Judaism discovered

The Tanya of Rabbi Shneur Zaiman ofLyady (1:1)

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Of course no defense of Judaism would be complete without an exhibition of the rabbinic passion for self-pitying soliloquy. Alderstein: "It is also more than probable that part of the reason that this distinction (between idolatrous gentiles and civilized ones) is not embraced more widely is connected to the horrific experience Eastern European Jews in particular had with their non-Jewish neighbors for hundreds of years."

There goes the reputations of several generations of the Christians of Eastern Europe. They too are savage idolaters. The fact that they were victims of powerful Judaics, both under Soviet Communism and earlier, under, for example, the "court Jews" of Poland is completely without relevance in the view of Rabbi Alderstein. The tribal hatred the rabbis hold for Eastern European Christians does not seem to be subject to mitigation and thus it is parroted here as kind of purimspiel. Israel Shahak tells a different story: "...Jews in spite of all the persecutions to which they were subjected, formed an integral part of the privileged classes (of Europe). Jewish historiography especially in English, is misleading on this point inasmuch as it tends to focus on Jewish poverty and anti-Jewish discrimination. Both were real enough at times; but the poorest Jewish craftsman, peddler, land-lord's steward or petty cleric was immeasurably better off than a serf. This was particularly true in those European countries where serfdom persisted into the 19th century, whether in a partial or extreme form: Prussia, Austria (including Hungary), Poland and the Polish lands taken by Russia. And it is not without significance that, prior to the beginning of the great Jewish migration of modern times (around 1880), a large majority of all Jews were living in those areas and that their most important social function there was to mediate the oppression of the peasants on behalf of the nobility and the Crown.¹¹⁶⁰

Furthermore, Rabbi Alderstein parrots the story that could only be told to the ignorant, that the decision as to who is an "idolater" is decided on the basis of whether the gentile is a barbaric "savage" or a "civilized" person. This is more pigeon feed. The Germans were among the most civilized and refined of all "the nations" and many Judaics acknowledge that fact, but the Germans are Haman/Amalek/idolaters in the eyes of Orthodox Judaism, nonetheless. Idolater is a halachic category within Judaism and not capable of alteration

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on the basis of whether or not the "idolater" in question tucks a napkin into his shirt before dining, or plays polo or the cello. As we have demonstrated from the authoritative decisions and rulings of Maimonides, any sincere exponent of the gospel of Jesus Christ is by rabbinic definition, an idolater, all considerations of that person's etiquette, higher education and classical music abilities notwithstanding.

Most troubling of all, Rabbi Alderstein claims that Judaism's hatred for gentiles is a "celebration of difference" and that this hate is not exceptional; on the contrary it is the "general trend" of all religions: "There are other Talmudic sections that are not products of special conditions, and still spell out favorable treatment of Jews relative to non-Jews. These, too, are a cause for consternation for many Jews. They should not be. Almost every religious group we know of makes some claim to specialness, usually both theoretically and practically. These groups celebrate difference, and readily accept that other communities are entitled to extend privileges to the inner group as well. We Jews do not stand out in this regard so much as fit into the general trend."

From this statement we learn that it is common to almost every religious group to proclaim that even the best of all those who are not in the group should all be killed and that the followers of other religions have a soul that is "no good" and they can be killed, lied to and stolen from with impunity. We are supposed to believe that this is the "general trend" of almost all religions on earth.

In conclusion, Rabbi Alderstein invokes the reputation of Judaics as a community of lawyers as proof that the evil injunctions in the Talmud are not followed: "We are a legal community. Hostile attitudes can go only so far without hitting a firm halachic roadblock. No matter what animus some Jews might have for outsiders, they don't murder, rape or maim. They cannot steal, lie or deceive without running afoul of clear-cut halachot."

It is claimed that Judaics cannot murder, rape or maim Palestinians or gentiles. We have seen that the opposite is actually the case. They can and do murder and rape. They are also entitled to steal, lie and deceive. Rabbi Alderstein imagines that it is sufficient that he makes statements about the religion of Judaism without any evidence to back up his claims, on the basis of his ipse dixit prestige as a rabbi, a Wiesenthal official and a Jesuit law

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school professor. We are sorry your eminence, but this is not good enough for us.

On his final point, we concur with Rabbi Alderstein completely and affirm the absolute truth of his words: "I have been challenged several times by Jews who have rejected tradition. 'Aren't you ashamed to be part of system that says X, Y and Z about non-Jews? What if they find out?' They react with incredulity when I tell them that I discuss X, Y and Z openly with non-Jewish friends without embarrassment and without ill effect."

Yes, we are certain that this is true. So burned-out and degraded have the denizens of Churchianity become, so utterly bereft of respect for the Holy Name of Jesus and His Gospel, cowed by Talmudic power, Talmudic solidarity, Zionist lobbying and pressuring behind-the-scenes, that the revelation that Orthodox Judaism urges the murder of gentiles and the suppression of the teachings of Jesus Christ elicits no meaningful response, no evangelical zeal to defend the gospel against this onslaught. The rabbi is not embarrassed to admit the hateful contents of the Talmud to his so-called "Christian" colleagues and there is no "ill-effect" as a result of his verifying their contents as part of the belief system which he upholds.

