From Harry.Katz@mci.com Fri Jul 10 13:06:18 EDT 1998
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Karl Zimmer wrote:

	Harry Katz wrote in message <3589FAAB.163A9C35@mci.com>...
	

	Was Jeffrey Dalmer Jewish? I didn't think he was. Please 
	clarify!

Mr. Zimmer changes the subject line and snips all of the comments.
Exactly what is it that he wants clarified?

Jeffrey Dahmer was not Jewish and I am sure that was a salient point
in whatever I wrote.

--
Harry Katz


From Harry.Katz@mci.com Fri Jul 10 13:06:18 EDT 1998
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I wrote:

	I expect that from the Covingtons, McTavish's, and McKinney's on
	this newsgroup, but I thought that Mr. B-- had some sense of 
	decency and decorum.

Andy Walton replied:

	I've been operating under the assumption that Billy Bob 
	Throckmorton is another Tavish incarnation.

The "Mr. B--" that I refer to is Mr. Baron.

--
Harry Katz


From Harry.Katz@mci.com Fri Jul 10 13:06:19 EDT 1998
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Doc Tavish posted:

	X-NO-ARCHIVE: YES
	From DejaNews archives:
	http://x4.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=273203074

	THE TALMUD
	Judaism's holiest book documented and exposed...

	THE TRUTH ABOUT THE TALMUD
	Judaism's Holiest Book
	Copyright ©1994 by Michael A.Hoffman II and Alan R. Critchley
	Distributed by The Campaign for Radical Truth in History

I am sure that Mr. T-- will be delighted to learn that I dealt with
exactly this screed in a series of posts several years ago.


	THE AUTHORITY OF THE TALMUD -- Part One

Several months ago, in article ,
hoffman2nd@delphi.com promised to "expose the Talmud."  While nothing
could be more desirable than exposing the Talmud to a wider audience,
all Mr. Hoffman succeeds in exposing is his own confusion.
 
He begins:

	The Talmud is Judaisms holiest book.

This is not quite true.

Adin Steinsaltz is the world's acknowledged foremost authority on the
Talmud.  In "The Essential Talmud," (NY, Basic Books, Inc., 1976;
translated from the Hebrew by Chaya Galai) he writes:

	If the Bible is the cornerstone of Judaism, then the Talmud
	is the central pillar, soaring up from the foundations and
	supporting the entire spiritual and intellectual edifice.  In
	many ways the Talmud is the most important book in Jewish
	culture, the backbone of creativity and of national life.  No
	other work has had a comparable influence on the theory and
	practice of Jewish life, shaping spiritual content and serving
	as a guide to conduct.  The Jewish people have always been
	keenly aware that their continued survival and development
	depend on study of the Talmud, and those hostile to Judaism
	have also been cognizant of this fact.  The book was reviled,
	slandered, and consigned to the flames countless times in the
	Middle Ages and has been subjected to similar indignities in
	the recent past as well.  At times, talmudic study has been
	prohibited because it was abundantly clear that a Jewish
	society that ceased to study this work had no real hope of
	survival.

		-- p. 3


	The Talmud is the repository of thousands of years of Jewish
	wisdom...  It is a conglomerate of law, legend, and philosophy,
	a blend of unique logic and shrewd pragmatism, of history and
	science, anecdotes and humor.  It is a collection of
	paradoxes: its framework is orderly and logical, every word and
	term subjected to meticulous editing, completed centuries after
	the work of actual composition came to an end; yet it is still
	based on free association, on a harnessing together of diverse
	ideas reminiscent of the modern stream-of-consciousness novel.
	Although its main objective is to interpret and comment on a
	book of law, it is, simultaneously, a work of art that goes
	beyond legislation and its practical application....

		-- p. 4


The "book of law" referred to above is the Old Testament, especially
the first five books of Moses, which brings us to Mr. Hoffman's next
assertion about the Talmud:

	Its authority takes precedence over the Old Testament
	in Judaism.


