We received an e-mail from Stefan Bialoguski, who challenged this section
of the book, and the quotes from the book by Shahak and Mezvinsky.
We forwarded the challenge to the authors of the book, and they replied
in detail.
We have decided, in fairness to both parties, and in support of freedom
of expression, to post the exact e-mail message, and the exact response.
Israel Shahak, Tel. and Fax 02-5633-99
2 Bartenura St. Jerusalem 92184, Israel
A VINDICATION
Answer to the slanders of Stefan Bialoguski against "Jewish Fundamentalism
in Israel" by Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky (Pluto Press, 1999
ISBN 0745312764)
Stefan Bialoguski thinks that intellectual and often public terror employed
in the USA and other countries against Jews who speak the truth about Judaism,
whether in form it took after the inception of Talmud or its continuation
in Orthodox Judaism will succeed against an Israeli Jew like me.
Contrary to the great majority of American Jews, Israeli Jews enjoy
three great advantages with regard to the freedom of expression on Jewish
issues: they read Hebrew and can read Halacha and other Jewish documents
in the original, and are not dependent on the falsehoods circulated about
those by rabbis and Jewish organizations.
They see, with the help of their Hebrew press, whose behavior is much
more honest when reporting Jewish issues than the American one, what Orthodox
rabbis (almost all Israeli rabbis are Orthodox) do when they have political
power, and many of them noted long ago the close resemblance the Orthodox
rabbis bear to the Ayatollahs in their aims, and also the close resemblance
between the Halacha and the religious law now established in Iran. I have
no doubt that had the common Israeli slogans "Israel will not be an
Iran" or "Israel will not be rules by Jewish Ayatollahs"
meaning the rabbis been raised in the USA, American defenders
of Jewish zealotry and discrimination if directed against non Jews, would
have protested as strongly against such typical Israeli slogans as they
do against "Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel".
Let me add that increasing numbers of Israeli Jews are beginning to
see that it would be a very good thing for Israel if something similar
to the First Amendment to the USA Constitution would become the law in
the State of Israel. Even the Israeli Jews who did not yet adapt this view
usually despise the American Jews who want to carry the separation of the
church from the state to its greatest extent in the USA (because they think
it is in the Jewish interest) and vehemently oppose it in Israel (because
they think that in this case it is against the Jewish interest).
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the secular part of the Israeli
Jews has been educated, to large extent, on Prophetic books of Old Testament,
and its other parts such as the Psalms, which contrary to the Talmudic
literature, attack especially what the great majority of the Jews regarded
as authoritative when this literature was composed. Therefore for us, the
secular Israeli Jews, to attack Jewish institutions and laws, even when
hallowed by time, and use the sharpest language while doing so, as the
Prophets and other Jewish poets preserved in the Old Testament did when
criticizing Jews (usually they used much sharper language than I am using),
is the most normal thing; it is something which preserves our freedom and
our sense of continuity as Jews.
Let me add that the best hope of better future in the Middle East lies
in all its peoples criticizing their religions, customs and past. Continuing
to be enslaved to past leads to perpetuation of all conflicts.
Therefore, before I begin my answer, let me quote three Biblical passages.
I doubt whether the usual American Jewish audiences fed on the stuff approved
by the ADL are aware of their existence, but those passages will help to
explain to people with open minds not only what I am saying but also the
way in which I express it. Prophet Ezekiel, speaking in the name of the
Lord says: "Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and
ordinances by which they could not have life" (chapter 20, verse 25).
I say about the Halacha what Ezekiel said about some Biblical laws. The
poet of Psalm 50, says: "But to the wicked God says: 'what right have
you to recite my statutes, or to take my covenant on your lips? For you
hate morality and you cast my words behind you. If you see a thief, you
are friend of his; and you keep company with adulterers'" (verses
16-18).The last words apply with particular force to the Orthodox rabbis
in Israel and also the USA. A few months before the Israeli elections of
1996, it was found that Netanyahu was an adulterer, as he himself had to
admit. This fact and the Halachic view of adultery as one of three most
heinous sins did not diminish the support Netanyahu got from Orthodox rabbis.
It is known to the readers of the Hebrew press that majority of Orthodox
rabbis have the greatest regard for Jewish thieves (and one can add drug
smugglers and moneylaunderers) who donate a part of their ill gotten
money to Jewish religious institutions, but eat kosher food. Prophet Micah
says: "Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the
house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert all equity, who build Zion
with blood and Jerusalem with injustice. Its heads judge for a bribe, its
priests teach for hire, its prophets divine for money; yet they lean upon
the Lord and say: 'Behold, the Lord is among us! No evil shall come upon
us'" (chapter 3, verses 9-11).
The beginning of any struggle for justice in the Middle East must be
recognition of the fact that for the last 52 years Zion, that is State
of Israel, had been built with blood, mainly of the Arabs, and founded
on the most horrifying forms of injustice which when applied to the Jews
are rightly condemned as anti-Semitism. Let me give here give only a single
example, before entering Halachic argument. During 18 years of Israeli
occupation of Lebanon about 25,000 Lebanese and Palestinians lost their
lives as compared with about 800 Israeli soldiers. It is a significant
fact of Israeli politics that numbers of non Jews killed in Lebanon had
little or no influence on Israeli decision to leave it, even when they
were members of South Lebanese Army, allied with Israel. On the other hand,
the relatively small numbers of killed Jewish soldiers were the chief factor,
even in the eyes of Israeli organizations calling for withdrawal, to mobilize
the Jewish public opinion and force the government to withdraw.