Let us next take up the Noah Feldman article, "Orthodox Paradox," ¹¹⁶¹ that was the subject of Rabbi Alderstein's column. Feldman's essay reads in parts like a paraphrase of Israel Shahak's Jewish History, Jewish Religion, for which Prof. Shahak, was ceaselessly libeled by the Zionist and rabbinic establishment as a "neo-Nazi" and a fantasist. Noah Feldman of the New York Times can't bring himself to write with the candor of Shahak, however. Where Shahak left nothing to the imagination, Feldman speaks in generalities and leaves the reader to fill in the details: "In pre-modern Europe, where the state gave the Jewish community the power to enforce its own rules of membership through coercive force, excommunication literally divested its victim of his legal personality, of his rights and standing in the community."

The excommunicated Judaic "heretic" is "divested of his (human) rights." There is nothing and no one on this earth the rabbis fear more than a Judaic "apostate" and the most severe treatment that can be meted out is reserved for those who preach divrei minus u-kefirah be-farhesya (heresy) and then

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maser (inform) on the teachings of Rabbi so-and-so, the posek hador (exalted legal authority of the generation). In our time a Judaic who was designated a maser and one of the apikorsim, is Mordechai Vanunu, who continues to be tormented by the Israeli government; another is the late Prof. Shahak.

Shahak was traduced most viciously for his section on rabbinic law governing the medical treatment of gentiles, in which he stated - correctly -that halacha rules that gentiles are to be only rendered medical assistance under circumstances in which failing to do so would excite persecution of Judaics. Dr. Shahak wrote, "According to the Halakhah, the duty to save the life of a fellow Jew is paramount. It supersedes all other religious obligations and interdictions, excepting only the prohibitions...As for Gentiles, the basic talmudic principle is that their lives must not be saved...A Jew called upon to help a Gentile on a weekday may have to comply because to admit that he is not allowed, in principle, to save the life of a non-Jew would be to invite hostility...According to the ruling stated in the Talmud and Codes of Jewish Law, it is forbidden to desecrate the Sabbath...in order to save the life of a dangerously ill gentile patient. It is also forbidden to deliver the baby of a gentile women on the Sabbath. But this is qualified by a dispensation: 'However, today it is permitted to desecrate the Sabbath on behalf of a Gentile by performing actions prohibited by rabbinic law, for by so doing one prevents ill feelings from arising between Jew and Gentile." ¹¹⁶²

Feldman: "One time at Maimonides ¹¹⁶³ a local physician — a well-known figure in the community...addressed a school assembly on the topic of the challenges that a modern Orthodox professional may face. The doctor addressed the Talmudic dictum that the saving of a life trumps the Sabbath. He explained that in its purest form, this principle applies only to the life of a Jew. The rabbis of the Talmud...ruled that the Sabbath could be violated to save the life of a non-Jew out of concern for maintaining peaceful relations between the Jewish and non-Jewish communities. Depending on how you look at it, this ruling is either an example of outrageously particularist religious thinking, because in principle it values Jewish life more than non-Jewish life, or an instance of laudable universalism, because in practice it treats all lives equally. The physician quite reasonably opted for the latter

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explanation. And he added that he himself would never distinguish Jewish from non-Jewish patients: a human being was a human being. This appealing sentiment did not go unchallenged. One of my teachers rose to suggest that the doctor's attitude was putting him in danger of violating the Torah. The teacher reported that he had himself heard from his own rabbi, a leading modern-Orthodox Talmudist associated with Yeshiva University, that in violating the Sabbath to treat a non-Jew, intention was absolutely crucial. If you intended to save the patient's life so as to facilitate good relations between Jews and non-Jews, your actions were permissible. But if, to the contrary, you intended to save the patient out of universal morality, then you were in fact guilty of violating the Sabbath, because the motive for acting was not the motive on the basis of which the rabbis allowed the Sabbath violation to occur...The double standard of Jews and non-Jews, in other words, was for him truly irreducible: it was not just about noting that only Jewish lives merited violation of the Sabbath, but also about keeping the secret of why non-Jewish lives might be saved."

Feldman does not reveal the most instructive portion of the "secret" at hand: gentiles are not saved by the administration of Judaic medical treatment for purposes of "good relations" in the sense of some humanitarian gesture or feelings of brotherhood. Gentiles are given medical treatment by Orthodox Judaic believers when the gentile nations are still sufficiently powerful and vigilant to have the capacity and the will to do harm to Judaism's power and influence, should medical treatment be withheld. It is on this basis, which Feldman omits, that gentiles are treated medically, not simply under a bland rubric of "good relations."

The question is, what happens to those sick and injured gentile people needing medical care whom the rabbis do not believe can cause them any harm? As noted earlier, the Karaites are a sect despised by the rabbis for upholding the Old Testament only, Sola scriptura, and rejecting the Talmud and Kabbalah. Israel Shahak writes, "The most up-to-date halakhic position on these matters is contained in a recent concise and authoritative book published in English under the title Jewish Medical Law.¹¹⁶⁴ This book, from the Israeli foundation Mossad Harav Kook, is based on the response of R.

