Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight Of Three Thousand Years

In Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight Of Three Thousand Years Israel Shahak proposes that most nations' histories are initially ethnocentric. However they then evolve through a period of critical self-analysis to incorporate other perspectives. This, he argues, largely hasn't happened with Jewish history.

Shahak also analyses the period from the beginning of the last millennium (CE) to the advent of the modern state when most Jews lived under rabbinical law in segregated communities. These communities were under the patronage of non-Jewish nobles who typically used them to enforce their authority on a non-Jewish peasant class. Rebellions by such peasants in which all feudal agents were attacked, Shahak argues, have wrongly been perceived as anti-Jewish persecutions. Consequently he calls for significant parts of Jewish history to be re-evaluated from a universal perspective.

Shahak also proposes that Talmudic Judaism is a totalitarian religion were rabbinical law governs every aspect of Jewish behaviour. He also claims that these laws result in religious chauvinism and thereby govern Jewish thought. This, according to Shahak, has two important consequences:

• Attempts by Western analysts to explain contemporary Israeli politics in purely secular terms such as imperialism are fundamentally flawed.
• More controversially, that 'Jewish chauvinism' can be a causal factor in anti-Semitism, and that both must be fought simultaneously.

Shahak also claims that Zionism is an attempt to re-establish a closed Jewish community and that this has resulted in discrimination against non-Jews. He concludes the book by stating, "Although the struggle against antisemitism (and of all other forms of racism) should never cease, the struggle against Jewish chauvinism and exclusivism, which must include a critique of classical Judaism, is now of equal or greater importance."

Usage by anti-Semites

Jewish History, Jewish Religion can be found (in violation of Shahak's copyright) on anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi websites such as Radio Islam and 'Bible Believers'. These websites typically present the book as an 'exposition of Judaism' while ignoring its rejection of racism and anti-Semitism.

In the introduction to the 2002 edition of the book Norton Mezvinsky, Shahak's co-author on Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, writes that anti-Semites and anti-Semitic groups "utilize unduly Shahak's criticisms in trying to justify their hatred of Jews. They have continued to do this either by citing and/or using out-of-context some of Shahak's points. They allege that what Shahak wrote confirms their generalizations about the 'evil nature' of Jews." Mezvinsky also claims that anti-Semites had done the same thing with statements made by many other individuals.

Criticisms

Critics of Jewish History, Jewish Religion have accused Shahak of fabricating incidents, "blaming the victim", distorting the normative meaning of Jewish texts, and misrepresenting Jewish belief and law. [1] [2] The Anti-Defamation League has listed Shahak as one of four authors of polemics in its paper The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics. [3]

References

• Shahak, Israel. Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, Pluto Press, 2002 (ISBN 0745308198)

External links

• The Interpretational Errors of Israel Shahak criticism of Jewish History, Jewish Religion by Andrew Mathis
• The Jews are Bad! criticism of Jewish History, Jewish Religion by Werner Cohn