What Jewish Religious Authorities Have to Say About Non-Jews

 ‘The basic theory of gentiles, all of them assumed to be idolaters, is, first, gentiles always and everywhere and under any circumstance are going to perform an act of worship for one or another of their gods. Second, gentiles are represented as thoroughly depraved (not being regenerated by the Torah), so they will murder, fornicate, or steal at any chance they get; they routinely commit bestiality, incest, and various other forbidden acts of sexual congress. Here is how the Mishnah law expresses these premises: do not leave cattle in gentile’s inns, because they are suspect in regard to bestiality. And a woman should not be alone with them, because they are suspect in regard to fornication. And a man should not be alone with them, because they are suspect in regard to bloodshed.’ (1)

Neusner also explains the difference between jew and gentile more explicitly in the below passage from the same book:

But when it comes to the law of the Mishnah, ”Israel” is defined with the reference to the end of days; Israel is comprised of all those who will emerge victorious over death.’ (3)

The well-regarded orthodox rabbinical authority; Emanuel Feldman, explains the idea of jewish superiority; that Neusner touches on, in a fictional duologue as follows:

‘David: I do not want to repeat what is obviously a cliché, but doesn’t choseness imply superiority? Do we actually consider ourselves superior to the rest of mankind?
Rabbi Emanuel Feldman: That is another false supposition. Superiority per se is not an evil. Certain athletes are superior to others; certain musicians are superior to others; certain doctors are superior to others…
The fact is that certain nations are superior to others in specific areas of endeavor. Yes, we believe that the Jewish people is chosen for its mission by God because it possesses certain God given talents; a clear vision and knowledge of God and how He wants mankind to live on His earth, and the ability to connect with God and with the sacred in life… The Jewish people was seen by God as having certain qualities – steadfastness, spiritual resilience, courage, faith, self-discipline – which made us the most suitable agent for bringing the concepts of God and holiness into the world. That is to say our national character.’ (4)

In a slightly controversial cautionary tale attributed to the late widely respected and publicly honoured leader; Rabbi Mendel Schneerson, of the Lubavitch Chabad Hasidic sect, which is based in Crown Heights in New York, included in an official collection of stories concerning ‘the Rebbe’. We find confirmation of this distinction and considerable of jews and gentiles in Judaism and jewish culture when a passage refers to the Rebbe’s teaching in his ‘Tanya’ as follows:

“That evening I called my parents and told them the whole story, to their great surprise and joy. My father suggested that I visit my grandfather in New York. He could teach me some of the basics of Judaism and I would have a better grasp of the subject of marriage and “mixed” marriages. I took his advice.’ (6)

Another story in the same collection repeats this theme of the difference between a jew and a gentile suggesting that the jew is superior to the gentile and that such an action would debase the jewish individual concerned. The story begins as follows:

‘Walking through the front door, without a word, the mother burst into tears. Her daughter had become close to a gentile and now she was talking about marrying him. ‘Nothing I say can change her mind. If she goes ahead with this our lives won’t be worth living,’ she blurted out. ‘Look, you’re the principal of our son’s school. We’re so happy with his progress, and…please, could you help? Maybe you can influence her.’’ (7)

Eventually this rabbi unable to convince the girl applies to the Rebbe for advice and the Rebbe responds as follows:

‘I didn’t understand at first what he meant and asked Rabbi Hodakov for the Jew’s name. Then I heard the Rebbe’s voice: ‘His name is Mendel Schneerson.’’ (8)

The conclusion of the story is described approvingly thus:

‘”You can rest assured,” Rabbi Schwartz told me, “that in the end the young woman did not marry the non-Jew…”’ (9)

That a deliberate distinction between jew and non-jew is being drawn we can quote another story included in the collection:

“I understood from the Rebbe’s words that the problem was assimilation. Yet, when I told my friend the Rebbe’s message, he was surprised and said he was unaware of anything like that in his family. A more through check revealed that their oldest son had been secretly dating a non-Jewish girl, and was preparing to marry her. The family persuaded him to let her go, informed the Rebbe – who gave his blessing to the ill son – and the disease disappeared.”’ (10)

This view of gentiles as inferior beings to jews is confirmed by the admonition of the Rebbe in another story in the collection. Where a follower of the Rebbe; on his instructions, states as follows:

‘”Your parents told me that they gave their life savings to underwrite your studies. Is this how you thank them? Is there any gentile woman worth causing your parents so much suffering?”’ (11)

The implication of the statement above is that a jewish woman is superior to a gentile woman and that a jewish woman maybe worth causing the jewish son’s parents suffering, but that a gentile woman is never worth this parental suffering. We can see the reference to this distinction between jew and gentile being a biological one is confirmed in the following passage:

‘It was 1952. My brother-in-law was living in Williamsburg with his wonderful Chassidishe family when, one day, tragedy hit: his daughter decided to marry a goy. (12) And to add salt to the wound – not any goy, but an African-American! He was a Professor in his field, and he used his academic credentials as leverage in influencing the young woman.’ (13)

This passage states that the frame of reference being used for consideration of who is and is not a jew is biological since the passage splits the non-jews into specific racial groups. It should be noted that the African-American in this passage is looked upon as being of even lower status than other gentiles: hence the story is discrimination on the basis of race. It is necessary to note in passing that the African-American is portrayed as being wholly to blame for this event; which is considering to be an issue of the highest importance, and that he is the evil seducer of the jewish woman rather than the jewish woman having any role in the affair. Thus the passage indicates a world view where jews are freed from any negative role and non-jews are chained with a strongly negative role in regards to their interaction with jews.