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Eli'ezer Yehuda Waldenberg, Chief Justice of the Rabbinical District Court of Jerusalem. Though we cited it earlier, a few passages from this work deserve reiteration in the context of Feldman's writing. First, 'it is forbidden to desecrate the sabbath...for a Karaite.' This is stated bluntly, absolutely and without any further qualification. Presumably the hostility of this small sect makes no difference, so they should be allowed to die rather than be treated on the sabbath." Feldman breathes not a word of this.

Feldman also takes up the problem of Talmudic violence. Normally this is never discussed in polite society or the American media. We hear of Communist violence, Arab violence, Muslim violence, but seldom of Israeli or rabbinic "violence" When the Israelis commit violence, it is almost always presented as "retaliation," "retribution" or the "reaction of the security forces." This Orwellian distortion is effective with some of the people but is having less cachet among disaffected intelligentsia. In the Internet age there is increased pressure on the Establishment's empire of lies and deceit, not just from websites but in the from the advertisement and sale of printed books on the web.¹¹⁶⁵ Therefore, to save face and control the damage, some seemingly damaging admissions must be made, and some candid talk of sensitive subjects permitted, the better to maintain overall hegemony. When Zionist and Talmudic apologists discuss Israeli or rabbinic violence however, a pattern can usually be discerned wherein the violence is ascribed not to the rabbis and their traditions, but rather, it is God who gets the blame, in the form of the Old Testament, which the Orthodox rabbis nullify, overthrow, disobey and falsify. Yet, when it comes to the issue of rabbinic and Zionist violence, suddenly they are all dutiful Old Testament votaries following the strictures of the written law to the letter. As we have tried to show, this is not Judiasm. This is one of the poses Judaism assumes when it must present a public face to the world. Deceit being its second nature, it has no problem engaging in such a farcial exercise, which any among even their lowly bochurim can recognize as a masquerade.

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Noah Feldman states: "Yigal Amir, the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin, was a modern Orthodox Jew who believed that Rabin's peace efforts put him into the Talmudic category of one who may be freely executed because he is in the act of killing Jews. In 1994, Dr. Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 worshipers in the mosque atop the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. An American-born physician, Goldstein attended a prominent modern Orthodox Jewish day school in Brooklyn. (In a classic modern Orthodox twist, the same distinguished school has also produced two Nobel Prize winners.) Because of the proximity of Goldstein's background and mine, the details of his reasoning have haunted me. Goldstein committed his terrorist act on Purim, the holiday commemorating the victory of the Jews over Haman, traditionally said to be a descendant of the Amalekites. The previous Sabbath, he sat in synagogue and heard the special additional Torah portion for the day, which includes the famous injunction in the Book of Deuteronomy to remember what the Amalekites did to the Israelites on their way out of Egypt and to erase the memory of Amalek from beneath the heavens."

Feldman offers some reference to the Talmud in the preceding passage, because that word has to be mentioned if the new apologia is to have its intended effect of refuting the critics of Judaism, who are increasingly seeing through the rabbinic "Biblical Jew" masquerade and are espying the fact that when the rabbis praise and esteem the "Torah" and cloak themselves in its mantle they are referring to two, mutually irreconcilable sources of revelation, the Torah SheBeal Peh (man-made superstitions and delusions as recorded in the Mishnah, Gemara, and derivative rabbinic texts) and the Torah SheBichtav (the Word of God as recorded in the Bible).

Feldman mentions the Talmud to condition the reader to the sense that objections to the Talmud are going to be anticipated and answered, when in fact they are not. Everything that is wrong with the Talmud, Feldman ascribes to the Old Testament. It's the Old Testament that he indicts and this serves a two-fold objective: paint Judaism in Old Testament colors (after paying brief lip-service to some sort of vague Talmudic influence) and then pander to the almost ineradicable bias which the liberal intelligentsia harbor against the Old Testament.¹¹⁶⁶

A bias shared by the occult movement and the neo-Nazi Right wing.

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It's a win-win ruse. The Judaics come off as sadly beholden to that "terrible book," which the better Judaics (like New York Times writer Feldman) at least have the decency to bemoan, while pushing Talmudic racism and injunctions to murder, to the sidelines. If we actually research and ponder Feldman's attributions, rather than letting them serve merely to confirm, at a surface level, preconceived liberal bias against the Old Testament, we see that the God of the Bible ordained that the memory of Amalek was to be erased and He promised it would be erased. And it was. Past tense. The true Church, i.e. Christian Biblical Israel, almost never calls anyone "Amalek" today. Christians take God at His word. Amalek is no more. But it is the Talmud and rabbinic Judaism and those of whatever degree of rabbinic religious fervor who have an extra-cerebral nostalgia for the Talmud as an ethnic heritage, that keep the memory of Amalek going. "Holocaust" historian Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University has called her opponent, the English historian David Irving, "Amalek." Among the extreme Right-wing Zionist settlers in the Israeli state, and Hasidic Judaics like Chabad-Lubavitch, the Palestinians are routinely referred to as "Amalek." It's shrewd to harken to the ancient Old Testament root of this as a means of suggesting that the very same Old Testament is responsible for its currency today. But this is a falsehood. It is the traditions of the rabbis that has revived the "Amalek" appellation, thereby contradicting the wishes and prophecy of God in the Old Testament. Feldman: "To Goldstein, the Palestinians were Amalekites. Like a Puritan seeking the contemporary type of the biblical archetype, he applied Deuteronomy and Samuel to the world before him. Commanded to settle the land, he settled it. Commanded to slaughter the Amalekites without mercy or compassion, he slew them. Goldstein could see difference as well as similarity. According to one newspaper account, when he was serving in the Israeli military, he refused to treat non-Jewish patients. And his actions were not met by universal condemnation: his gravestone describes him as a saint and a martyr of the Jewish people, 'Clean of hands and pure of heart."