This is a blatent error, as illustrated by Steinsaltz's next sentence:

	...And although the Talmud is, to this day, the primary source
	of Jewish law, it cannot be cited as an authority for purposes
	of ruling.

		-- p. 4


Mr. Hoffman claims:

	As a reader of Talmud (in the rabbinically authorized Soncino
	version) I know this to be true.

Mr. Hoffman must be a casual "reader of Talmud," not a student, as he
seems to have missed a significant volume of the Soncino edition of the
Talmud: the volume entitled _Index!_  In it he would have discovered a
section marked "Scriptural References" with 148 pages of footnotes, in
the small typeface reserved for footnotes, two columns per page, and
all of them references to the Old Testament.  Clearly, the authority of
the Talmud does not take precedence over the authority of the Old
Testament; rather the authority of the Talmud is derived from
the authority of the Old Testament!

--
Harry Katz

Do not blame thy friend for shortcomings which thou hast thyself.
	-- The Wit and Wisdom of the Talmud, Madison C. Peters, ed.


--------------

	THE AUTHORITY OF THE TALMUD -- Part Two

As I pointed out in my previous article, Mr. Hoffman begins his
"expose'" of the Talmud (article ),
with a blatant error:

	The Talmud is Judaisms holiest book. Its authority takes
	precedence over the Old Testament in Judaism.
 
The Talmud derives its authority from the Torah, and does not in any
way "take precedence" over it.  How can this position be reconciled
with the Talmudic citation that follows?

	Evidence of this may be found in the Talmud itself, Erubin 21b
	(Soncino edition): >>My son, be more careful in the observance
	of the words of the Scribes than in the words of the Torah
	(Old Testament).<<

First, let's examine the rest of the passage:

	...for in the laws of the Torah there are positive and negative
	precepts; [And the penalties vary -- Footnote (7)] but, as to
	the laws of the Scribes, whoever transgresses any enactments of
	the Scribes incurs the penalty of death.
			-- Erubin, Soncino Edition, p. 148

While the penalties for transgressing against the Scriptures may vary,
the penalty of death is certainly among them; so, it would seem that
some attention ought to be paid to the Scriptural law regardless!

The confusion arises here from not factoring in a basic concept of
the Talmud, that of "building a fence around the Scriptures."
The authors of the Talmud realized that certain Scriptural laws
incurred the penalty of death when transgressed, and they feared that
otherwise innocent souls might transgress by accident or error.  The
Scriptures do not specifically state that mistakes do not count.  So,
the Rabbis imposed even greater restrictions than the Scriptures
require; the idea being that even if a man transgressed the Rabbinical
commandments by accident, he would still be prevented from
transgressing a Scriptural commandment, which would have put his
soul in peril.

Therefore, the point of the passage above is this: If one adheres
strictly to the laws of the Scribes, one will never transgress
against the Scriptures!
 
The proof is on the page immediately preceding the passage that so
offends Mr. Hoffman, where a verse from the Song of Songs (VII, 14) --
specifically the phrase, "New and old," -- is fancifully interpreted:

	_New and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved;_
	the congregation of Israel said to the Holy One, blessed be He,
	'Lord of the universe, I have imposed upon myself more
	restrictions than Thou hast imposed upon me, and I have
	observed them.'
			-- Erubin, Soncino Edition, p. 148

 
Finally, in perusing a volume of the Talmud that I used in my research
for this series of articles, I came completely by accident upon this:

	When doubt arises in a Rabbinical law we are naturally lenient;
	but where the law is Scriptural we are strict.
			-- Pesahim, Soncino Edition, p. 42, footnote (2)

--
Harry Katz

The learned man should judge himself according to his own teaching,
and not do anything that he has forbidden others to do.
	-- The Wit and Wisdom of the Talmud, Madison C. Peters, ed.