The great majority of the Orthodox and traditional Jews (in the USA
even more than in Israel) is quite indifferent to numbers of non Jews killed
by the Jews, while it is very sensitive to a single Jew killed by non Jews.
The same happens with discrimination: there is very little, if any protest
from great majority of the Orthodox and traditional Jews when Jews discriminate
against non Jews, in our case the Arabs, together with screams of fury
against any hint of discrimination (or abuse) against the Jews themselves.
Surely, such an attitude by a public so devoted to the worship of the
Jewish past must be influenced by that past. As I have shown (especially
in my book "Jewish history, Jewish religion"; chapter 5 "The
Laws Against Non Jews"), this attitude derives from the many Halachic
laws against non Jews.
After this necessary preface, let me answer in some detail the accusations
made by Stefan Bialoguski. I hope that when I have dealt with them, the
malicious ignorance on which they are based will became apparent. As to
his quoting rabbi Laufer of Jerusalem as his authority, this only reminds
me of the faithful communists during Stalin who used to quote a "an
authority" from Moscow to confirm the usual falsehoods of another
totalitarian system. Such "authorities" may have known all works
of "Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin" as the phrase was then, but
they used them only in order to be approve Stalin's crimes.
Similarly, Orthodox rabbis, whether in Israel or the USA were silent,
for example, when quite recently one of their colleagues, Rabbi Yitzhak
Ginsburgh proposed in major Hebrew paper that the State of Israel should
slaughter "women, children and old folks" in Palestinian towns
and villages and, in generally do to them what was done in Sodom and Gomorrah
(the case will be discussed in detail below).
Not rabbinical competence is needed here but a protest against Orthodox
rabbis proposing, supporting and defending atrocities when committed by
Jews in name of Halacha.
In any case, Bialoguski forgot, or perhaps never learned, the basic
halachic rule in case of a dispute: "let us bring the book and see".
My answer is full of references to books; let him check those references
by himself and not be enslaved to any rabbis.
Let me begin with the lesser issue of stealing and robbing which will
illustrate the systematic falsification of Halacha used by Bialoguski.
What he quotes is the halachic prohibition of stealing from anyone. But
on this issue there is a crucial difference in Halacha between Jews stealing
from non Jews and Jews robbing non Jews. The difference between theft (in
Hebrew "gne'iva") and robbery (in Hebrew "gezel") is
the same as in most systems of laws. Theft is defined as taking one's property
by stealth while robbery is defined as taking one's property openly, using
violence.
It is clear that the stealing of Palestinian land in the Territories
(and before this inside Israel in the early 1950s) was done by employing
state power, indeed often by employing army units, and is to be defined
as what was done to the land of the Indians by the USA as robbery.
As I will show below, the Halacha makes a distinction (known to anyone
who has even a minimal knowledge of the subject) between theft committed
by a Jew, which is totally forbidden no matter from whom, and robbery committed
by a Jew. While it is forbidden to Jews to rob a fellow Jew under any circumstances,
the situation is quite different in Halacha in the case of a Jew robbing
a non Jew, where under well defined circumstances Jews are indeed permitted
to rob non Jews.
Accordingly, there is in Halacha a special issue known by the name of
"robbing the non Jew" (in Hebrew "gezel hagoy"), which
appears under this name in the authoritative Talmudic Encyclopedia, and
the circumstances in which such robbery is either permitted or forbidden
are discussed in great detail, as I will show below. Here I will only remark
that Bialoguski omits this.
But before discussing robbery, let me return to the issue of stealing and
show that behind the prohibition of stealing from anyone, there is in Halacha
the most glaring discrimination between Jews and non Jews, omitted by Bialoguski
and most "authorities" who write about Judaism. This is the issue
of punishment to be inflicted according to Halacha on a Jew who steals.
If he steals from a Jew he has to pay twice the value of what he had stolen,
or return what he had stolen, if possible, and pay its value in addition.
The first part is regarded as the restitution and the other as the punishment.
But in case of Jew stealing from a non Jew he is only to pay the value
of what he had stolen, only because he had stolen from a non Jew.
The reason given by Maimonides, following the Talmud, is that in Biblical
verse specifying the punishment for theft it is written "he will pay
twice to his fellow" and according to Halacha the word "fellow"
means only Jews, and excludes the non Jews (Maimonides, Laws of Theft,
chapter 2, rule 1).
The important commentary on Maimonides' Code, "Magid Mishneh",
written by rabbi Yoseph Karo, the author of Shulchan Aruch, and other commentators
fully agree with this shameful discrimination.
Let me add two observations you will not hear from "experts"
on Judaism in the USA. If, for example, somebody would have proposed that
Jews in the USA would be discriminated in exactly the same way as the Halacha
discriminates against non Jew; that is he would propose that any non Jew
stealing from a Jew would be exempt from punishment and will have only
to pay the value of what he had stolen, but not be punished in addition,
he would be justly regarded as anti-Semite. It would not help him if he
would sanctimoniously exclaim, as Bialoguski does, "but I am against
stealing from anybody, including the Jews!"