While Feldman deserves credit for broaching a topic long suppressed by the Establishment media, the hero-worship which this Osama bin Laden-like character — Baruch Goldstein — elicits in Israeli Orthodox Judaic circles, the rest of his writing about Goldstein is a quagmire of deception and misdirection. Goldstein has nothing in common with the "Puritans" who

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upheld a sola Scriptura standard of the Bible alone. What Feldman is really saying with his duplicitous Puritan analogy is that when rabbis and Zionists act violently, they are acting like Biblically-oriented Christians ("Puritans") and the basis for their actions is the word of God and not the Talmud, "...he applied Deuteronomy and Samuel to the world before him. Commanded to settle the land, he settled it. Commanded to slaughter the Amalekites without mercy or compassion, he slew them."

Let's examine Old Testament law to see if Feldman's shorthand attribution of Goldstein's motivation — Deuteronomy-Samuel-Amalekites — actually applies to the Bible-believer (which Feldman does not scruple to tell us Goldstein was not. Being an Orthodox Judaic, Croldstein gave pride of place to the Torah SheBeal Peh first and foremost, the rabbinic prism through which the Bible is heavily filtered). Let us turn to one of the most learned Christian scholars of the Mosaic law, Prof. Johann David Michaelis, the preeminent Hebraist of eighteenth century Europe. Michaelis demonstrates that the modern liberal notion that the Old Testament is some kind of mandate for genocide is a gross error. He makes the point in distinguishing between the Biblical attitude toward the Canaanites and the Moabites: War against Canaanites is one of the first, fundamental laws (Gen. 11), due to "the odious crime of Canaan and the prophetic curse which the general ancestor of mankind laid upon him." But with regard to the Moabites: "Moses expressly forbade the Israelites to molest the Moabites (descendants of Lot) in the possession of this land (i.e. the land of the Moabites, cf. Deut. 2:9)." The Israelites were not to suffer injuries from the Moabites and they were allowed to enter their territory if forced into (border) war with them. "But they should not, with a view to conquest, without any further reason, go to war with them as they did with the Canaanites." There is no Biblical basis for Baruch Goldstein viewing contemporary Palestinians as Amalekites and Canaanites, but there are plenty of Talmudic and post-Talmudic rabbinic reasons for him doing so, about which Mr. Feldman is silent in his lengthy essay for the New York Times Magazine, wherein the Old Testament and not the Talmud, is given the prominent black eye. Mr. Feldman concludes with this whopper: "It would be a mistake to blame messianic modern Orthodoxy for ultranationalist terror." In other words, the mass murder of Palestinians, whether by the Israeli army or the Talmudic Dr. Goldstein, cannot be laid at the feet of the ideology of modern Orthodox Judaism. Instead, it's the Bible's

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fault. What a perverse conclusion from a member of a religion that advertises itself as the sine qua non of Biblical fidelity.

Professor Elliot Horowitz—Associate Professor of Jewish History at Bar-Ilan University—in his groundbreaking book Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence writes the following: "In the spring of 2004... Jeffrey Goldberg reported in the New Yorker about a series of disturbing interviews he had recently conducted with Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. 'The Palestinians are Amalek,' he was told by Benzi Lieberman, chairman of the Council of Settlements. 'We will destroy them,' Lieberman continued. We won't kill them all. But we will destroy their ability to think as a nation. We will destroy Palestinian nationalism.'...Goldberg...turned to a young acquaintance seated next to him...a pregnant (married) teenager who wore a long shirt and carried a semiautomatic M-16, and asked her whether she thought Amalek was alive today. 'Of course,' she replied, and pointed toward one of the Arab villages in the distance." ¹¹⁶⁷

