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USURY, ROBBERY, BURGLARY OF GENTILES PERMITTED-2
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When Victims Rule. A Critique of Jewish Pre-eminence in America In 1939 Chaim Kaplan, a German-born Jew, noted the Jewish émigrés at the Russian-Polish border where 2,000 Jews were given a monetary advance by the Soviet government for a work project in the Soviet hinterlands: "To our shame, only 800 returned to accept the work and take the journey -- the rest disappeared without a trace. They simply expressed their gratitude to the Soviet government, which had extended its protection and opened its borders to them, with trickery. There were also incidents of stealing from private people. Polish-born Jews are rather high-handed in matters of 'yours' and 'mine,' and if they don't actually steal, they 'take' ... There can be no atonement for such shameful behavior. It reflects on the character of an entire people." [KAPLAN, C., p. 90] Jews were popularly perceived in medieval (and even up to modern Europe) as either ostentatiously wealthy parvenus or predatory small time thieves, with considerable moral overlap between them. Both groups were significant players in local economies with the Jewish upper-class and underclass often linked in economic exploitation of the non-Jewish communities around them. "From Court Jews to peddler," says Jonathan Israel, "those divergent groupings penetrated and depended on each other economically, as well as in religion and commercial life. It would be idle to deny that there was exploitation as well as collaboration and interdependence, but such exploitation existed on all levels and operated in all ways." [ULBRICHT, p. 59] One of the privileges that Jews often sought and acquired from European aristocracies in the Middle Ages was the right to demand full payment from aggrieved owners when stolen objects found their way into Jewish hands for sale. This caused deep resentment amongst the Gentile population; it was often charged that this policy paved the way for lucrative Jewish "fencing" operations where stolen goods could regularly find their ways to Jewish shops and hiding spots in the their community. [BARON EHOJ, p. 42] These Jewish agents of receivership were called in Hebrew ba'al ha-davar, literally meaning 'wire pullers,' figuratively meaning "Masters of the Affair." [BREUER, p. 249] Florike Egmond notes the same kinds of Jewish fencing operations in the eighteenth century in the Netherlands:
Although based in urban areas, Jewish bands were highly mobile and also preyed on those in the countryside. "Jews involved in organized crime in the Netherlands," adds Egmond, "were often active in retail trade ... Extensive travelling also meant numerous contacts with other Jewish peddler." [EGMOND, p. 123] Eventually, common self-protective interests brought some Jewish, Gypsy and Christian criminals together. Egmond notes, however, that "most Christians who joined Jewish bands, whether they acted as occasional assistants or as experienced members" were always considered "outsiders." [EGMOND, p. 145] In the case of one crime ring, the "Great Dutch Band," a band of mixed ethnicity, it was formed by Moyse Jacob "who played a central role in bringing together the various criminal circuits of the Dutch Republic within a more permanent organizational structure." [EGMOND, p. 148] In the Great Dutch Band's first (Brabant) "branch," two-thirds of its sixty members were Jews; in its second branch (the Meerssen Band), two-thirds of its sixty members were also Jewish; and 16 of 25 people were Jewish in the Band's third expression. In the fourth, Jews were a quarter of the group. "The first [branch]," notes Egmond, "set the pattern with respect to criminal specialization, leadership, and forms of organization. All the principal commanders had been instructed (and probably selected) by Moyse Jacob himself." They were also all Jewish. [EGMOND, p. 149] In a volume about Polish peasant society, William Thomas and Florian Znaiecki note that
Jewish itinerants (perhaps 10% of the Jewish population in Germany in the Middle Ages), as well as Jewish thieves, and robbers were common in European life. Evidence of Christian criminals' linkage to the Jewish economic underworld is reflected in the fact that "some 20%" of the vernacular for illicit activity in the jargon of non-Jewish criminals contained words and terms derived from Yiddish and Hebrew. [BREUER, p. 248] Oklahoma professor Stan Nadel notes the reason for the spreading of Yiddish criminal terms into the English language across the world:
But, as we will increasingly find, it was not only the Jewish vagabonds, unscrupulous shopkeepers, or exploitive upper strata Court Jews who played the role of swindler with the Gentiles. No less an authority than Heinrich Graetz, one of the greatest Jewish historians whose History of the Jews was a pioneer work, had this to say, generally, about the Jews in Poland. It was a mainstream ethic...