This example shows that what Bialoguski is doing with his selective
quotations from Halacha is similar to what the worst anti-Semites do when
their tenets are attacked.
Second, this example shows that most Americans, including the educated
ones, know nothing about the real Judaism because they were brainwashed
by apologists and propagandists and are in now in the same situation as
were the faithful communists before the famous Krushchev's speech of 1956,
who also were sure that they know about "the true situation inside
the USSR", but in realty knew nothing about the reality of Stalin's
regime, because they were brainwashed by authorities they had blindly followed.
Let me now deal with the views of the Halacha in the case when a Jew
robs a non Jew. As is told in great detail in both Babylonian (the usually
used one) Talmud and the Jerusalemite Talmud, the earlier talmudic Sages
had disputed whether it is permitted or forbidden for a Jew to rob a non
Jew and in what circumstances. Those disputes are studied by present day
talmudic students as boys (I too studied this subject at the age of fourteen),
since an important part of them is contained in a popular Talmudic Tractate,
Baba Kama (p. 113b) in addition to other places. Although the more offensive
passages have been censored out in most of printed texts, they are preserved
in booklets, used on such occasions, called "The omissions from the
Talmud", so that the entire dispute, of great length and many complications,
is explained and its effect can be imagined.
Briefly, the Sages who permit Jews to rob the non Jews (recorded especially
in another popular Tractate of Babylonian Talmud, Baba Metzi'a, p. 111b)
and in the Jerusalemite Talmud, Tractate Baba Kama, chapter 4, halacha
3) opine, for example, that since it is written (Leviticus, chapter 19,
verse 13): "You shall not oppress your friend or rob him", the
words "your friend" mean that those prohibitions apply only to
the Jews.
Their opponents, especially Rabbi Shimon speaking in the name of Rabbi
Akiva, admit the force of this reasoning and have recourse to a specious
kind of argument. They argue as follows (I am slightly paraphrasing): "How
do we know that robbing a non Jew is forbidden? We learn in the case of
a Jewish slave sold to a non Jew that he must be redeemed and not taken
by force, since it is written: 'after he is sold he may be redeemed' (Leviticus,
chapter 25, verse 48) and this means that another Jew is forbidden to liberate
such slave by force. Therefore we learn from this case that other forms
of robbery from a non Jew are also forbidden". Other rabbis argued
that if a Jew robs a non Jew he causes a "desecration of the Lord's
Name", since the robbed non Jew will curse the God of the Jews when
he knows who had robbed him. This in their view and not the fact
that robbery took place - is the reason why Jews should not rob non Jews.
However, this reason for prohibiting Jews to rob non Jews will operate
only when the identity of the Jewish robber is discovered. It follows that
according to those Sages a Jew can rob non Jews on condition that he is
sure that he, or his identity will not be discovered. A very nice lesson
in ethics, indeed! Some Sages who prohibited Jews from robbing non Jews
introduced an important distinction, much favored now by Gush Emunim rabbis
and others of their ilk. They reasoned that robbing or not the non Jews
is determined by the verse: "You shall eat all the nations that the
Lord your God will give you". This is supposed by those holy
Sages to mean that the Jews can rob non Jews only when the latter "are
given to them," meaning when they rule them (Baba Kam, ibid.).
Other Sages have said (more honestly in my view) that when "the
Jews are powerful" (in Hebrew "yad Israel takifa") they
are permitted to rob the non Jews but they are not permitted to do so when
they are not powerful. Some of the Sages who permit Jews to rob non Jews
under all circumstances have added an argument worthy of our consideration.
They argue that robbing non Jews is permitted since it is written: "He
stood and measured the earth; He looked and shook the nations" (Book
of Habakkuk, chapter 3, verse 6). This verse is alleged to mean that the
Lord had seen non Jews not keeping the Seven Noachide Commandments and
because of this allowed the Jews to take their property (in Hebrew "amad
ve'hitir mamonam le'Israel", Baba Kama, p. 38a).
Finally, let me note the fact about which most American (with the exception
of Orthodox or, possibly, Conservative Jews too) are ignorant: this halachic
dispute is possible because the prohibition "You shall not steal"
in the Decalogue is considered in Halacha to mean not what it says, but
to prohibit "selling (that is kidnapping) Jews into slavery".
Halachic prohibitions of stealing and robbery derive from other biblical
verses; in case of stealing from the verse "You shall not steal, nor
deal falsely, nor lie to your friends", and in case of robbery from
the verse "You shall not oppress your friend or rob him" (Leviticus,
chapter 19, verses 11 and 13).
Both verses contain a qualification of the prohibition: the acts are
forbidden only if done "to your friends" or "your friend"
(Hebrew terms used in those verses which mean without any ambiguity "friend",
are mistakenly translated as "neighbor" or by other neutral term
in standard English translations). Because of this qualification, Halacha
needs special reasons for prohibiting Jews from stealing or robbing non
Jews, or, the case of robbery, halachic authorities can permit it, either
in general or on some occasions. This is also the reason why the punishment
for stealing is absent in the cases where a Jew steals from a non Jew.