One of the saddest and most harrowing accounts of the sadistic violence which some Israeli soldiers have perpetrated against Palestinian civilians was published in 2007 in the British newspaper, The Observer: "Israel shaken by troops' tales of brutality against Palestinians....A study by an Israeli psychologist into the violent behavior of the country's soldiers is provoking bitter controversy and has awakened urgent questions about the way the army conducts itself in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Nufar Yishai-Karin, a clinical psychologist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, interviewed 21 Israeli soldiers and heard confessions of frequent brutal assaults against Palestinians, aggravated by poor training and discipline. In her recently published report, co-authored by Professor Yoel Elizur, Yishai-Karin details a series of violent incidents, including the beating of a four-year-old boy by an officer. The report, although dealing with the experience of soldiers in the 1990s, has triggered an impassioned debate in Israel, where it was published in an abbreviated form in the newspaper Haaretz last month. According to Yishai Karin: 'At one point or another of their service, the majority of the interviewees enjoyed violence. They enjoyed the violence because it broke the routine and they liked the destruction and the chaos. They also enjoyed the feeling of power in the violence and the sense of danger.' In the words of one

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soldier: 'The truth? When there is chaos, I like it. That's when I enjoy it. It's like a drug. If I don't go into Rafah, and if there isn't some kind of riot once in some weeks, I go nuts.'

"Another explained: The most important thing is that it removes the burden of the law from you. You feel that you are the law. You are the law.

You are the one who decides... As though from the moment you leave the place that is called Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) and go through the Erez checkpoint into the Gaza Strip, you are the law. You are God.'

"The soldiers described dozens of incidents of extreme violence. One recalled an incident when a Palestinian was shot for no reason and left on the street. 'We were in a weapons carrier when this guy, around 25, passed by in the street and, just like that, for no reason — he didn't throw a stone, did nothing — bang, a bullet in the stomach, he shot him in the stomach and the guy is dying on the pavement and we keep going, apathetic. No one gave him a second look,' he said. The soldiers developed a mentality in which they would use physical violence to deter Palestinians from abusing them. One described beating women. 'With women I have no problem. With women, one threw a clog at me and I kicked her here (pointing to the crotch), I broke everything there. She can't have children. Next time she won't throw clogs at me. When one of them (a woman) spat at me, I gave her the rifle butt in the face. She doesn't have what to spit with any more.'

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"Yishai-Karin found that the soldiers were exposed to violence against Palestinians from as early as their first weeks of basic training. On one occasion, the soldiers were escorting some arrested Palestinians. The arrested men were made to sit on the floor of the bus. They had been taken from their beds and were barely clothed, even though the temperature was below zero. The new recruits trampled on the Palestinians and then proceeded to beat them for the whole of the journey. They opened the bus windows and poured water on the arrested men.

"The disclosure of the report in the Israeli media has occasioned a remarkable response. In letters responding to the recollections, writers have focused on both the present and past experience of Israeli soldiers to ask troubling questions that have probed the legitimacy of the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The study and the reactions to it have marked a sharp change in the way Israelis regard their period of military service — particularly in the occupied territories — which has been reflected in the increasing levels of conscientious objection and draft-dodging. The debate has contrasted sharply with an Israeli army where new recruits are taught that they are joining 'the most ethical army in the world' — a refrain that is echoed throughout Israeli society. In its doctrine, published on its website, the Israeli army emphasizes human dignity. 'The Israeli army and its soldiers are obligated to protect human dignity. Every human being is of value regardless of his or her origin, religion, nationality, gender, status or position.' However, the Israeli army, like other armies, has found it difficult to maintain these values beyond the classroom. The first intifada, which began in 1987, before the wave of suicide bombings, was markedly different to the violence of the second intifada, and its main events were popular demonstrations with stone-throwing.

"Yishai-Karin, in an interview with Haaretz, described how her research came out of her own experience as a soldier at an army base in Rafah in the Gaza Strip. She interviewed 18 ordinary soldiers and three officers whom she had served with in Gaza. The soldiers described how the violence was encouraged by some commanders. One soldier recalled: 'After two months in Rafah, a (new) commanding officer arrived...So we do a first patrol with him. It's 6 a.m., Rafah is under curfew, there isn't so much as a dog in the streets. Only a little boy of four playing in the sand. He is building a castle in his yard. He (the officer) suddenly starts running and we all run with him. He

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was from the combat engineers. He grabbed the boy. I am a degenerate if I am not telling you the truth. He broke his hand here at the wrist, broke his leg here. And started to stomp on his stomach, three times, and left. We are all there, jaws dropping, looking at him in shock...The next day I go out with him on another patrol, and the soldiers are already starting to do the same thing.'

"Yishai-Karin concluded that the main reason for the soldiers' violence was a lack of training. She found that the soldiers did not know what was expected of them and therefore were free to develop their own way of behavior. The longer a unit was left in the field, the more violent it became. The Israeli soldiers, she concluded, had a level of violence which is universal across all nations and cultures. If they are allowed to operate in difficult circumstances, such as in Gaza and the West Bank, without training and proper supervision, the violence is bound to come out. A spokeswoman for the Israeli army said that, if a soldier deviates from the army's norms, they could be investigated by the military police or face criminal investigation. She said: 'It should be noted that since the events described in Nufar Yishai-Karin's research the number of ethical violations by IDF soldiers involving the Palestinian population has consistently dropped..." ^llfi8

