http://www.sinaicentral.com/jewhaters/defending_the_talmud.htm#Gentiles_and_Pagans_in_the_Talmud_Jewish Enemies, Gentiles and Pagans in the TalmudThe Talmud does mention some things about gentiles and pagans, some of it critical, but the main criticism, the fire, the emotion, was with internal problems. Jews are a nation with a history of internal conflict that is more destructive in some ways than external conflict. The prophet said, "Those who overthrow you and those who destroy you will issue from your loins." We are nation of idealists and some of them are quite dangerous. The first generation of Israel sold Joseph their brother into slavery. The Second Temple was destroyed because of "vain hatred." When the Romans came to destroy Jerusalem, they watched in amazement as the Jewish army divided into three and all three divisions began killing each other. The "wild ones" gained control and burned the stores of food in Jerusalem, forcing people to go out and fight like "men." They murdered a rabbi because they suspected that he opposed them. The murderer was the rabbi's nephew. Finally, a rabbi smuggled himself out of the city and met with the Roman general. That began a warm relationship of the rabbis and leaders of Rome, who protected the rabbis from the "wild ones." Anyone who has read about Russian Communism knows what I am talking about.
Two recent books by Israeli Jewish professors contain more incitement against Jews than anything published by the gentiles. One wrote a book that the Talmud is full of incitement against Christians, and the other wrote a book that Jews in the Middle Ages who were tortured to confess drinking Christian blood may have been guilty as charged. When the Jewish Communists, the cursed Yesvetskia, got their hands on a rabbi, don't ask.
The Talmudists have been battling other elements in Israel from the beginning of the Second Temple period. The internal battles of ideology resulted in mighty slaughters of rabbis time and time again in the Second Temple period. Thus, the Talmudists, products of the Second Temple period over two thousand years ago, have much to say about their Jewish enemies, and have little energy for anyone else.
A great Medieval rabbi, Rabbi Yehuda the Pious, told Jews to make way for others in their travels, and to do a kindness to a gentile traveler as well as a Jew. In fact, he says, "Honor a gentile more than a Jew who opposes the Torah." We know where that idea comes from.
The Vatican recently released its files on the Inquisition. A reviewer commented that the major emphasis and destruction was not aimed at non-Catholics, but at Catholics who were seen to deviate from the main Catholic position. The rabbis never had a physical Inquisition, but they did protest internal dissent and certain Jewish sects such as the "wild ones" with their burning the stores of food to force Jews to leave the security of the walls of Jerusalem to go out and fight a hopeless battle with the Roman Legions.
I was recently involved in dealing with a very tough religious Jewish man, and whoever approached him about something received a snarled rebuff. Someone asked me to intervene, but cautioned me to speak not Yiddish but English to him. I spoke a pure English to him, and he agreed to what I asked. Why did he snarl at the others and talk nicely to me? The others spoke Yiddish and he turned on them. When I spoke like a gentile, he was not angry, and showed respect. It is a strange world, but that is what happened.
The Talmud has strong words for everyone, because that is how the Talmudists spoke, to each other, and about everything. The Torah, they said, was fire, and one must be on fire to learn it and practice it. Their talk was also fire. But inside the intellectual fireworks was a love created by an honest spirituality. When you just read the words, however, it sounds awful. But remember, whatever they say about Romans, Greeks, and other pagans, they spoke much worse about their own, about those who opposed the scholars, and even other scholars who "erred" etc.
There is a method to the madness. The rabbis did not want a cold religion. They did not want people to give a dollar of charity and then turn on the radio. They wanted a person to cry when he gave a dollar, and suffer because he could not give two dollars. For this they awakened people with emotional phrases, with metaphors, with pictures and astounding warnings. But this was a system to produce not just the mind, but the heart.
If you want the Jewish attitude towards gentiles and pagans, read the Jewish Torah literature, beginning with the bible or the Five Books of Moses and going through the Talmud,. If you do, and are careful in your reading, you will notice something extremely interesting. The Jews lived more or less at peace with the gentiles during the entire Biblical Era. The Jewish Era in the Bible begins 3700 years ago with the Jewish year 2000, with Abraham's becoming a Jew. Abraham was greatly honored and respected by all of the Egyptian and Canaanite Kings. So was his son Isaac, and so was his grandson Jacob. Other than a few problems with having their wives taken and then returned, the basic atmosphere was quite positive. One bad episode was when Dinah the daughter of Jacob was raped, but it is obvious from the story in the bible that this has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Even when the sons of Jacob destroyed the village of the rapist, the pagan kings despite their feelings did not harm the Jews.