It should be clear that this discussion still goes on and is all the time
modified by new circumstances, of which the most important is the fact
that the Jews in the State of Israel have power over non Jews, even more
in the Territories than in Israel itself, contrary to Jewish situation
which existed and still exists in diaspora. Halacha is a dynamic system
both for good and evil, and the Jewish power, coupled with almost total
absence of any criticism of Judaism by Jews themselves has caused
as usual a great change for worse in the area of Halacha in the last
50 years, especially on the issue of how Jews should behave to non Jews
according to their religion when they are the powerful group. It is a fact
that the views I have quoted above are regarded as sacred texts whose study
is the surest way to bring a Jew to Paradise, and that no rabbi (not only
among the Orthodox and the Conservative rabbis but even among the Reform
ones) will say what should be said, namely: those are wicked and immoral
views who have a highly corrupting influence both on those who regard them
as sacred and on those who do not condemn them as wicked.
Indeed, the verses from Psalm 50 I quoted above, "But to the wicked
God says: 'what right have you to recite my statutes, or to take my covenant
on your lips? For you hate morality and you cast my words behind you.",
apply, first of all, to all rabbis who do not condemn such opinions. Thus,
quoting isolated halachic pronouncements made some hundreds years ago,
without the reasoning that stands behind them, as Jewish apologists are
usually doing, is highly misleading.
I will not attempt to multiply quotations on the subject of stealing
and robbing, although because of conditions of intellectual terror and
threats of worse employed habitually by such Jewish organizations as ADL,
and the falsification of Jewish history and halacha carried out by most
of Jewish scholars, all what I have quoted or paraphrased must be unknown
in the USA. Let me add that until not many years ago, and for similar reasons,
most of what had been done to Indians in the USA was likewise unknown.
I have quoted enough to show that the assertions of Bialoguski about halachic
attitude to Jews taking the property of non Jews is a false generalization,
either based on gullible ignorance or on a wish to hide injustice when
committed in the name of Jewish religion.
It is known in Israel that most of religious, that is Orthodox Jews,
whether in Israel or the USA did not protest against massive take over
(in my view robbery) of Palestinian property solely for the benefit of
Jews, taking place now for 52 years. (The few exceptions merely confirm
the rule.) The Jewish opposition to this robbery mostly comes from Jews
who are opposed often violently opposed to the Orthodox form
of Jewish religion. One of the reasons for this politically very important
difference is the halachic attitude to non Jews and their property.
Let me now pass to the more important issue of prohibition of killing
in the cases where a Jew kills a non Jew. (There is no dispute that Halacha
prohibits both Jews and non Jews to kill a Jew, except under special circumstances,
and also prohibits non Jews to kill each other.) As in the case of stealing,
Bialoguski quotes at me the general prohibition out of Shulchan Aruch that
Jews are prohibited to kill non Jews, even idol worshippers. Jews should
be the first to beware of using such general prohibitions as their only
defense, since during all the times when they were killed or exterminated
the general prohibition against killing was present in the codes of law
of the states or religions responsible for their killing. Let me add that
when the Indians were massacred in all parts of American continent, often
by forces of the state, a law prohibiting killing of anybody was always
in the code of the state guilty of murdering or condoning the murder. Legally,
and in practice condoning a killing of a person because he belongs to a
certain group is done by keeping a general prohibition against killing
followed by laws permitting or even enjoining the prohibited act in certain
circumstances, or making the killing of human beings of a certain category
or under certain circumstances into an act which is not punished or even
enjoined.
Let me give some examples of such attitudes out of Halacha itself in
case of killing of non Jews by Jews. Since Bialoguski is quoting Shulchan
Aruch, composed by rabbi Yoseph Karo, I will quote Karo's opinion about
what should be done to non Jews with whom Jews are at war. When Karo comments
on Maimonides' rule about Jews "with whom we are not at war"
which states that they should neither killed nor saved when in danger
contrary to the treatment meted to Jewish heretics who should be killed
by any possible way (Maimonides, of Murderer and Preservation of Life,
chapter 4, rule 11; quoted in full in "Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel",
p. 120), in his commentary "Kesef Mishneh", he adds what should
the Jews do with the non Jews with whom they are at war. Writes Karo: "Our
rabbi (i.e. Maimonides) used a precise language when he wrote 'non Jews
with whom we are not at war', since it is written at the end of Tractate
Kidushin, and also in Tractate Sofrim 'You should kill the best of the
non Jews'; that means [you should do so] during a war". This horrible
law did not remain buried in abstract rabbinic discussion but has been
frequently quoted by important rabbis as a guidance to what the State of
Israel, and also individual pious Jewish soldiers should actually do.
Out of many such instances which sometimes but not always, I am
sorry to say caused a scandal among secular Israeli Jews and the
media, but never among the rabbis in the USA, let me quote just three cases.
Quite recently, rabbi Ginsburgh (about whom more below) was interviewed
by the Hebrew paper "Maariv", one of the three major Israeli
papers. When asked how Israel should behave in the current war, Ginsburgh
first proposed destroying of Arab property and then: "Secondly, I
propose to liquidate all saboteurs. Any who has blood on his hands should
be liquidated at once, and let us not to wait for him to sit in prison
and be freed afterwards. Nests of saboteurs can be liquidated within one
hour. Yamit (a settlement in Sinai, evacuated by orders of Begin in 1982.