Rabbi Norman Lamm's Response to Noah Feldman The most instructive reaction to Feldman's very limited and circumspect semi-candor in the New York Times Magazine of 2007 came from a distinguished educator who is, arguably, the chief spokesman for modern Orthodox Judaism in America, Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, the chancellor of Yeshiva University, the "Harvard" of Orthodox Judaics desirous of a higher education in a Talmudic setting. Norman Lamm is also the rosh yeshiva (headmaster) of the university's affiliated Elchanan School of Talmud. In "A Response to Noah Feldman," ^U69 Lamm is outraged that Feldman was to any degree — however tepid or qualified — undercutting Judaism's public relations cover as a benevolent, humanitarian creed. As we consider Rabbi Lamm's stern admonition to Feldman, we should recall the message Zionist critics of historic Christianity disseminate when Christians are outraged by

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Dr, Norman Lamm, president of Yeshfva University. (Courtesy Yeshiva University. New York)

attacks on the veracity of the Resurrection, or on Jesus' virginity and chastity. The Zionist counsel to Christians is almost always a challenge to us to grin and bear it, as a sign of our commitment to radical truth-seeking and free inquiry. When it comes to exposes of Christianity, however false or scurrilous, certain prominent Zionists sometimes lecture Christians on the need to be tolerant with regard to opprobrium cast on Christ and, for example, intimations that He had marital relations with Mary Magdalene, or that he never really rose from the grave; or that revered Christian pastors and missionaries were bigots of one kind or another.

But in a classic display of the leaven of the Pharisees as exuded by the rabbinic mentality, when the shoe is on the other foot, and even an inkhng of the racism and hatred for gentiles institutionalized within Orthodox Judaism, is evoked by Noah Feldman in the Times, Dr. Lamm, rabbinic Judaism's most prominent American educator and spokesman, advocates a highly defensive position which has no patience for any espousal of criticism of Judaism. Rabbi Lamm even advocates self-censorship and suppression of the "highly sensitive" truth about the Talmud. Admonishing Feldman, Rabbi Lamm makes it clear that when it comes to protecting Judaism and its "coreligionists," he's for a cover-up. Lamm to Feldman:

"You wittingly or unwittingly exposed your coreligionists to opprobrium in arguably the world's most public forum...Because the issue is subtle and highly sensitive, do you not think that it would have been more responsible of you either not to mention an issue which for centuries has inflamed antisemitic vindictiveness and exacerbated irritation for those Jews ignorant of the method and subtleties of the law, especially since such subtleties are beyond the reader not trained in legal theory? But if you are compelled to

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write about it, would it have been a violation of some professional code to give precedence and preference to the universalist bias of the halachic tradition? ¹¹⁷⁰ But you took the easy way out, and thereby succeeded in holding up the Torah, the Talmud, the rabbis and especially Modern Orthodox Judaism to public ridicule, making the whole Talmudic enterprise look bigoted and racist. ...You apparently were equally unaware of the damage your words

have caused to innocent bystanders. Example: Daniel , a recent

graduate of Yeshiva University, wrote this letter to me that broke my heart: 'Like most Yeshiva University graduates, I interact on a daily basis with gentiles for most of my day. My Orthodox Jewish identity has never become an issue or conflict. However, following last week's New York Times article by Noah Feldman...I have frequently been getting questions like, 'Is it true that according to your law you wouldn't save my life on the Sabbath' or, 'Do you really believe that Jewish life is more important than gentile life?' How does a young Modern Orthodox professional answer these questions in a respectful and diplomatic way so as not to demonize others and at the same time be true to his faith?'

"My dear Noah Feldman, it is your duty to answer him, because you are the cause of his discomfiture and perhaps his possible inability to find employment¹¹⁷¹— and so for the thousands...who will have to live under the cloud of calumny you have unwittingly visited upon them....I have followed your career with naches (joy) and hope for the future of our Jewish people and Modern Orthodoxy, so I write like a spurned lover. I sympathize with your dilemmas....But that is no excuse for embarrassing a whole community to which you always belonged and to which you maintain you still owe a degree of fidelity..."

A Judaic who was formerly an adherent of Orthodox Judaism had this rejoinder to Lamm: "The response I found notable was from Rabbi Norman Lamm. In between the cliched arguments (our ancestors were martyred for the faith; intermarriage is an unquestionable wrong...) and trite exclaims of indignation (it's wrong to shame coreligionists; you shouldn't make the

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Talmud look bigoted and racist), Dr. Lamm argues a position that is outright disturbing, let alone wrong. What he says, in essence, is: we must be wary of exposing uncomfortable areas of halacha to the goyim, lest they know what we really say about them behind closed doors. I've heard the argument before. Indeed in my years growing up in the Hasidic community I've heard it quite often. But then again, the Hasidic community makes it an official position to deny people knowledge and truth, afraid that sometimes knowing might be damaging. Keep the masses in the dark, and they'll never know better, the argument goes. But a champion of learning such as Dr. Lamm should know better. It is never right to suppress the truth out of fear (unless, of course, there's a clear danger to human life). ¹¹⁷² Dr. Lamm quotes a letter he received from a young professional who encounters challenging questions regarding his Orthodox faith...Dr. Lamm, it was your duty to instill in this young man the necessary means for grappling with uncomfortable questions. That an intelligent young man should be challenged by workmates in response to a New York Times piece, but he wasn't challenged to ask those very same questions (to which he obviously doesn't know the answer) while going through your own educational institutions, is a failure of education, and not the fault of Mr. Feldman. In my opinion, the fear of revealing sensitive areas of halacha in public indicates a lingering tension between some aspects of our tradition and our contemporary notions of morality. All the apologia in the world won't make that go away. Rather, instead of claiming it is too nuanced for those untrained in legal theory,' the truth should be stated as it really is: the Talmud does contain matters that are racist and bigoted. Deal with it." ¹¹⁷³