The bad part begins, not with biblical pagans hurting Jews, but with Jews and their relatives. The problems begin with Laban the father-in-law of Jacob who tormented him while he was in Laban's house, but there was no lasting damage, and the two parted properly enough. The real serious problems begin with the sons of Jacob selling their brother Joseph out of envy or whatever idealisms they may have had. This led to the divine decree that the Jews would go to Egypt as slaves and in Egypt the Jews did become slaves. It is clear from the biblical account that there was no anti-Semitism in Egypt. The Egyptians were confused by the large number of Jews in their country, and seeking to control them, enslaved them. We can call the Egyptians any names we want, because they murdered baby boys and enslaved the Jews. But the issue was not anti-Semitism in its modern form. The Egyptians had a religion which rejected eating sheep, and when the Jews ate sheep the Egyptians were horrified and so the two people did not eat together. But there was no hate. Indeed, not all Egyptians even agreed that Jews should be enslaved. An Egyptian princess, Basya, saved Moses when he was left in a basket in the river.
Indeed, the rabbis make it clear that Pharoah was an unwilling taskmaster of the Jews. He did not want to enslave the Jews, but the populace insisted upon it. Eventually, the rabbis say, he was dethroned until he would agree to enslave the Jews. Whether you want to believe this story or not, the point we make here is that the rabbinical literature does not paint Pharoah as a hater of Jews, quite the opposite. In fact, rabbinical literature blames the Jews for their miseries in Egypt, and does not point the finger at the Egyptians. Therefore, the issue was not hate.
The Jews left Egypt and received the Torah at Sinai. Now we find an evil people, Amalek, who came to make war with Israel. Were they anti-Semites? Were they haters? If you study the origins of Amalek you see that the parents were the best of the gentiles, one a relative of the Jews, Elifaz, and the other perhaps the outstanding gentile woman in the world, Timna. Amalek was a highly spiritual family that fought Israel because they did not accept that Israel was G-d's Chosen People. Amalek itself was spiritual and wanted that roll, or at least, it hated Israel for rejecting Amalek, as actually happened, but that is another topic. We find that the mighty genius Bilaam, the sorcerer, was in this category. He prayed to G-d to destroy the Jews so that gentiles could be G-d's Chosen People, but G-d turned his mouth to utter blessings for the Jews. This is surely not classical hatred of Jews as we in the modern world understand it.
We learn from the above that in biblical times most gentiles had a great respect for the early Israelites, until the Jews declined and sold their brother, and then, they entered a lowly state and slavery. Even then we don't find the modern hate of Jews in the bible.
To leap forward in Jewish history we come to the Babylonian King Nevuchadnezzar exiling the Jews to Iraq or Babylonia. He burned the First Temple and killed many Jews. And yet, the prophets and the rabbis make it clear that although we call him "wicked" for destroying the Temple, there was no hate of Jews in this king. Indeed, his highest ministers were great rabbis and his closest friends were prophets. He conquered because he was determined to conquer the world or for other reasons we don't have to go into now. But there was no anti-Semitism involved.
After the Babylonians came the Persians. Here, too, rabbis enjoyed very high and powerful positions, and the Jews became very prosperous. There were individuals such as Haman the Persian Prime Minister who plotted to wipe out the Jews, because he descended from Amalek, but the general trend was not one of hate. At one time the Queen of Persia and the Prime Minister were Jews. The Queen didn't go willingly, but at least, it wasn't anti-Semitism. Finally, the Persian King rebuilt the Second Temple and allowed the Jews to return to Israel. Most Jews refused to leave as they were prosperous and happy in exile.
In Jewish historic terms, we have covered very briefly the Egyptian Exile, the Babylonian Exile, and the Persian Exile. In each of these, Jews were honored by kings and became Prime Ministers. There were some bad moments, some very bad moments, but there was no anti-Semitism in the modern form as a hate of Judaism or Jews per se. There was, however, here and there, a hate for Jews as the Chosen People, by gentiles who were spiritual themselves and did not like G-d choosing Jews. This led to great hate, but it wasn't the same as the modern denigration of the Jew as a lower thing.