Israeli professor Jay Goren recalls the Jacob-Esau tradition, where Jacob, the Jewish cheater/deceiver, is heroized in Jewish tradition, noting:
The Israeli author Israel Shahak in 1994 argued that Orthodox Judaism is, in its very construct, motivated by "a combination of hypocrisy and the profit motive." Even in Israel today, secular Jews look with disdain upon the Orthodox religious community for its "duplicity and venality." "It is actually true," Shahak writes, "that the Jewish religious establishment does have a strong tendency to chicanery and graft due to the corrupting influence of the Orthodox Jewish religion." [SHAHAK, p. 48] [See Jewish drug money laundering, later chapter] The great German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, echos Graetz and Shahak in his own observations of the Jewish community:
A well-known French Jewish socialist (and later Zionist), Bernard Lazare, addressed this issue of Jewish morality in 1894:
This ethic was of course brought by Jews, particularly from Eastern Europe, to America. As Jewish commentator James Yaffe notes: "The Lower East Side [the turn-of-the-century Jewish section of Manhattan] pushcart peddler who prided himself on his honesty wouldn't hesitate to sell damaged goods to the gentile housewife." [YAFFE, J., 1968, p. 68] Max Weber notes this quality in Jewish identity through history, referring to it as "the dualistic nature of [Judaism's] in-group and out-group moralities." [POLL, S., 1969, p. v] As Mary Antin, a Jewish immigrant to the United States from Russia, once observed in her autobiography, The Promised Land:
Many modern Jewish apologists refute such exposure and criticism of traditional Jewish double standard of morality. As we have seen, when caught in the act of deceit there are religious texts that recommend explaining it quickly somehow away. Jules Carlebach, for example, argues that a "dual morality" -- if, in his view, it ever existed -- was no big deal; he likens the Jewish medieval communities in Europe to "independent political states," saying:
Jews had always closed ranks as a completely "foreign" body in mainstream Christian society. While some Jewish religious teachings certainly supported the notion that they should live in obedience with the laws of the host country they lived in, this was largely expedient and prudent for their own survival. Less supportive Jewish texts included prayers that anticipated the downfall of surrounding non-Jewish society. During Arab-Christian hostilities, for instance, Jews appealed to God to drain them both in war. They had a prayer, notes Salo Baron, "composed in the geonic period which was unheard of in any other period of Jewish history in the dispersion: 'Be it Thy will, O Lord, that the Kings should wage war on one another.'" [BARON, ASOC&REL, p. 186] Jewish communities in Europe, as insular self-entities always searching for their own best interests, had been known to betray non-Jewish lands in which they lived. Both Hebrew and Yiddish were Jewish languages that were impenetrable to most non-Jews. (For centuries rabbinical dictate even forbade the teaching of Hebrew to Gentiles). These "secret" languages tended to heighten non-Jewish suspicions of them. The Muslim invasion of Christian Spain was aided by the Spanish Jewish community who expected better treatment under Islamic rule. The French city of Bordeaux was believed by some to have been betrayed by Jews in 848 to invading Normans; the same charge was made against Jews for the fall of the French town of (Visigothic) Arles to Catholics. Poles charged Jews with abetting invading Swedes in the 17th century. [HAGEN, p. 23] In the 12th century, Byzantine Jews aided invading Turks (Constantinople was breached with help from -- and through -- the Jewish quarter); in the 17th century Spanish and Portugese Jews intrigued with the Dutch. [MACDONALD, p. 64-65] On the other hand, in the early 1800s, when Napoleon invaded the Pale of Russia, "the pattern of German-Jewish behavior during the Napoleonic invasion was largely repeated in Russia." [SACHAR, p. 79] The Jews, in other words, did nothing, laid low, and waited to see who was victorious. "With the exception of the Jewish community of Lithuania," says Howard Sachar, "the citizens of the Pale were not obliged to commit themselves until the war was won." [SACHAR, p. 79] The Italian ambassador to Poland, Eugenio Reale, in 1946 wrote an analysis of the "Jewish question" in Poland:
In Morocco under French rule, notes Nahum Goldmann, "the Jews were on such poor terms with the Arabs that they were nearly all pro-French -- which brought them the hatred of those who aspired to independence." In Algeria, also bucking under French colonialism, Jews "even had automatic French citizenship, unlike the non-Jews." [GOLDMANN, N., 1978, p. 48] Even in 1996, notes the American Jewish Yearbook, "Between 800 and 900 Jews were known to be living in Bosnia-Herzegovnia ... During the [civil] war, about 300 people who before the fighting had not declared themselves as Jewish joined the Jewish community, presenting written documentation such as marriage or birth certificates. Before the war, these people had declared themselves as 'Yugoslavs.' Some of them remained in Bosnia-Herzegovinia while others went to Israel." [SINGER/SELDIN, 1997, p. 378] The Jewish Diaspora community in Europe has been formally called to task by Christian authorities a number of times in history, including two momentous occasions to find out exactly what the Jews in their midst believed and where they morally, politically, socially, and religiously stood with regards to Gentiles. One of the most important accounts of such an occasion was in France in the year 1240. A Jewish apostate named Donin, Christianized to Nicholas de Rupella, well versed in Hebrew as a Talmudic scholar, claimed to Church officials that there were many elements in the Jewish teachings that were threatening to non-Jews. A public disputation was held between Donin and Rabbi Yehiel ben Joseph of Paris and as Jeremy Cohen notes about Hebrew records of the event: "Some modern writers have labeled the Hebrew protocol [of the disputation] a prime example of literary polemic, using well-known forensic motifs to reinforce popular Jewish belief rather than actually reporting what occurred." [COHEN, J., 1982, p. 66] Jacob Katz notes the infamous line in the Talmud that came up for public examination, stating "The best among Gentiles should be slain." One can imagine that such a directive in Jewish religious texts, whatever its complex historical context as a part of intra-Jewish argument, exposed to Church leaders in Medieval society by a Jewish apostate, was not an easy one for the rabbis to explain away. Even Katz passes on its essential content, simply alluding to "whatever its meaning may be..." [KATZ, p. 108] M. K. Harris, in his book on Talmudic literature, adds an addenda to this opinion to "kill the best of the Gentiles." "Modern editions," notes Harris, "qualify this by adding 'in time of war.'" [HARRIS, p. 191] The intention of the Church inquiry was, of course, to squeeze out of Jewish religious texts the most self-condemnatory sounding material. Hence, some of what Katz calls the Talmud's apparent "picture of extreme hostility on the part of the Jews towards their Christian neighbors" seemed nothing less than indicting:
The way the rabbis weaseled out of the grim possibility of extremely serious repercussions for the Jewish community was to argue that such lines -- although they truly exist in Jewish sacred texts -- applied to Gentiles of antiquity, yes, but that Christians were now an exception. This position, says Katz, was "no more than an ad hoc device to be used in the course of controversy. There is no indication in the Talmud or in the later halakhic sources that such a view was ever held, or even proposed, by an individual halakhist. In fact, evidence to the contrary exists." [KATZ, p. 110] Rabbis even tried to convince Christian interrogators that insults and degradations in the Talmud directed towards Jesus of Nazareth referred to a different Jesus because it was a common name! [POPPER, p. 10] As Rabbi Yehiel ben Joseph said in defense of the Talmudic texts that defamed Christ, "Not every Louis born in France is the king of France. Has it not happened that two men were born in the same city, had the same name, and died in the same manner? There are many such cases." [COHEN, J., 1982, p. 70] "The Jesus of the Talmud," notes scholar Jeremy Cohen, "... is mentioned as condemned to wallow eternally in boiling excrement ... When forced to admit that one Talmudic passage mentioning the crimes of Jesus and his execution did indeed apply to the Christian Jesus, Yehiel still emphasized that the Talmud was not responsible for maintaining this opinion among Jews." [COHEN, J., 1982, p. 71] The Jewish