Since the truth about Judaism supposedly "has inflamed antisemitic vindictiveness," ergo, it would be "anti-semitic" to state the truth about it. Though Orwellian on its face, this equation has been an effective tool of the thought police in enforcing the concealment of Judaism's inner dialectic, although Rabbi Lamm is behind the times if he imagines that the usual denials will serve the serve the same deceitful coverup. In this regard, Rabbi Alderstein is far ahead in terms of a stratagem for the Zeitgeist. In Judaism, truth for its own sake has never been an ideal; rather, preservation of the

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tribe of "coreligionists" is the highest good, though precisely the opposite view is preached by Talmudists to Christians on the receiving end of criticism and attacks on Christianity's most fundamental beliefs and personalities, such as the notion that Jesus Christ did not resurrect from the dead:

"Anti-Semitic Bigotry" Kept Archaeologist from Revealing that Jesus Did Not Resurrect

"Holocaust-denial"?

A crime in more than a half dozen European nations, and Canada.

Resurrection-denial?

The subject of lavish publicity and praise and a boon to cable television's viewer ratings.

To claim that the burial tomb of Jesus Christ has been located (not the cave where the stone was rolled away and He was resurrected, but the burial place for his corpse after He did not resurrect, according to the Zionists), is probably the most serious attack on Christians anyone could make. As the Apostle Paul stated: "...if Christ is not risen, then is our preaching in vain, and your faith also is in vain. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ...if Christ is not raised...you are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." (1 Cor. 15: 12-19). If there is a tomb on earth where the mortal remains of Jesus have been found, then the Apostles were false witnesses, there is no Atonement, and the Christian religion is a grotesque hoax. In February, 2007, Israeli-born Simcha Jacobovici, together with Hollywood director James Cameron ("Titanic") had their deceitful television docudrama, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" broadcast throughout America on the Discovery Channel, and around the world in non-Islamic countries like Canada, Britain, and of course on Israeli television Channel 8 (which also took part in the production). "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" entails more than Resurrection-denial. It also entails notions that Jesus lived past age 33, wed the supposed prostitute and latter-day Christian leader Mary Magdalene and sired a son named "Yehudah" (Judah). Since the broadcast of "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," Zionists and Talmudists have done their best to publicize the film, most recently in January, 2008 in Jerusalem, at the prestigious "Third

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Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins," funded in part by millionaire communications mogul George Blumenthal.

At Jacobovici's website, after some mendacious double-talk about how his movie does not "challenge the fact of the Resurection," Jacobovici admits a few paragraphs later: "If Jesus' mortal remains have indeed been found, this would contradict only the idea of a physical ascension. However, it says nothing against the possibility of a spiritual one..." ¹¹⁷⁴ Compare Jacobovici's words with those of the Apostle Paul, to determine if Jacobovici's qualification of "only" constitutes much of a consolation to Christians. Jacobovici knows full well that if Christ did not physically resurrect, then the rabbis of the Talmud are right, Christianity is a hoax. Jacobovici's attempt to exculpate himself from charges of Antichrist motives, by suggesting a possible "spiritual resurrection" of Christ in lieu of a physical one, is beneath contempt.

From somewhere within the American and Israeli establishment, a large amount of money and worldwide publicity has been lavished upon lies about Jesus Christ presented in "The Lost Tomb of Jesus." In America, the supposed "Christian" nation that allegedly forms a counterpoint to the empire of Islam, Jacobovici's production is broadcast, publicized and studied, while banned in virtually all Islamic countries. Could it be that America is not actually a Christian nation, but rather "Churchian"? Could it be that America's population of Israeli-worshipping Caucasians comprise a type of Kabbalistic golem who serve the rabbis and Zionists as military enforcer and media agent in the campaign to degrade and defame Jesus?

One observer offered a harbinger of the kind of spin in which the "Jesus tomb" allegations are being presented by the Israelis, by mentioning the career of the "tomb's" discoverer, Yosef Gat, which was discussed at the Princeton Symposium: "The real show-stopper happened when the widow of archaeologist Yosef Gat was called onstage to receive an award for her late husband, who had catalogued the bone boxes back in 1980....She told the audience, in Hebrew, that her husband had always suspected that the cluster of famous names (supposedly inscribed on the 'family tomb of Jesus') might be linked to that Jesus; but as a Tiolocaust survivor,' he was reluctant to

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unleash a possible backlash onto the Jews with his dramatic find. 'The world has changed in our lifetime,' she had said, accepting the honors."