--------------

	CENSORSHIP OF THE TALMUD -- Part One

Before examining any of the other talmudic texts that Mr. Hoffman
(hoffman2nd@delphi.com) finds objectionable, I must deal with another
basic issue he raises in article <5U9YnUO.hoffman2nd@delphi.com>,
wherein he enlists the aid of Dr. Israel Shahak's latest work, _Jewish
History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years_ (London,
Pluto Press, 1994).

Unfortunately, Dr. Shahak's book is not available in any library in the
State of Colorado, so I cannot vouch for the completeness or accuracy
of Mr. Hoffman's citations.  The spin that Mr. Hoffman intends to put
on these citations are clear from the headline he composed for them:

	CONCEALMENT OF HATEFUL TALMUDIC TEXTS

	This is what was done: a few of the most offensive passages were
	bodily removed from all editions printed in Europe after the
	mid-16th century...  At the same time, lists of >Talmudic
	Omissions< were circulated in manuscript form...  once the
	rabbis felt secure, all the offensive passages and expressions
	were restored without hesitation in all new editions<<
	(pp.22-23).

	>>Modern scholars of Judaism have not only continued the
	deception, but have actually improved upon the old rabbinical
	methods, both in impudence and mendacity<<(p. 24).


With all due respect, Dr. Shahak is a neither a theologian nor a
historian, but a scientist, whose specialty is chemistry or physics.

Adin Steinsaltz is the world's acknowledged foremost authority on the
Talmud.  In "The Essential Talmud," (NY, Basic Books, Inc., 1976;
translated from the Hebrew by Chaya Galai) he writes:

	Attempts were made as early as the seventh and
	eighth centuries to prohibit study of the Talmud, but they
	failed...  when the Catholic 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.

	...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.  This anti-talmudic campaign and the various
	decrees of the popes reached their height when, as the result
	of internal disputes in the Jewish community and at the urging
	of certain converts, Pope Gregory IX ordered the burning of
	copies of the Talmud in Paris in 1240.  Similar decrees were
	issued several times in the course of the thirteenth century,
	on one occasion by Pope Clement IV in 1264, and thousands of
	copies were consigned to the flames...  The decrees did not
	encompass all of Europe; in the Iberian peninsula, for example,
	the Talmud was not burned but merely censored by statements
	considered derogatory to Christianity being removed.

	Church leaders were not unanimous in their views on the
	subject.  A Church synod in Basel in 1431 reaffirmed the
	stringent ban on the Talmud, but there were other opinions as
	well.  In 1509 a convert named Johannes Pfefferkorn tried to
	incite church leaders to burn the Talmud in all countries under
	the rule of Charles V.  A champion appeared, however, in the
	form of a Christian, Reuchlin, who pleaded the cause of the
	Talmud.  Although the controversy was not settled at once, and
	copies of the Talmud were burned in several towns by the
	bishops, Reuchlin's arguments appear to have had some effect.
	In 1520 Pope Leo X permitted the printing of the Talmud, and
	several editions appeared in the next few decades.  But this
	situation did not endure, and as the result of the
	intensification of the Counter-Reformation, and due to the
	efforts of several converts, Pope Julius III ordered the works
	burned again in 1553.  This decree, carried out in the various
	Italian states, apparently resulted in the destruction of tens
	of thousands of copies of the Talmud.  The harshness of the
	decree was alleviated by Pope Pius IV's announcement at the
	church synod at Trent in 1564 that the Talmud could be
	distributed on condition that those sections which affronted
	the Christian religion were erased.  As the direct result of
	this decision, an edition was printed in Basel under the
	supervision and censorship of Catholic monks.  It was cruelly
	truncated and censored, but still did not satisfy the Church
	and, in a papal bull issued in 1592, Clement II finally
	prohibited study of the Talmud in any version or edition.  The
	ban did not apply to the whole of the Christian world, since
	large parts of Europe (the Protestant countries and those under
	Russian and Turkish rule) did not accept the authority of the
	Catholic Church, but it was put into operation in most parts of
	Italy.  The Jews of Italy tried to evade the ban in various
	ways, the commonest being study of the book, _Ein Yaakov_
	(after it too was banned, they changed its name to _Ein
	Israel_), which contained the aggadic [i.e., folkloric -- HK]
	text of the Talmud, and study of R. Isaac Alfasi's _Sefer
	Halakhah,_ which contained much of the talmudic _halakah_
	[i.e., religious law --HK].  But the anti-Talmud decree had a
	decisive impact on the cultural life of Italian Jewry, which
	never regained its former splendor.  This was a vivid
	historical illustration of the fact that a Jewish community
	which did not study the Talmud was condemned to attrition.