I. Shahak) which was a worthy Jewish town, was evacuated in one hour. It
is possible to do the same to Beit Jallah. Places where are shootings or
confrontations should be blown up immediately" Question: "Even
if innocent people live in such places?" Answer: "According to
Halacha, during the war one makes no distinction. One gives an opportunity
to those who want to escape to do so; afterwards one fights against everyone,
including children, women and old folks. The entire village should be destroyed.
We are speaking about what was done to Sodom and Gomorrah. But under Arafat
we speak about murderous leadership hating us, and doing everything until
it gets the entire State of Israel. Thus, just as it happened in Sodom
and Gomorrah, had there been there a few innocents we, perhaps, could consider
further. . But under Arafat most people are totally wicked. Therefore we
should say to the few righteous ones: 'go out' and then blow up the entire
city" Maariv Friday Supplement, 12 January, 2001).
No Orthodox or Conservative rabbi said a word against this view about
what Halacha says Jews should do to Arabs, presumably because they all
know that it is the correct view. I also presume that whatever Bialoguski,
the ADL and similar Jewish organizations say against me for having translated
the learned ruling of rabbi Ginsburgh, none of them will dare to say in
public that he misrepresents the Halacha and enter into learned discussion
with him about the question whether the Jewish religion in its Orthodox
form really enjoins the killing of "children, women and old folks"
during war, or whether Palestinians should be compared to the inhabitants
of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Israeli army to angels of the Lord who had
destroyed them.
The second example was already quoted in my "Jewish History, Jewish
Religion (pp. 77-79). It concerns a case of pious Jewish soldoer in the
Israeli army who studied in the prestigious religious college "Midrashiyat
Noam", who asked his teacher, rabbi Shimon Weiser, "whether it
is permitted to kill unarmed men or women and children? Or perhaps
we should take revenge on the Arabs?" noting that standing regulations
of the Israeli army prohibit such acts. His questions, the learned answer
of rabbi Weiser, who condemns the regulations of the Israeli army for being
derived from non Jewish sources, and the answer of the soldier in which
he specifies what he has learned, were published in the 1974 yearbook of
that college. Rabbi Weiser quotes in full the dictum shortened by rabbi
Karo. "Rabbi Shimon used to say: 'kill the best of the non Jews, dash
the brain of the best of the snakes" as being applicable to what the
Jewish soldiers should do during a war. After learned halachic discussion
his instructions to pious soldiers are to kill all non Jews except if "it
is quite clear that he has no evil intent". The soldier responds:
"As for the letter itself, I have understood it as follows: In wartime
I am not merely permitted, but enjoined to kill every Arab man and woman
whom I chance upon, if there is reason to fear that they help in the war
against us, directly or indirectly. And as far as I am concerned I have
to kill them even if that might result in an involvement with the military
law". I heard about no rabbi who questioned that ruling. My last example
is chosen in honor of our newly elected Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. His
first major exploit was the massacre of Kibyeh, in which many Palestinian
civilians, including women and children were killed. Since some Israeli
Jews (not too many) protested against this, many rabbis rushed to Sharon's
defense, proving that the massacre was conducted according to the strictest
standards of the Halacha. The most eminent of those rabbis was Rabbi Shaul
Israeli, for many years one of the highest rabbinic authorities of the
National Religious Party and of the religious Zionism in general, who published
an article entitld "Kibyeh Incident According to the Halacha"
in the yearly rabbinic journal "The Religion and the State" (in
Hebrew "Hadat Ve'Hamdinah") for the year 5713 (1953). The article,
a dazzling display of halachic scholarship quoting and discussing every
possible source from Talmud till the modern times, comes to following conclusion:
"We have established that there exists a special term of 'war of revenge'
and this is a war against those who hate the Jews and [there are] special
laws applying to such war Accordingly, if the enemies of the Jews had attacked
them once but retreated, and they intend to attack them again they are
to be defined as the haters of the Jews and a war of revenge should be
waged against them. In such a war there is absolutely no obligation to
take precautions during warlike acts in order that non-combatants would
not be hurt, because during a war both the righteous and wicked are killed.
But the war of revenge is based on the example of the war against the Midianites
(see Numbers, chapter 31) in which small children were also executed (verse
17, ibid. "Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones")
and we might wonder about this, for how they had sinned? But we have already
found in the sayings of our Sages, of blessed memory, that little children
have to die because of the sin of their parents And our final conclusion
is that we should continue with acts of retaliation and revenge against
the haters of the Jews and such acts are considered to be a war of religious
obligation (in Hebrew "milhemet mitzvah"). Every calamity and
hurt that happens to the enemies, their allies and their children from
such actions is caused by them and is [merely] the reward of their sins.
There is absolutely no obligation to refrain from acts of retaliation out
of an apprehension that innocents would be hit by them, because it is not
we who are causing all this but them, and we are innocent".
Indeed, the learned opinion of Rabbi Israeli has been followed, so far
as I know, by all Orthodox rabbis of any standing in the case of wars waged
by the Jewish State. It is only in wars waged by non Jewish state such
as the USA, which does not enjoy the benefit of Biblical and Talmudic precedents,
that some of such rabbis have permitted themselves (hypocritically, in
my view) to raise humanitarian objections and castigate non Jewish authorities.
