There
is a link on your website to information provided by a Berkley,
California-based group calling itself Jews for Justice in the Middle
East.
Regardless of anyone's political views, I believe there is an
obligation to be truthful and accurate in information provided. The
quotations from "Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel" by Israel Shahak and
Norton Mezvinsky provided by Jews for Justice in the Middle East are
dishonest and misleading. Indeed, the following excerpts from the book
quoted by Jews for Justice in the Middle East contain references puporting
to represent Jewish religious law that are usually found on avowedly
antisemitic websites such as neo-Nazi sites and Holocaust denial
sites:
"Gush Emunim rabbis have continually reiterated that Jews who
killed Arabs should not be punished, [e.g.]...Relying on the Code of
Maimonides and the Halacha, Rabbi Ariel stated, 'A Jew who killed a non-Jew
is exempt from human judgement and has not violated the [religious]
prohibition of murder.'"
Also: " ... Halacha permits Jews to rob non-Jews
in those locales wherein Jews are stronger than non-Jews."
Even a
cursory glance at the Halachic (Jewish religious law) authorities proves
that the above references have been taken out of context.
The standard
compendium of Jewish law, the Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 158:1, rules that
it is forbidden to kill non-Jews - even idol worshippers or members of the
seven nations that the Jewish People have a Biblical obligation to destroy
(not the Arabs who fulfill neither category). The Shulchan Aruch (the author
of the book, who is also known by the title of the book itself) repeats
himself, which is a rare occurence, in Choshen Mishpat 425:5. These Halachos
(laws) are not contested by other authorities and they are sourced in much
earlier works; see Babylonian Talmud Tractate Avodah Zarah 26a-b, Rambam
(Maimonedes) Mishna Torah Madah Avodah Zarah 10:1.
With regards to
whether it is permissible to steal the Talmud, Tractate Bava Kammah 113b,
states that it is forbidden to steal from non-Jews. That opinion is the only
view mentioned in the Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 348:2. The Shulchan
Aruch makes no diferentiation between Jews and non-Jews. The Siftei Kohen,
ibid., states categorically that to steal from a non-Jew is a transgression
of a negative Torah commandment. He writes that the Rambam (Maimonedes) and
the Maharshal rule in accordance with this view. The Vilna Gaon rules, ibid.
8, that not only is it forbidden but that if someone did so the money cannot
be used for any dvar Mitzvah (the fulfilment of a religious obligation)
..
I hope your concern for truth and accuracy and a desire not to incite
hatred of Jews or any other ethno-religious group will induce you to check
the information I have passed on to you from Rabbi Lauffer of Jerusalem with
a competent Halachic authority (eg an Orthodox rabbi) of your choice and,
once confirmed, remove the defamatory material from your
website.
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.
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 money-launderers) 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 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 a 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!"
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 f rom 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 wouldnot 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 meri ting 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 s aving 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 hesees 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" to take 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
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