Monday, September 11, 2006

Israel Shahak

I came across this article, much more could be said! Interested in views of anyone out there...

The veteran anti-Zionist Israel Shahak claimed that Judaism systematically discriminates against non-Jews. But the accusation fails to do justice to rabbinic tradition, argues ...

Even before the latest events in the Middle East [refers to 2002], Zionism had been coming under renewed attack in international forums, the media and on campus. Israel has been branded as a racist and apartheid state, not simply by foes of its policies in the occupied territories but by those who denounce its insistence on defining itself as a state for Jews.
Indeed, the accusations go even deeper, drawing on the idea that the Jewish religion itself discriminates against non-Jews — an idea prominently advanced by, among others, a left-wing Israeli academic, the late Israel Shahak.

Shahak, who died in 2001, was a chemistry professor at the Hebrew University, a Holocaust survivor and a trenchant critic of both Judaism and Zionism from a "human rights" perspective.

Shahak's campaign began with an alleged incident in the 1960s, when he claimed that he had "personally witnessed a strictly religious Jew refuse to allow his phone to be used on the Sabbath in order to call an ambulance for a non-Jew who happened to collapse in his Jerusalem neighbourhood." This caused a stir worldwide, prompting Immanuel Jako- bovits, then working as a rabbi in New York, to denounce it as a modern "blood libel." Rabbi Jakobovits rebutted Shahak's claims, reaffirming the dignity of Jewish law by citing the explicit ruling of Israel's then Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi that the Sabbath be broken to save a human life.

As a result of the controversy, Shahak, an atheist, applied his knowledge of the Talmud, rabbinical rulings and Jewish history with ever greater vigour to challenge the Zionist concept of a "Jewish state" — concluding that any state based on the domination of one religious group would lead to the oppression of other groups. He went on to write several books, including "Jewish Religion, Jewish History," which lists as many examples of negative comments regarding non-Jews in the Talmud and medieval rabbinic literature as he could find.
Despite the polemical nature of Shahak's work, the challenge it poses requires an answer, but so far as I am aware, there has been almost no Orthodox response.

The questions we should face are how to achieve a balanced view of often conflicting opinions in rabbinic literature: and how Jewish law applies to a modern world based, in principle at least, on enlightenment values of equality and tolerance. There is a tension between the ideas of the chosenness of the Jewish people and of the equality of people of different religions and races.

That tension is summarised in the following debate in rabbinic literature. Regarding the verse in Leviticus, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself," the Talmud quotes Rabbi Akiva's view that this is a "great principle in the Torah." But Ben-Azai says "an even greater principle is, 'This is the book of the generations of Adam [on the day that God created man, he made him in his image, Genesis 5:1].'"

Despite its universal overtones, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself" is often taken in rabbinic literature to refer to a fellow Jew. However, Ben-Azai's greater principle is clearly universal: all human beings are created in the image of God and this forms the basis of chesed, our empathy with our fellow human beings. This principle of empathy underlies the saying, "Do not do to others what you would not wish done to you," which is ascribed to two of the major rabbinic figures, Hillel and Akiva.

Nevertheless, the Talmud contains views of non-Jews that are far from empathic, the most widespread examples being found in tractate Avoda Zara, which deals with the laws of idolatry. Many of these Talmudic rulings were later codified by Maimonides, who writes, for example: "It is prohibited to rescue non-Jews with whom we are not at war and [Jewish, but presumably dishonest] herders of small cattle if they are in danger of death; for example, if one sees one of them who fell into the sea, we don't try to rescue him, as it says 'You shall not stand by the blood of your neighbour' and these are not your neighbours."

Such rulings are troubling and hard to understand. We can't always be sure to whom they were intended to apply, because the texts were subject to heavy censorship both in Christian and Muslim countries owing to accusations of bias against non-Jews. But there are cases where we are explicitly directed not to have empathy with those who do not have it with us — some non-Jews, such as the seven Canaanite nations specified in Deuteronomy; others, Jews, such as those considered to be irredeemable thieves, like the "herders of small cattle," or heretics.