Our next consideration will be the issue of punishment prescribed by
the Halacha for a Jew who killed a non Jew, compared with punishment for
killing a Jew. After all, spitting on the street and murder are both forbidden
by law but are, nevertheless, very different acts. The punishment legally
inflicted for a given offence shows us the view of the authors of the code
about its gravity, and to a great extent also the opinion of the society
about it. In case of a religious code, such differences also show us the
view about the gravity of the sin committed when a believer does something
prohibited by the code of his religion. Just as in Christianity there is
a great difference between a mortal and venial sin, so in Orthodox Judaism
there is a graduation of sins according to punishment to be inflicted,
if possible, for committing them.
The greatest sins are those meriting the punishment of death and the
smallest those where no human punishment is to be inflicted, but are left
to God's judgment. Killing a Jew is regarded as one of the three worst
sins of the first category. However, Maimonides, who like Shulhan Aruch
begins his "Laws of Murderer and Preservation of Life" with a
general prohibition of killing anybody (chapter 1, rule 1), states a few
rules afterwards: "One who kills a resident alien is not to be put
to death by a rabbinic court because it is written 'If a man willfully
attacks his friend to kill him' (Exodus, chapter 21, verse 14), and it
is unnecessary to add he is not put to death for killing a non Jew"
(ibid. chapter 2, rule 11). "Mechiltah", an important and ancient
collection pf laws from the Talmudic period, states explicitly that the
punishment of a Jew who kills a non Jew is "reserved to Heaven"
(chapter "mishpatim", section 4).
In the next rule Maimonides states that a Jew who kills a non Jewish
slave of any Jew is put to death because "the slave had accepted the
commandments of the Jewish religion (in Hebrew "mitzvoth") and
became a part of God's inheritance". The same distinction is repeated
in the case of accidental killing. In case of Jew who had accidentally
killed another Jew the penalty is exile to a special refuge town. A Jew
who killed incidentally a non Jew is not punished. In case of a non Jew,
even a residential alien, who had accidentally killed a Jew, death penalty
is inflicted. (See Maimonides, ibid. chapter 5, rule 3). The Halacha has
no system of alternative penalties. One who, for whatever reason, is absolved
from a punishment due to him, is free from any further human punishment,
except in the case of killing a Jew which will be described below (Maimonides,
Laws of Murderer and Preservation of Life, chapter 4, rule 9).
Therefore when Halacha states that a Jew who killed a non Jew is not
put to death, this means that he will not receive any human punishment,
exactly as stated in "Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel". Bialoguski
who object to this statement, cleverly refrains to state that according
to Halacha a Jew who killed a non Jew should not be punished; instead he
prates about the prohibition of such killing. Yes, killing of non Jews
by Jews is prohibited by Halacha in the same way that spitting on street
is prohibited in a city; such killings are treated by Orthodox Jews as
being venial sins. This is the real reason why Gush Emunim rabbis and let
me add, other rabbis as well, who anyhow object to the Israeli code of
laws as being "un-Jewish" because it is based on English and
latterly also on American law which, contrary to the very Jewish Halacha
punishes killers without a distinction of the religion of their victims,
try to obtain amnesties or reductions of punishments for every Jew who
killed an Arab, but make no such effort in the case of a Jew who killed
a Jew. The Hebrew press discusses such cases, which occur frequently, in
great detail. I forbear to discuss the purely hypothetical case of an extreme
anti-Semite daring to propose in the USA that there should be difference
in legal punishment inflicted on one who killed a Christian and one who
killed a Jew and try to excuse his offence by claiming that he is, nevertheless,
against killing of Jews, just as Bialoguski does.
Even though it is very difficult to inflict a death penalty on a Jew
according to the Halacha (it is much easier to inflict it on a non Jew,
but this is another issue), murderer of a Jew is put to death in a most
barbarous way, described by Maimonides. "One who kills a Jew (literally
"who kills souls", in Hebrew "horeg nefashot"), without
presence of two witnesses who saw him at the same time but was seen by
one after the other; or if he killed before witnesses who did not warn
him; or if witnesses were found invalid during a check but not in interrogation
(those are necessary conditions to inflict death penalty on a Jew according
to the Halacha); then those murderers are imprisoned in a small cell and
fed with small amount of bread and a little water until their guts become
narrow, and afterwards they are fed with barley until their belly bursts
and they die from seriousness of their illness" (Maimonides, Laws
of Murderer and Preservation of Life, chapter 4, rule 8). The difference
between this treatment, amounting to torturing a person to death, in case
of one who killed a Jew and the absence of any human punishment in the
case of a Jew who killed a non Jew, shows us the difference between the
value of life of a Jew and non Jew in the Halacha, and also explains many
things in Israeli politics. It also affords us a glimpse about the kind
of state Israel will become, if it becomes a state according to the Halacha,
fully attuned to ancestral Jewish morality and tradition, as so many Orthodox
Jews desire. It can be presumed that Bialoguski is a part of this tendency.
Let me add that the wish to establish Halacha as law of Israel is particularly
strong among those whom "Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel" calls
"Messianists" because they believe that they prepare the way
for the coming of the Messiah who will, of course, rule according
to the Halacha. Gush Emunim movement can be regarded as the most active
part of the Messianists.
