- Two quotes from Israel Shahak, extracted from the
article
below:
-
- * "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."
-
- (This explains the fate of the Palestinians when the
Jews robbed them of their land.)
-
- ** The interview says "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."
-
- Begin forwarded message:
-
- Subject: The Challenge...A VINDICATION...from Israel
Shahak
-
- http://www.cactus48.com/jewishlaw.html
-
- The Challenge
- ...from Stefan Bialoguski
-
- Subject: Jewish Fundamentalism
- Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001
- From: mfrankl@jewishnews.net.au
-
- 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.
-
- Yours,
- Stefan Bialoguski
-
- Please respond to:
- sbialoguski@hotmail.com
-
-
-
- The Response...from Israel Shahak
- Date 2001
-
- 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.
-
- 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 the '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
|