	No similar decree was issued in any other European country, but
	there was a widespread tendency to censor the Talmud.  In later
	times printers gradually and clandestinely restored those
	sections which had been censored, but despite these efforts the
	best editions of the Talmud are mutilated because of the
	changes and "corrections" introduced by the censors.

	The censored Basel edition was the archetype of such editions,
	as the censor erased or amended all those parts of the text he
	regarded as insulting to Christianity or various peoples, or as
	reflections of superstitious views.  The Basel censor, Father
	Marco Marino, first erased the forbidden word _Talmud,_
	replacing it by other terms, such as _Gemarah_ or _Shas,_
	initials of Hebrew words for Six Orders.  Wherever the text
	used the word _min_ (heretic, originally applied to Gnostic
	sects and only rarely to Christians), he changed it to read
	Sadducee or Epicurean.  All mention of Rome, even where
	reference was undoubtedly to the pagan Roman Kingdom, was
	altered to read _Aram_ (Mesopotamia) or _Paras_ (Persia).  The
	words _meshumad_ or _mumar_ (convert) were also forbidden and
	amended.  A grave problem for the censors was the word _goy_
	(gentile), which they always changed (sometimes puzzling
	scholars, who were unaware the censor was responsible).  For a
	time the word _goy_ was changed to _akum_ (initials of
	"worshippers of stars"), but a convert informed the authorities
	that this term too constituted an affront to Christianity,
	since _akum_ also denoted the initials of "worshipper of Christ
	and Mary."  It was therefore necessary to find substitutes, and
	the most common was the insertion of the word _kuti_
	(Samaritan) for _goy._  In the Basel edition the censor ordered
	that the word kushi (African, Kushite) be inserted in place of
	_goy._

	Wherever the Talmud makes derogatory reference to Jesus or to
	Christianity in general, the comment was completely erased, and
	the name of Christ was systematically removed, even when the
	reference was not negative.  The Basel censor also decided to
	erase what he considered examples of personification of the
	Deity, as well as enigmatic legends.  In certain cases he added
	his own comments in the margin.  For example, where the text
	states that man comes into the world without sin, he added,
	"According to the Christian belief, all men are born tainted
	with the sin of the first man."  Sections which he regarded as
	offending modesty were also eradicated, and other changes were
	made as well, as in the Talmudic saying: "A man who has no wife
	cannot be called a man," which offended his sensibilities as a
	celibate monk.  He changed it to read "A Jew who has no
	wife ..."  The _Avodah Zarah_ tractate was not printed at all,
	since it deals with the holy days of non-Jews and relations
	with them.

	Although the omissions and erasures were partially restored in
	other editions, there were always new censors in other
	countries who introduced new distortions and changes.  The
	Russian authorities, for example, decided that Greece could not
	be mentioned in the Talmud, since Russian culture was
	supposedly inspired by that of Greece, and the word was
	therefore altered wherever it appeared.  Some Russian censors
	declared that the phrase "Greek language" was offensive
	and changed it to read "language of _akum._"  The ignorance of
	many censors led to the misspelling of names, and many of the
	errors were perpetuated from edition to edition.  Some changes
	resulted from short-lived political calculations, such as the
	instruction of the Russian censor at the time of the
	Russo-Turkish War that the word _goy_ be replaced by Ishmael, a
	change which engendered a whole series of absurd errors.