One of most important aims of "Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel"
was to warn people outside Israel, but especially the American Jews (who
because of their ignorance of Judaism tend to be especially gullible about
the aims and the principles of Orthodox Jews in general and those in Israel
in particular) about what Israel influenced by Jewish Orthodoxy might do
when Halacha will fully determine its policies. In my view, proved by the
examples I quoted above, influence of Halacha will bring about atrocities
worse than any committed by Israel so far, but also dangers. Many American
Jews may not be very concerned by dangers to Arabs or to world peace, but
it is obvious that policies based on Halachic ruling of what the Jews can
do to non Jews when they are powerful enough will turn to be also dangerous
to the Jews themselves. In the first place, they will corrupt them.
The trivial value of life of non Jew in Halacha is shown also by its
manner of reasoning why Jews are prohibited to kill non Jews and by Halachic
laws about life of non Jews both ancient and modern. According to great
majority of Halachic authorities the prohibition to kill non Jews is not
derived by the Halacha from the commandment "You shall not kill"
(in Hebrew it is "You shall not murder") in the Decalogue, just
as we have seen above that the prohibition not to steal from not Jews is
not derived from the commandment "You shall not steal" in it
(see the detailed survey in Talmudic Encyclopedia, the original Hebrew,
volume 5, article "goy", pp. 355-356.
The survey adds that the prohibition of killing non Jews is valid only
in the absence of war, since "during war the saying 'kill the best
of non Jews' applies.) In fact, Halacha is based on complete separation
between Jews and non Jews. I will illustrate this attitude by one law not
affecting the lives of non Jews, showing both the extent of the separation
and the extent of tolerance granted by Halacha to non Jews when Jews have
the power. Writes Maimonides: "A non Jew who studies Torah (Old Testament
and Talmud are included in this term) is guilty of offense meriting death.
He should study nothing except their Seven Commandments (the sa called
Noahide Commandments given to Noah). In the same manner a non Jew who did
not work on Sabbath, even [if he did not work] on another day of the week,
if he made it into a Sabbath, is guilty of offense meriting death. Needless
to say he is guilty [of offence meriting death] if he had established a
holiday.
The general rule is that one should not allow them to innovate about
religion from their own reasoning. A non Jew should either convert to Judaism
and accept all commandments, or stay in his religion without either adding
or subtracting anything from it. [However], if he (a non Jew) did study
the Torah or refrained from working on the Sabbath, or innovated anything,
he should be beaten up and punished and be told that he is guilty of offence
meriting death for what he had done, but he is not executed" (Laws
of Kings, chapter 10, rule 9).
Let me add a few other laws or modern rabbinic pronouncements where
disregard for a life of a non Jew or even putting him to death is especially
glaring. Let us begin with the case of sexual intercourse between Jewish
male and non Jewish female, regarded as much worse by the Halacha than
the equally forbidden sexual intercourse between Jewish female and non
Jewish male, one presumes because of the attitude to the female as a temptress
prevalent in Judaism no less than in other religions. Maimonides pronounces:
"If a Jew has coitus with a non Jewish woman, whether she is be a
child of three or an adult, whether married or unmarried, and even if he
is a minor aged only nine years and one day because he had a willful
coitus with her, she must be killed as is the case with a beast, because
through her a Jew got into trouble (Laws of Prohibited Intercourse, chapter
12, rule 10; the law is also enunciated in the article "goy"
of the Talmudic Encyclopedia). The words "as is the case with a beast"
refer to the halachic law stating that a beast with which a Jew had sexual
relations is to be killed, for a similar reason to the killing of non Jewish
female. Even more important is the prohibition on the Jews to save the
life of a non Jew in normal times, and especially the prohibition to violate
Sabbath for the sake of saving a non Jewish life as the Jews are enjoined
to do for sake of saving a Jewish life. The subject is treated in "Jewish
Fundamentalism in Israel" (p. 120), and I have treated it more extensively
in my "Jewish History, Jewish Religion" (pp. 80-87), so I will
quote here only one law. If Jews see on the Sabbath a ship in danger of
sinking they are forbidden to violate the Sabbath in order to save it "if
nothing at all is known about the identity of those on board", because
the probability is that passengers are non Jews. This pronouncement occurs
in one of the major commentaries on Shulchan Aruch written by renowned
Rabbi Akiva Eiger who died only in 1837, and the commentary is printed
regularly with the text (ibid. Orach Hayim, paragraph 329). I assume that
Bialoguski can ask rabbi Lauffer of Jerusalem about his behavior when he
sees on the Sabbath a ship in danger in the case he was not previously
informed whether there are Jews among the passengers. Rabbi Lauffer must
be thoroughly familiar with this law. I have not yet heard about one Orthodox
rabbi opposing rabbi Eiger or any Reform rabbi referring to this law, although
I should add that opposing him is not enough: he should be condemned as
an immoral person, in the same way as the worst anti-Semites are.
After many quotations from Hebrew let me finish my vindication with
an English language quotation, taken from an important Jewish publication
appearing in New York, and so easily available to all, about the real attitude
of Orthodox Jews to non Jews. On April 26, 1996 "Jewish Weekly"
important American Jewish magazine published a long and very respectful
interview of its staff writer, Lawrence Cohler, with rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh,
under the title: "Hero Or Racist? Are Jewish lives really more valuable
than non-Jewish ones? Radical rabbi just freed from an Israeli prison thinks
so".