In other words, in the twenty-first century, Christians no longer care to counter the Zionist attack on the very foundation of Christianity and therefore, the time is ripe for its fruition. Contemporary so-called "Christians" mainly bow their heads and genuflect in shame at the thought of protesting the organized attack on the fact of Christ's Resurrection, because, as it turns out, a holy "Holocaust Survivor," is involved. Therefore, Christians must demur, lest the more sacred religion of "Holocaustianity" should suffer the least indignity or disrepute. Better that these disrepute should befall Christianity and that the witness of the apostles and of Jesus Himself, would be trashed, than for one hair on the head of a noble and saintly, Israeli holocaust-surviving archaeologist, should be subject to critical scrutinty or protest.

The Talmudic chess masters are adroit. They turn the tables, making the aggressors against Christ into victims of—what else?— "antisemitic biogtry." Is there ever an occasion when the followers of Christ can be considered victims of anti-Christian, Judaic bigots? Apparently not; not even when the central axiom of Christian belief is being rubbed into the dirt. No, not even then. The claims to victimhood and the right to demolish Christianity on the part of Judaic and Zionist agents and activists, reigns with supreme immunity. Any serious attempt to expose the campaign is forbidden, since exposure is placed in the spurious context of being rooted in bigoted motives of "Jew hate." To vigorously defend the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is, therefore, "bigotry." Rabbinic "logic" and the Talmudic mentality rule the media roost. Here is an Israeli newspaper's account of the affair:

"Archaeologist Hid 'Jesus Tomb' for Fear of Anti-Semitism, Widow Says. By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz, Jan. 17, 2007: The widow of the archaeologist who discovered the tomb in Talpiot that some believe to be that of Jesus of Nazareth, explained Wednesday in Jerusalem to a gathering of senior archaeologists and other scholars why her husband kept his discovery a secret. In an emotional voice, Ruth Gat said that Yosef Gat, a Holocaust survivor, was afraid a wave of anti-Semitism would ensue if he did so. Speaking at the three-day Third Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins at Mishkenot She'ananim in the capital, Gat also said, 'I

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thank God his fears did not come true in light of the discovery of the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth.'

"As a boy, he wandered around the lion's den of occupied Poland,' she also said. 'The memory of those days never left him. It was one of the things that held him back as an archaeologist and that was also the reason for his great caution.' Yosef Gat worked as an inspector for the Israel Antiquities Authority for 27 years. He uncovered some 400 sites in the Negev and many other sites in Jerusalem. The cave was uncovered in 1980, but was not made public until the mid-1990s. Last year (2007), the story became widely known with the release of the documentary film 'The Lost Tomb of Jesus.' The film presents a cave uncovered in 1980 during construction work on an apartment building in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Talpiot. The tomb contained 10 ossuaries. Hebrew letters were inscribed on some, including those Jacobovici says should be read: Yehuda bar Yehoshua, Matya, Yose, Maria, and Yeshua bar Yehosef. The bones of 35 individuals were also uncovered, interred over three to four generations.

"I fell off the chair,' Jacobovici said Wednesday following (Mrs.) Gat's presentation. 'She said the leading archaeologist, who I thought had claimed it was nothing, actually thought he had discovered the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth, and as a Holocaust survivor was afraid it might lead to anti-Semitism.' Although most of those who spoke at Wednesday's seminar said it was possible the tomb was that of Jesus, Jacobovici's film was taken with a grain of salt. 'What Simcha did was good work, as long as it stays in the right perspective,' said archaeologist Professor Shimon Gibson of the University of North Carolina. 'We, the archaeologists and the historians, spend our lives trying to evaluate the information collected over time. The journalist, however, makes one film and moves on.'

"Professor Israel Knohl of Hebrew University said Wednesday that he saw no reason not to evaluate the tomb as Jesus' family tomb, although there was no unambiguous proof. He said surrounding caves should be excavated in order to obtain more proof, and explanations for various contradictions in existing evidence should be sought. For example, Knohl said the tomb might not be impressive despite the fame of those purported to be buried there, because tombs were considered a source of great impurity. Other significant contemporaneous figures were also buried in unadorned tombs, with no evidence that they had become destinations of pilgrimage. He said it was not

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surprising that the tomb, despite its presumed famed occupants, was forgotten. 'Jerusalem was destroyed almost entirely at that time, and only a few people were left in the city.'

"The cave currently serves the residents of a nearby building as a storage place for worn Torah scrolls. A short time after its discovery in 1980, the bones and the ossuaries were re-interred at a Jewish cemetery. Under pressure from the ultra-Orthodox, they were never studied and their age was never determined. Following the pressure, it was also decided to seal another tomb found nearby in which a number of complete ossuaries were found, and apartments were built above it. In response to arguments by scholars against his film, Jacobovici said Wednesday that it was a great honor that such an august group had gathered to discuss the matter. He said that when they made the film, the feeling of the public and the scientific community was that there was no chance it was the tomb of Jesus. Now, Jacobovici said, the consensus is that it might be true."




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