Ritual Murder Jews Believed Similar Zborowski

Life is With People: The Culture of the Shtetl, by Mark Zborowski, Elizabeth Herzog. 1995

Jews Had Their Own Counterpart to Accused Ritual Murder. Jewish Communists are Still Jews. Jewish Elitism Based on Learning

My review is based on the original 1952 edition. The shtetl had been vanishing right up to WWII, and was dealt the death blow by the German Nazi-made Holocaust. This book attempts to preserve its memory.

Many Yiddish words are used in this book, and a helpful glossary defines them all. There are countless fascinating details in this work. The reader learns that the SHABBES GOY is hired, by the Jewish community, to put out all the lights on Sabbath night. (p. 47, 55). The Hassid drinks alcohol to elevate his soul to a higher level (p. 176), and Jewish consumption of alcohol, even to excess, is permitted on Purim. (p. 402). According to Zborowski and Herzog, the shtetl Jew, unlike the peasant, tends to de-emphasize the upkeep of his even-modest home, because he sees it a temporary shell. (p. 62). [Perhaps this accounts for not-infrequent visitors’ reports of Jewish homes tending to be unkempt and dirty.] The kosher tax is a major source of revenue for the Jewish community, and it includes several paid members, besides of course the butcher. (p. 222).

RITUAL-MURDER JEWISH EQUIVALENT ACCUSATION

It is a well-known fact that Europeans sometimes thought that Jews steal Christian children for purposes of ritual murder. Interestingly, among Jewish folk tales, there was a counterpart to this myth. Jews taught that Gypsies (Sinti and Roma) kidnap Jewish children from their parents. (p. 91). For more on this, please click on, and read my detailed review of, and comment under, [[ASIN:089604159X The Janowska Road]].

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Because there is so much information in this work, I focus on a few topics in more detail. All of the following paragraphs below are direct quotes.

JEWS AND THE GOYIM: RECIPROCITY OF DE-LEGIMITIZATION

Each group will use animal terms in speaking of the other, implying that it is subhuman. If a Jew dies, a peasant will use the word for animal death in reporting the event, and a Jew will do the same for a peasant. The peasant will say that a Pole UMIERA and a Jew ZDECHL. The Jew will say that a Jew SHTARBT and a peasant PEYGERT. A peasant “eats” and a Jew “gobbles” when a peasant is talking, and when a Jew speaks the usage is reversed. The peasant will say, “That’s not a man, it’s a Jew.” And the Jew will say, “That’s not a man, it’s a goy.” (p. 157).

JEWISH ELITISM–BASED ON LEARNING

The AMORETS, the ignorant man, is less adequate a Jew than the woman, for he has been commanded to have much learning and in fact has little or none. The non-Jew, by his original rejection of the Covenant, placed himself outside the hierarchy, like a star that exists beyond the solar system, and therefore he has no status with regard to learning. (p. 80).

Among Jews he [the Jewish child] he expects to find an emphasis on intellect, a sense of moderation, cherishing of spiritual values, cultivation of rational, goal-directed activities, a “beautiful” family life. Among Gentiles he looks for the opposite of each item: emphasis on the body, excess, blind instinct, sexual license, and ruthless force. The first list is ticketed in his mind as Jewish, the second as goyish. (p. 152).

JEWISH RELIGION AND THE GOYIM

For the shtetl, the opposition is not so much between secular and nonsecular, as between Jewish and non-Jewish. (p. 116).

The majority group [non-Jews] is as much part of the design as the minority. They live without benefit of divine Truth and Law which, according to the legend, they themselves rejected. They remain, therefore, the victims of their own blind impulses and their own excesses. No more can be expected of them for they live in the dark. This is why a “good” Gentile deserves more credit than a good Jew, and a bad Jew is infinitely more reprehensible than a bad Gentile. (p. 154).

Ordinarily, any member of the shtetl would try to avoid even passing a church, and if it is unavoidable he will mutter a protective formula as he hurries by. Yet for all this, many Jews have been saved during pogroms by humane priests who gathered them into the churchyard for safety. (p. 158).

APOSTATE JEWS [AND, BY IMPLICATION, COMMUNIST JEWS (ZYDOKOMUNA)] STILL ARE JEWS

But there is also a saying, “a Jew always remains a Jew”. If you are born of Jewish parents, if you have any Jewish blood in you, then you have some bond with Klal Isroel. The shtetl folk feel themselves united not only by bonds of blood, belief and usage, but also by their common burden and reward. (p. 232).

Moreover, even in his apostasy something of him remains Jewish. (p. 424).

JEWS FROM TSARIST RUSSIA: A SOURCE OF ATHEIZATION

The Lithuanian, the “Litvak”, known as a cool, rationalistic skeptic, has been the most resistant to the Hassidic ideology. Vilna [Wilno, Vilnius] remained an anti-Hassidic stronghold, surrounded by a wall of heavy tomes. (p. 185).

The Polish Jew recoils from the “Litvak’s cold rationalistic mind”, and the Lithuanian in turn scorns the Polish Hassid for his “fanatical” devotion to the Rebbeh. (p. 230).

JEWS IN “UNPRODUCTIVE” OCCUPATIONS

The familiar middleman mechanisms characterize the operations of the countless dealers in foodstuffs and other commodities, who earn their livelihood by moving rather than by making their merchandize. (p. 242).

Jews participate in agriculture more frequently as middlemen than as producers. (p. 245).

WEALTHY AND INFLUENTIAL JEWS

The NOGID [rich man] has power through his money and though he may be the boss of the shtetl, he also can win friends in government circles, and serve his community as a SHTADLAN, or intermediary. The Jewish financial heroes have power through money—Rothschild, Brodsky, Baron de Hirsch. “Even the king listens to them.” (p. 262).

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