-the
century Russian charlattan who served as an "expert witness" at the nototious
Mendel Beiliss blood libel where he was literally laughed out of court for his
displays of ignorance under cross-examination!

...

 "The Jews are human beings , but the nations of the world are not human
beings but       ^ beasts."-
^ -Baba Mecia 114, 6 [i.e.: 114b].    

Apparently a deliberate mistranslation. The passage deals with the technical
rules of corpse-impurity which, according to the author of this text, apply to
Jews and not to gentiles. In this connection Ezekiel 34:31 is cited: "And ye My
sheep [referring to Israel], the sheep of My pasture, are _men [Hebrew:
"adam"]_, and I am your God, saith the Lord God." From a careful midrashic
reading of this Biblical verse, Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai deduced "Only "ye" [i.e.,
Israel, not other nations] are designated "adam," in the sense that only Jewish
corpses and graves generate impurity according to Numbers 19:14: "This is the
law: when a _man ['adam']_ dieth in a tent, every one that cometh into the
tent...shall be unclean seven days..."  The passage is legal and exegetical, not
theological. If anything, it seems to put Jews on a lower footing than non-Jews.
Typically, the words "but beasts" were added on by whoever put this list
together. They do not appear in the original. 

^ 3. "Jehovah created the non-Jew in human form so that the Jew would 
^     not have to be served by beasts.
^     The non-Jew is consequently an animal in human form, and commanded 
^     to serve the Jew day and night."-
^ -Midrasch Talpioth, p225-L. 

I was unable to check this reference in my extensive Judaica library. The book
"Midrash Talpiyyot" is appparently an obscure eighteenth-century Kabbalistic
work that is little known and carries no authority whatsoever. Even if the
citation were correct (which seems doubtful in light of the other examples on
this list, and the fact that Jews never employ the designation "Jehovah"), it is
hard to imagine what could be proven from it about Judaism or the Talmud. 

...

"Goyim" literally refers to the "nations." In the Bible that includes
Israel, but in Rabbinic works it designates the other nations of the
world. Of course during Talmudic times the nations in question were the
ones that Jews came in contact with, principally the Romans--there were no
other monotheistic peoples around then, and the Romans, the "kingdom of
evil," were despised for their cruelty, lewdness and immorality--similar
views are found in Paul and in Revelation, and the accusations have some
historical basis. Gentile Christians were not very well known at the time
that the Talmud was redacted, and Jewish Christians are mentioned
surprisingly rarely, as an internal heresy. They are referred to as
"Minim" though the term encompassed several "heretical" views, especially
dualists and gnostics. Medieval Jewish law for the most part did not
understand these statements as applying to the monotheistic religions.

I don't have time to check all the citations from Shahak. A few are
clearly mistranslated (intentionally, I suspect), but most are probably
based on actual sources. Several of them fall into the category of
virulent anti-Roman "passive resistance" measures intended to loosen their
occupation on the land of Israel. Pagans are indeed discriminated against
in Jewish law, as Jews were under Roman administration (the comments were
of course theoretical, since Jews did not administer their own judicial
system). There are indeed a handful of anti-Christian traditions,
reflecting the fierce controversies of the time. There is also a lot of
"state of the art" medical advice that, of course, does not stand up to
modern standards. 

The Talmud is a mixed bag. It is a collection of many contradictory
opinions, and not everything in it has been accepted as valid by
posterity. This is true about modern Judaism as well, where (especially
among the Israel "religious right"), several Rabbis have voiced views
which are clearly racist and reprehensible.

---------END QUOTE---------

Sara

-- 
"Yeder aizel hot lib tsu hern vi er alein hirzhet."
(Every ass likes to hear himself bray.)
     Yiddish folk saying

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