We come now to the Greek Exile, which began under Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great conquered Persia and Israel, and came to Jerusalem in triumph. His generals wanted to plunder, but Alexander honored the High Priest Simon and refused to harm the Jews in any way. Out of appreciation, the Jews named their sons Alexander, a custom that has lasted to this day. But when Alexander died, his generals began a hideous exile for Israel, and treated the Jews in the worst way. Here ended the biblical era's good times for Jews among the nations. The new Greeks, after Alexander, were tyrants, vicious and wicked. The Jews hated them because they robbed and raped and because they tried to destroy the Jewish religion. Finally, the High Priest Matisyohu rebelled against the mighty Greek armies and defeated them. But the Jews in the Greek Era, or the Second Temple Period, loathed the Greeks and the Greeks loathed them.
The Greeks ran naked to show their physical beauty. The Jews prized modesty. The Jews honored women. The Greek governor would come to a Jewish wedding and rape the bride in front of everyone. The Jews hated idols, and the Greeks tried to force the Jews to worship idols.
After a period of time, the Jews lost their independence when Rome conquered Israel. The Romans were better behaved than the Greeks, and the rabbis in general had a very good relationship with the Roman courts, with exceptions for when the Jews rebelled against Rome. But Rome was a terrible tyrant, and followed the Greek idea of forcing others to worship as the Romans did. The Romans wanted to break the Jewish religions, even thought there were many Romans who had good relations with the rabbis. The Romans burnt Rabbi Chananyeh ben Tradyone to death, slowly, because he taught Torah in public.
Thus, Greece and Rome tried to destroy the Torah and they terrorized the Jews. The Talmud was written during the Roman conquest, and reflected teachings from the Greek conquest. If a gentile meant a Greek or a Roman, no nice things would be said. But if a gentile meant a Persian, the Talmud says, "I love the Persians." Even among the Romans, there were good Emperors, the best being Antoninus who had an excellent relationship with Rabbi Yehuda the Prince. Perhaps due to this relationship, Rabbi Yehuda became fabulously wealthy and the Jews prospered. When Rabbi Joshua went to the Roman Royal Court the mother of the Emperor would personally greet him with warm words and great respect. The Talmud has many stories of Rabbi Joshua and his discussions with the Emperor and his immediate family.
Therefore, if we bring ourselves up to date after the various exiles, we would say that relations with gentiles were very good from the earliest biblical times until the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks were a disaster, but the Romans were a mixed bag. We see in the Greeks a complete contempt of the Jew, but with the Romans there is a definite relationship with the Jew and a certain perhaps grudging acceptance by the Romans that the Jews were unique. The Talmud suggests that this is because the Romans descend from Esau, the brother of Jacob.
The Roman exile was not one of anti-Semitism in the modern sense, and Jews won much admiration in the Royal Court.
The problems began in the time of Constantine. He converted to Christianity and Ambrose was his priest. Ambrose ordered Constantine to kill all of the Jews and anyone who refused Christianity. Only the fall of Rome prevented this happening. Also, the disciple of Ambrose, Augustine, was not satisfied with dead Jews. He wanted converted Jews. Rome, under the influence of Augustine, then initiated the modern anti-Semitism, teaching that being a Jew was in of itself an affront to the church and the state, and that all Jews must be humiliated and harassed until they convert.
From that time to the present we have anti-Semitism in its modern form. The official state religion condemns Jews and seeks to force them to convert. It does this by demonizing the Jew, making lies about him, falsifying his religion, until the Jew becomes a creature with horns that drinks the blood of Christian children and assorted horror stories. A major point of attack is the Talmud, when taken out of context, can provide the haters with an excuse to demonize and punish the Jews and force them to convert.
Today, because of the Middle East situation, the Moslem world is supportive of hating Jews. Their schools and culture are filled with the kind of material once popular in Christian countries. Because the Holocaust cast the church in a bad light, because the Catholics backed Hitler on the orders of the Vatican and brought him to power, the church had to back down from its traditional official hate of Jews. But other Christians, the Protestants, have never changed their dogma. They believe that a Jew whose entire life is spent doing goodness and kindness will be sent to hell. But a Christian who does terrible sins and comes to heaven will be rewarded because he believes.
I say to those who want me to convert. G-d chose Israel and the Jewish people and swore to never turn away from them. Anyone who calls G-d a liar and says that G-d changed His Mind and broke his word is a blasphemer. Such a person will come to heaven and be asked, "Why did you call Me a liar? Why did you say I changed My Mind?"
The haters twist the Talmud to "prove" that people like me rape little girls, steal from non-Jews, think that gentiles are what they think about Jews, etc. All of this is the work of hate, but I suppose I will have to discuss the various passages individually, because these challenges must be answered.
Topic: Please help debunk these "quotes" from Talmud (Read 12868 times)