Talmudic Racism Examples Cohen

The Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Berakot, by Abraham Cohen. 1921

Racist Memes in the Talmudic Tractate Berachoth (Berakot): Stars Were Created Only for the Jews, and the GOYIM as Virtual Animals

My review is based on the original 1921 edition. Talmudic scholar Abraham Cohen provides the reader with the entire Tractate Berakot in a handy single volume, and provides brief notes and commentary. This is in the form of small side-notes and brief footnotes. As told by the author, the Tractate commonly features feasts and benedictions. I focus on a few salient topics of lasting interest.

By way of introduction, Cohen comments (quote) The Rabbis were not only theologians; they were principally ecclesiastical lawyers. This was necessarily so, because Rabbinic Judaism aimed at controlling the whole life of its adherents. (unquote). (p. xxix).

BERACHOT 32b: THE STARS WERE CREATED—ONLY FOR THE JEWS

The following series of passages is quoted in its entirety so that the reader can see the full context. (Quote) “But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and the Lord hath forgotten me” (Is. xlix. 14). But a woman forsaken is the same as a woman forgotten! R. Simeon b. Lakish said: The community spake before the Holy One, blessed be He, “Lord of the universe! Should a man marry a woman after his first wife, he remembers the deeds of the first; but Thou has forsaken me and forgotten me!” The Holy One, blessed is He, replied, “My daughter, twelve constellations have I created in the firmament, and for each constellation I have created thirty hosts, and for each host I have created thirty legions, and for each legion I have created thirty files, and for each file I have created thirty cohorts, and for each cohort I have created thirty camps, and in each camp I have suspended three hundred and sixty-five thousands myriads of stars, in accordance with the days of the solar year, and all of them have I only created for thy sake; and yet thou sayest, “Thou hast forsaken me, Thou hast forgotten me”! “Can a woman forget her sucking child (ULAH)?” (Is. xlix. 15). (unquote). (pp. 216-217). [The online Babylonian Talmud (Soncino Version) is very similar in these verses, with Berakoth 32b including the following wording: ….and all of them I have created only for thy sake…]

ANALYSIS OF BERACHOT 32b

The biblical passages quoted above, Isaiah 49:14-15, present a beautiful picture of God being no more capable of forgetting the Jewish people than a mother would be capable of forgetting her nursing child. They are more than sufficient to capture the essence of God’s unending care for the Jewish people. The Talmudic statement, quoted above, and which is inserted between the quote of Isaiah 49:14 and Isaiah 49:15, is something quite different. It clearly elevates the Jews, to a supreme position, above all other peoples. It rests on the rather presumptuous (even self-worshipping) notion that Jewish Chosenness extends as far as God creating the stars exclusively for the Jews.

To believe that “Jews are the Chosen people” means that Jews have the duty of obeying 613 Laws (p. xxxiv), while Gentiles only have to obey the 7 Noahide Laws, is one thing. To believe that “Jews are the Chosen people” means that God had created the stars exclusively for the Jews, is quite another. It is racist on its face. Imagine a white supremacist suggesting that God created the stars for white people, and only for white people. The creation of the stars exclusively for the Jews does not shed its racist character merely by being presented as an expression of God’s care for the Jews, any more than its Caucasian counterpart would shed its racist character by being presented as an expression of God’s care for white people.

Moreover, Berachoth 32b is no isolated instance of Jewish supremacist thinking, even solely in terms of God’s creative acts. It follows a theme, in rabbinical literature, wherein Jews are portrayed as effectively the Master Race in that everything that God had created (not only the stars), He had explicitly created for the Jews. For more on this, read my detailed review, of Abraham Cohen’s Everyman’s Talmud: The Major Teachings of the Rabbinic Sages.

For another Jewish perspective on Berachoth 32b, see: Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American-Jewish Life, and read my detailed review. In the Tanakh (Old Testament, God does not specify His reasons for creating the Earth and the stars. Consequently, the notion of God creating the Earth and the stars for the Jews is recognizably a groundbreaking notion of Jewish Chosenness.

BERAKOTH 58a: THE GOYIM AS ESSENTIAL (THOUGH NOT NECESSARILY LITERAL) ANIMALS

The following series of passages is quoted in its entirety so that the reader can see the full context. (Quote) R. Shela flogged a certain man who had had intercourse with a gentile woman; so he went and laid a charge against him before the king, saying, “There is a certain Jew who judges without the king’s consent.” The king sent an official for him [to appear]. When R. Shela came he was asked, “For what reason didst thou flog this person?” He replied, “Because had had intercourse with a she-ass.” They said to him, “Hast thou witnesses?” He answered, “Yes.” Elijah came in human guise and gave evidence. (unquote). (p. 382).

Author Abraham Cohen points out that some versions substitute “Egyptian” for “gentile” out of fear of the Censor. (p. 382). Otherwise, the online Babylonian Talmud (Soncino Version) is very similar for these verses.

A similar juxtaposition of gentiles and donkeys can be found in Berachot 25b, and elsewhere in the Talmud. Clearly, this is part of a consistent pattern, and it therefore cannot be said that some rabbinical author merely misspoke or was misread.

ANALYSIS OF BERAKOTH 58a: A JEW MARRYING A GOY IS LIKE A JEW MARRYING A DONKEY

To learn how Jews actually understand these verses, I have examined the online Talmud apologetic, “The Real Truth About the Talmud”, specifically the “Gentiles Are Human” article therein.

The author of the apologetic tells us of Talmudic passages that indicate that gentiles are fully human. His argument, at best, dispenses only with the literal aspects of the donkey-GOYIM equation.

The author of the apologetic states that the cross-reference to Ezekiel 23:20, on the “flesh of donkeys”, had been broadened to refer to all gentiles. However, he not explain why. He analysis relies, in part, to the ideas of Talmudic scholar R. Chaim Soloveitchik, and would have essentially have us believe that the passages were only intended to teach us that Jews and gentiles are maritally and sexually incompatible, and that a Jewish-gentile union has no legal standing in Jewish law. Sound pretty lame.

This apologetic confuses the issue, which is not the inappropriateness of Jew-gentile marital unions (which is easily declared and customarily practiced at the time), but is something quite different–the conflation of gentiles and donkeys. Besides, the rabbinic author was perfectly capable of expressing his objection to Jewish-gentile marriages without dragging the donkey-GOY equation into the picture. Surely the rabbis who repeatedly equated GOYIM and the animals, throughout the Talmud, were fully cognizant of the fact that the juxtaposition of humans with animals is derogatory in nature. Even a child would know that!

The racist antigoyism is palpable, and is inescapable. Imagine the white racialist objecting to interracial marriage by saying that a white marrying a black is comparable to a white marrying a donkey. In addition, the racist character of the equation is unchanged merely by the fact that it is framed in terms of its non-literalness, and in terms of the opined unique value of white-on-white marriages, the lack of standing of white-black marriages, or some other similar exculpatory construct.

MENTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY IN TRACTATE BERAKOTH

Although he does not go into any detail on this subject, Talmudic scholar Abraham Cohen parts ways with those who say that the Talmud has nothing to say about Christianity. He also validates the work of R. T. Herford, CHRISTIANITY IN TALMUD AND MIDRASH,by referring to its identifications of often-Censored allusions to Christianity in Tractate Berakot. (p. 113 [referring to 17a] and 189 [referring to 28b]). He also mentions Berakoth 7a in this regard. (p. 37).

Cohen also rejects those who say that MIN/MINIM never refers to Christians. Based again on Herford, he defines the term as follows, (quote) A heretic, especially the early Jewish-Christian. (unquote). (p. 429).