Accusations of discrimination against non-Jews are discussed in the Talmud itself, which relates that two Roman jurists visited the academy of Rabban Gamliel in Yavneh around the end of the first century to investigate "the nature of Israel's Torah." They declared: "All the Torah is pleasing and praiseworthy, except for one thing, that you say: 'What has been stolen from a gentile is permitted, while what has been stolen from a Jew is forbidden.'" The Palestinian Talmud goes on to say, "At that time, Rabban Gamliel ordained that the robbed property of a gentile is forbidden, so as to prevent profanation of the Divine Name [chilul Hashem]."

But the issue continued to be debated in later rabbinic responsa. In order to gain a better understanding, we need to recall that Jewish law recognises a number of overriding principles, such as chilul Hashem, mipnei darchei shalom ("the ways of the Torah are the ways of peace") and, within this, mishum eivah (to avoid hatred).

During the Hasmonean war, Jews did not even break the Sabbath to save their own lives (I Maccabees 2:29-43). This was clearly untenable, and a solution was found within halachah to allow this in the interests of self-defence. The idea was later extended to include the saving of non-Jewish lives, on the principle of mishum eivah.

We can, of course, argue the motivation about such halachic devices. Is mishum eivah, the avoidance of hatred, an entirely self-serving reason, which discounts the intrinsic value of non-Jewish lives but cares only about the consequences for us? Or does it reflect the broader view of this being part of "the ways of peace," as all human beings are "in the image of God?"
Either view, the more tolerant or the more parochial, is possible. It is worth noting that there are commentators, both old and new, who do interpret "to love your neighbour as yourself" as universal, not-withstanding the way it is used in halachah. And then there is the powerful declaration in the Mid-rash: "I call heaven and earth to witness that whether one be gentile or Jew, man or woman, male slave or female slave, in accordance with the merit of his deeds does the Holy Spirit rest on him."

In medieval times, the Provençal rabbi Menachem Meiri (1249-1316) ruled that whenever the Talmud seems to discriminate against non-Jews — such as in the laws cited by Maimonides — it is discussing the ancient nations, not the "modern" ones of his day. For him, the key issue was whether people accepted the seven Noachide laws, especially the law against idolatry. The Meiri, as he is known, comments: "Every non-Jew who strives to observe the seven Noachide laws is considered one of the righteous of the nations. He or she is reckoned among the faithful and possesses a portion in the world to come." But however cheering to the liberal-minded, this view is not universally accepted among contemporary poskim, or halachic decision-makers.

Another strand of Jewish thought, Kabbalah, which has become increasingly influential in the past 200 years, along with the impact of the Holocaust, has perhaps led some modern poskim away from the more tolerant attitude of the Meiri.

Kabbalah teaches an "essentialist" view, that Jewish souls are superior to non-Jewish souls, something which many nowadays would find abhorrent and dangerous. This idea is opposed by those who argue Jews are "chosen" only by virtue of having accepted the Torah.
Judaism is a rich tradition, which balances the competing claims of particularism and universalism. This can be seen as one of its strengths since, human nature being what it is, it may be beyond us to love all humanity: but we should all endeavour to empathise with "others," as human beings in God's image.

There is no easy summary of attitudes to non-Jews within the large and complex rabbinic tradition. Some passages may be inspiring, others shocking to a modern reader. In a literature spanning thousands of years, it would be astonishing not to come across views that jar with modern sensibilities, because they reflect either a radically altered social awareness or the bitterness created by widespread anti-Semitism.

Our challenge is to know how to read and evaluate this material properly, which Shahak failed to do with his polemical approach.

We should also make clear to today's poskim that a balance is required between staying true to the tradition and building on the tolerance of authorities such as the Meiri and his successors.

This will lead to an outlook acceptable to the vast majority of Jews, who believe in the "humane instincts" of Judaism and the Jewish people.

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