Let me explain that Ginsburgh was imprisoned without trial some time
after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, because as one who had publicly
approved from the halachic point of view the massacre of Baruch Goldstein,
and lauded that murderer to the skies, was suspected of some involvement
in encouraging the murder of Rabin. Let me quote from that interview (worthy
of being studied by everyone who wants to know what Orthodox Judaism is.
Ginsburgh is correctly described in that interview as an important leader
of the Lubavitch Hassidic sect. Let me quote some of Ginsburgh views from
that interview. "Citing explicit instructions he says he received
from the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Ginsburgh has also strongly defended
Jewish revenge attacks on Arabs, at least after-the-fact.
Whether he would tell a Jew to engage in in such a random attacks beforehand
'is a different story', Rabbi Ginsburgh said. But after such an attack
took place in response to an Arab provocation, 'You can't even hint it
was a bad thing'. Among other things, he explained, the jurisdiction of
an Israeli court in such a case is illegitimate because 'Legally, if a
Jew does kill a non-Jew, he's not called a murderer. He didn't transgress
the Sixth Commandment: Thou Shall not murder. This applies only to Jews
killing Jews. Therefore [in a Jewish state] his punishment is given over
to heaven' rather than to a secular court". Let me emphasize the key
word in this morally repulsive passage is "random", and that
Halacha as correctly enunciated by Ginsburgh permits Jews to kill not only
Arabs but non Jews in general at random, if other non Jews "made a
provocation". In other words, Halacha allows Jews to lynch non Jews.
In terms of the Halacha Ginsburgh is simply accurate and no rabbi had
tried to prove him wrong. What I had stated above and what was written
in "Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel" is only a milder version
of what Ginsburgh said, but the real offence was to say it to everybody
and not to a Jewish audience. The interview says that "in 1989, Rabbi
Ginsburgh was personally involved in the events that led to such a killing
when he led a large group of his yeshiva students on an armed West Bank
'walking tour' that slipped around Israeli Army restrictions and assertively
through a Palestinian village. The tour ended in a melee that saw the rabbi
stoned by angry villagers, the yeshiva boys rampaging through the village
setting fires and vandalizing, and a 13-year-old Palestinian girl who was
sitting in her house shot by one of the yeshiva tourists". In other
words, the event described by The Jewish Week as "tour" was just
a pogrom, one of the many organized in the West Bank by Halacha-keeping
Jews in the last decades. The most interesting thing about those Jewish
pogroms was that no rabbi of importance condemned any of them. In this
case, no Orthodox rabbi found a word to say about that "13-year-old
Palestinian girl", who was murdered by Halacha-keeping Jews. "At
the trial of the yeshiva boy charged with the killing, Rabbi Ginsburgh
said bluntly, "The people of Israel must rise and declare in public
that a Jew and a goy are not, God forbid, the same. Any trial that assumes
that Jews and goyim are equivalent is a travesty of justice".
In accord with this principle of total difference between Jews and non
Jews and absolute inferiority of the latter, Rabbi Ginsburgh asserted that
"If every single cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, is a part
of God, then every strand of DNA is a part of God. Therefore, something
is special about Jewish DNA. Later, Rabbi Ginsburgh asked rhetorically,
'If a Jew needs a liver, can you take the liver of innocent non-Jew passing
by to save him? The Torah would probably permit that. 'Jewish life has
infinite value' he explained. 'There is something infinitely more holy
and unique about Jewish life than non-Jewish life'".
On the day of the publication of this article, the item about halachic
permission to stop "innocent non-Jewish passing by" tt his liver,
this part of interview was translated into Hebrew and published in Haaretz,
the most prestigious Israeli paper, by its correspondent Yair Shaleg. (The
story did not appear in the New York Times.) A few days afterwrds, Sheleg
called on Orthodox rabbis to oppose this view and declare that it contradicts
the Halacha. No one did so till the present day.
Let me add that the few New York rabbis asked by The Jewish Week to
comment on Ginsburgh did not say that his views are wrong or that they
should be condemned. One said they are based on "statements out of
context". Another admitted that "The sad thing is, these statements
are in our books," but they are "purely theoretical." (Apparently,
the murder of that 13-old-girl was "purely theoretical" because
she was not Jewish.)
No one said even a fraction of what I presume he would say had similar
statement been made with the word "Jew" and "non-Jew"
reversed. In addition to what I had quoted in this Vindication, I conclude
from the refusal of any Orthodox rabbi (including "Rabbi Lauffer of
Jerusalem" so trusted by Bialoguski) that Ginsburgh's views represent
correctly the views of Halacha and of Jewish Orthodoxy about non Jews,
and about how Jews should treat them if only they have the power to behave
according to Halacha.
Let me add to those who kept silent because, presumably, they agree
with Ginsburgh about the non Jews, not only in the Middle East, the Anti
Defamation League and similar Jewish organization who follow the media
to protest against what they consider a defamation of Judaism. It can be
presumed that Ginsburgh's views are for the ADL not a defamation but a
part of Judaism. It is against this situation that I wrote this Vindication.
Israel Shahak