representatives also took great pains to distance themselves from traditional prayers that asked, as the apostate noted, for the end of the "unrighteous kingdom." Did this mean the surrounding society in which the Jews currently lived? It did. This has always meant to Jews "the whole secular world and its entire political edifice" [KATZ, p. 112], but the Jewish defenders managed to convince their inquirers that the prayers alluded to the ancient powers of Biblical eras. This formal inquiry evinced a renewed suspicion by the Church towards Jews, as well as an outside steerage of the Judaic faith -- for their own safety -- towards liberalization. "The Paris disputation," says Katz, "marks a transition, from the comparative tolerance of the Catholic Church towards the Jewish faith to the harassing practice of scrutinizing and censuring Jewish customs and tenets. The same event assisted, or even compelled, the Jews to take a further step towards the idea of religious tolerance." [KATZ, p. 113] In 1806 a second group of Jewish community leaders were forced to again face a formal inquiry into their belief system by the greater society in which they lived. This convening again occurred in France, but this time it was at Napoleon's insistence. The Jewish "Assembly of Notables," and later an even more influential assemblage of Jewish leaders, the Sanhedrin, was presented with twelve written questions, upon whose answers their fate -- as a community -- was understood to rest. With the rise of the European nation states, conflicts between them, and with continued Jewish self-conception as a kind of sub national entity, Napoleon sought to confront the affluent and powerful parts of the Jewish community as to their ultimate political loyalties and allegiances. Questions included: * In the eyes of the Jews, are Frenchmen considered as brethren? Or are they considered strangers? *In either case, what line of conduct does their law prescribe towards Frenchmen not of their religion? * Do Jews born in France, and treated by the laws as French citizens, consider France as their country? Are they bound to defend it? Are they bound to obey the laws and to conform to the dispositions of the civil courts? * Can a Jewess marry a Christian, and a Jew a Christian woman? Or does the law allow the Jews to intermarry only among themselves? * Does Jewish law encourage Jews to practice usury among their own community? The Jewish notables replied, after extended consultations, with an affirmation of Jewish loyalty to France and the brotherhood of all French citizens, complete with careful, cautioned, diplomatic explanation for all such replies. Napoleon's emissary, Count Mole, 'was struck by what appeared to him to be evasive references: now to Moses, now to the Talmud, now to practical Jewish usage. He was particularly suspicious of the answer on usury ... [but] Napoleon ... declared himself satisfied." [SACHAR, p. 48] The Jewish answers to Napoleon -- the compromises of both orthodox and secularly assimilated Jewish leaders -- are, in retrospect, considered also by historians to have been largely evasive. The gulf between those who represented traditional Jewish teachings and the growing numbers of secularized Jews was great, but both -- traditional and assimilative -- HAD to figure out ways to give Napoleon the answers he wanted. This gulf is reflected in Jacob Katz's view that
Robert Goldenberg notes the long tradition of Jewish evasiveness when it comes to explaining the Talmud to non-Jews:
In our day, Jewish apologists, propagandists, and populists continue to proliferate, reaching back into rabbinical law to recreate a romantic vision of the historical record of Jewish morality towards others. "The fact that the Jews in general," proclaims Nachum Gidal, in a polemic against Christianity, "were very ethical in their religion, family, and daily life was of little significance for the Christian community." [GIDAL, p. 12] "At all times and in all places," claims Meir Tamari, both a Talmudic scholar and the chief economist of the Bank of Israel, "Jews were encouraged, especially in the economic field, to go beyond the letter of the law and to that which was more merciful than required, even though the rabbinical authorities could not naturally enforce such kindness." [TAMARI, p.] Or, as Jacob Neusner rhapsodizes:
{Except that the frail old lady must be Jewish.]
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