	The Talmud was not the sole work affected by the heavy hand of
	the censor, but because of its scope and range and the thousands
	of changes introduced over the centuries, it was impossible to
	correct all the mutilations even in editions published in
	countries free of censorship.  Offset printing perpetuated many
	of the mistakes and ommisions, and only in the most recent
	editions have attempts been made to restore the original format
	of the text.
				-- pp. 81 - 85

In my next article I will revisit Mr. Hoffman's post of Dr. Shahak and
analyze it in light of the information above.

--
Harry Katz

When the thief has no opportunity to steal he considers himself an
honest man.
	-- The Wit and Wisdom of the Talmud, Madison C. Peters, ed.


--------------

	CENSORSHIP OF THE TALMUD -- Part Two

In my previous article (<3qluoc$c2u@earth.usa.net>) I presented a
concise history of censorship of the Talmud.  Armed with this
information, we are ready to take to take a closer look at the citations
>from  Dr. Shahak that Mr. Hoffman (hoffman2nd@delphi.com) posted in
article <5U9YnUO.hoffman2nd@delphi.com>.

	CONCEALMENT OF HATEFUL TALMUDIC TEXTS

This headline is Mr. Hoffman's creation, not Dr. Shahak's.  It is meant
to imply that the Rabbis and other members of the Jewish community
responsible for studying and publishing the Talmud have been involved
in a conspiracy spanning centuries to "conceal" so-called "hateful"
talmudic passages.  The citations from Dr. Shahak have been carefully
selected to reinforce this implication:

	>>...Talmudic passages directed against Christianity or against
	non-Jews had to go or be modified--the pressure was too strong.

Who applied this pressure?  If Mr. Shahak provides an answer
Mr. Hoffman has not included it.  However, we know from my last article
that the pressure was applied mainly by the Catholic Church, but also by
various other church and governmental entities throughout Europe,
North Africa, and Asia.

	This is what was done: a few of the most offensive passages were
	bodily removed from all editions printed in Europe after the
	mid-16th century.

While there may be a few "offensive" passages in the Talmud, my
previous article clearly establishes that censorship of the Talmud was
not limited to "a few of the most offensive passages!"  References to
pagan Greece and Rome were also excised or altered, for example, "...and
the name of Christ was systematically removed, even when the reference
was not negative [Adin Steinsaltz, The Essential Talmud, p. 84]."

	In all other passages, the expressions >Gentile,< >non-Jew,<
	>stranger,< (goy, eino yehudi, nokhri)--which appear in all
	early manuscripts and printings, as well as in all editions
	published in Islamic countries--were replaced by such terms
	as >idolater,< >heathen< or even >Canaanite< or >Samaritan<.....
 
	>>Needless to say, this was a calculated lie from beginning to
	end...

Exactly what "was a calculated lie from beginning to end?"  Certainly
not that the Talmud was censored!  The only falsehood here is the
implication that the excisions and emendations outlined by Dr. Shahak
were not forced upon the Jewish community against their will!  But that
is probably not a conscious lie, so much as it is a silly mistake made
by an overzealous atheist engaged in a holy war against religion.

	At the same time, lists of >Talmudic Omissions< were circulated
	in manuscript form, which explained all the new terms and
	pointed out all the omissions..

As well they should!  The caretakers of the Talmud had every right --
nay, the moral duty -- to resist political and religious censorship to
the utmost!  Besides, the ignorant hypocrites who censored the Talmud
had no care for the antiquity of the Talmud, nor for the cultural
heritage it preserves.  Even if it were abandoned entirely as a holy
work and moral guide, it would retain a priceless intrinsic value equal
to the classics of pagan Rome and Greece, not least for the insights it
affords into the customs and practices of its times.