We see this differentiation between jews and gentiles early in jewish history, particularly in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah in the Tanakh, (14) which the noted jewish historian Solomon Grayzel describes simply thus:

‘The Jews were distressed. What could they do to make Ezra feel that everything was not lost? They were willing to purify their religion, but what sacrifices would that require? At the end of three days Ezra went into conference with the leaders of the people. He told them how he felt, how hopeless the outlook for the survival of the Jews seemed to him unless they returned wholeheartedly to their pure belief in One God and the good life which that implied. They asked him whether he could lead them toward the life and beliefs he wanted them to accept. Ezra answered that he could, provided they met one very difficult condition: they must send away their foreign wives and the children born of them. He pointed out that, unless they removed the source of the evil, he could not permanently heal the evil itself.’ (15)

Here Grayzel tells us; not without interjecting his own personal beliefs, that what Ezra desired was not so much to ‘send away unbelievers’ as it is often presumed to mean among gentiles, but rather to mean the sending away those who were not born as jews because of that fact. The equation being simply that if you were not born to exclusively jewish parents you were not actually a jew in Ezra’s eyes. This can be seen in the fact that Ezra told the jews to send away their offspring from the ‘foreign women’ as well rather than bringing them in Judaic tradition. Ezra; in Grayzel’s account even goes so far as to declare that the ‘foreign women’ are the ‘source of the evil’, which shows both the strength and the vehemence of the opinion held by both Grayzel and Ezra.

After this attempt by Ezra to ‘purify’ the jews had failed he retired from public life for a time until he allied with the ‘new Prophet’ Nehemiah who managed what Ezra had not. In their persuasion of the jews they inform them of the ‘will of God’, which supports their position. Grayzel describes it thus:

‘Silence fell over the multitude as the old man raised his voice. Ezra read of God’s covenant with Abraham, of the scene at Mount Sinai, of the warning given to the Hebrews that they must be a holy people, and of the religious and social laws by which that holiness was to be attained.’ (16)

Here we see vindication of the interpretation of Grayzel and Erza’s thought above as we find that what is meant is that the jews should aspire to the ideal of racial purity in their own ranks directly from both a noted jewish historian and two of the Prophets of the Tanakh. Grayzel’s commentary in fact lends itself to the (correct) interpretation that jews regard their status as the ‘holy people’ (or the ‘chosen people’ as it is more often expressed) as a biological status that is derived from the literal commandment of their God in the Torah.

If we connect this back to what we cover in the first part of this section in terms of quotes from jewish religious authorities regarding the issue of jews living with (let alone married to) a non-jewish partner. We can see the sustained biological distinction that is being made under the auspices of Judaism between ‘Israel’ (jews) and ‘the rest of the world’ (gentiles) as Jacob Neusner explained it. That distinction is thoroughly biological and even though jews do allow converts to Judaism: converts are actively discriminated against by jews because of their biological status as non-jews.

(1) Jacob Neusner, 2004, ’Making God’s Word Work: A Guide to the Mishnah’, 1st Edition, Continuum: New York, p. 74

(2) Ibid, p. 77

(3) Ibid, pp. 64-65

(4) Emanuel Feldman, 1998, ’On Judaism: Conversations on being Jewish in Today’s World’, 2nd Edition, Shaar Press: New York, pp. 269-270

(5) Kiddush Hashem, to ‘sanctify G-d’s Name’, refers to the jewish conception of martyrdom whether intentionally or unintentionally sought.

(6) Aharon Dov Halperin, Trans: Tuvia Natkin, 2004, ‘Our Man in Dakar and other stories of the Lubavitcher Rebbe’, 1^st Edition, Sifriyat Kfar Chabad: New York, p. 17

(7) Ibid, p. 57

(8) Ibid, p. 58

(9) Ibid, p. 60

(10) Ibid, p. 77

(11) Ibid, p. 157

(12) ‘Goy’, and its plural ‘Goyim’, is a usually pejorative Yiddish term for gentile or non-jew. The term’s linguistic origins in the Hebrew Bible, Gowy or Go’ee, mean ‘carcass’, ‘dead body’ and/or ‘soulless body’. Despite common claims that it means simply the ‘nations’ this would be specifically inaccurate (although when used generally it is correct), because it does not take into account the superior status assigned to jewish individuals by birthright in Judaism (i.e. as ‘vessels of the word of G-d’).

(13) Halperin, Op. Cit., p. 172

(14) The writings of the Prophets, which come after the revealed word of the jewish God in the Torah. The Torah, the (written) law, consists of the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. All the other books of the Old Testament, from Joshua to 2 Maccabees, make up the Tanakh in Judaism.

(15) Solomon Grayzel, 1953, ‘A History of the Jews’, 1^st Edition, Jewish Publication Society of America: Philadelphia, pp. 26-27

(16) Ibid, p. 30