	...and following the establishment of the state of Israel,
	once the rabbis felt secure, all the offensive passages
	and expressions were restored without hesitation in all
	new editions<<(pp.22-23).
 
If only that were true!  The sad fact is, as outlined in my previous
article, errors introduced by censors were propagated by the
printing press and much of the original text has been lost and cannot
be reconstructed.  And I must repeat that what the censors found to be
"offensive" was largely arbitrary and unreasonable, as must be expected
when a bureaucrat exercises absolute authority.

	>>Modern scholars of Judaism have not only continued the
	deception, but have actually improved upon the old rabbinical
	methods, both in impudence and mendacity<<(p. 24).

Actually, unless Mr. Hoffman has done great violence to Dr. Shahak's
text by selectively quoting him, the charges of "impudence and
mandacity" would have to be laid at the door of the author.

--
Harry Katz

He who unjustly hands over one man's goods to another, he shall pay God
for it with his own soul.
	-- The Wit and Wisdom of the Talmud, Madison C. Peters, ed.


--------------

		GENTILES

In article ,
hoffman2nd@delphi.com writes:

	Translations: The translators of the Talmud sometimes translate
	the Hebrew word goyim (Gentiles) under any number of terms such
	as heathen, Cuthean, Egyptian, idolater etc. But these are
	actually references to Gentiles (all non-Jews). See for example
	footnote 5 of the Soncino edition Talmud: Cuthean (Samaritan)
	was here substituted for the original goy...

In my last article in this series I established that all of these
substitutions that Mr. Hoffman attributes to translators were actually
forced on the Talmud by Medieval Christian censors.  What sense does it
make for the translator to change the word and then add a footnote to
point up the change?

Furthermore, the word "goy" has undergone considerable evolution in the
millenia that have passed since it was first coined.  The original
Hebrew meaning of goy is "nation."  In Genesis XII:2, the Lord tells
Abraham, "I will make of you a great 'goy' [nation]."  "Goyim" is the
plural and referred again to "nations."

By the time the Talmud was composed, the word came to indicate
individual non-Jews, or Gentiles, but not Christians nor Moslems.
Islam, of course, had not been revealed as yet, and "Christianity" was
a word that had not been coined yet, the followers of Jesus still being
mainly Jews.  The word "goy" as employed in the Talmud refers either to
immigrants from neighboring pagan countries, or to the Roman occupation
forces.  Therefore, the alternate terms of heathen, star-gazer,
idolator, etc. are quite apt.  Moreover, the occasional outbursts of
venom against "goyim" are directed at the cruel and inhuman policies of
the Roman occupational administration.


	Christians are sometimes referred to by the code word
	Min or Minim.

Far from being a code word, Min (plural, Minim) means "heretic," as I
am sure is explained in some footnote or other in the Soncino
translation.  The word was applied mainly to Gnostics, and sometimes
to followers of Jesus, although the distinction between the two groups
could often be blurry during the formative years of Christianity.


Mr. Hoffman continues, pompously:

	It is the standard disinformation practice of the Pharisees to
	deny the existence of the following Talmudic scriptures...

The Talmud is not "scripture!"  That word is reserved for the Bible --
the so-called "Old Testament" -- as even the most casual glance at the
Soncino translation will clearly prove.  To apply the term "scripture"
to the Talmud can only serve to confuse the issues under discussion.

	...and to claim they are the fabrications of >>anti-Semites.<<
	This disinformation can only obtain cachet among those too lazy
	to go to the English-language books of the Talmud and look these
	passages up for themselves.

It took me a bit of time but I managed to follow Mr. Hoffman's advice
to the letter and what I discovered shocked me!  I discovered that Mr.
Hoffman is a brazen and shameless weasel!  For example, he presents this
"citation," under a subtitle of his own creation:

	Jews Have Superior Legal Status
	Baba Kamma 37b. >If an ox of an Israelite gores an ox of a
	Canaanite there is no liability; but if an ox of a Canaanite
	gores an ox of an Israelite...the payment is to be in full.<

Mr. Hoffman could hardly have missed footnote 6, on page 211, as it
refers directly to this passage:

	As Canaanites did not recognize the laws of social justice,
	they did not impose any liablitity for damage done by cattle.
	They could consequently not claim to be protected by a law they
	neither recognized nor respected... In ancient Israel as in the
	modern state the legislation regulating the protection of life
	and property of the stranger was... on the basis of
	reciprocity.  Where such reciprocity was not recognized, the
	stranger could not claim to enjoy the same protection of the
	law as the citizen.  

This particular footnote is referred to in several other passages in
the Soncino Talmud that Mr. Hoffman "cites," such as this one:

	Jews May Lie to Non-Jews
	Baba Kamma 113a.  Jews may use lies (>subterfuges<)
	to circumvent a Gentile.

A footnote to the passage above refers to the previous footnote.  In
other words, this is a case of legal non-reciprocity.  That this passage
is directly related to the preceding one, is apparent from the
full citation:

	Where a suit arises between an Israelite and a heathen, if you
	can justify the former according to the laws of Israel, justify
	him and say: 'This is _our_ law'; also if you can justify
	him by the laws of the heathens justify him and say [to the
	other party:] 'This is _your_law'; but if this cannot be done,
	we use subterfuges to circumvent him.  This is the view of R.
	Ishmael, but R. Akiba said that we should not attempt to
	circumvent him on account of the sanctification of the Name.
	

Note that an opposing opinion is quoted in the very next sentence after
the one cited by Mr. Hoffman -- he could not have missed it!  R. Akiba's
opinion, the one Mr. Hoffman does not see fit to mention, is the one
that is accepted as the rule.  The reason given, "the sanctification of
the Name," means that a heathen must not be goaded into cursing
against God.

Neither does Mr. Hoffman see fit to mention the very narrow
circumstances in which R. Ishmael sees subterfuge as warranted.
Nevertheless, as R. Ishmael's opinion is not accepted, R. Ishmael
himself would be required to follow R. Akiba's rule.  (The strict
adherence of the talmudic rabbis to majority rule is even affirmed by
another of Mr. Hoffman's "citations" in this same article -- the story
of R. Akiba washing his hands before a meal when he had hardly enough
water to drink -- but I will not be getting around to discussing that
one in this post.)

This particular talmudic discussion continues a few lines down:

	Is then the robbery of a heathen permissible?  Has it not been
	taught that R. Simeon stated that the following matter was
	expounded by R. Akiba when he arrived from Zifirin: 'Whence can
	we learn that the robbery of a heathen is forbidden?  From the
	significant words: _After that he is sold  he may be redeemed
	again,_  which implies
	that he could not withdraw and leave him [without paying
	the redemption money].  

That is, an Israelite may not be freed from servitude to a Gentile
without paying compensation to the Gentile.

The debate ends with an affirmation of R. Akiba's view.
R. Bibi b. Giddal, R. Simeon the pious, and R. Huna agree, "The robbery
of a heathen is prohibited..."  A footnote to this
last passage delivers the knockput punch:

	...v. also Tosef. B.K. X,8 where it is stated that it is more
	criminal to rob a Canaanite than to rob an Israelite...
	

(The abbreviation, Tosef., stands for _Tosefta_, a commentary on the
Talmud, and B.K. stands for Baba Kamma.)

In spite of which, Mr. Hoffman has the audacity, the unmitigated gall,
and the _chutzpah_ to make up subtitles for his "citations" such as,
"Jews May Steal from Non-Jews" and "Jews May Rob and Kill Non-Jews!"
--
Harry Katz

Rather be thou the tail among lions than the head among foxes.
	-- The Wit and Wisdom of the Talmud, Madison C. Peters, ed.

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