I am Jewish

[Roman]

I think it is very useful for people who do not want to be misled to read what reliable Catholic scholars thought, 100 years ago, about the Jewish people and about the Talmud.

 

I especially recommend the reading of The History of the Jews and of the Talmud articles in the old Catholic Encyclopedia. Regarding religious trends in Judaism and the obvious continuity between Temple and post-Temple Judaism, please read the article on Judaism.

 

Do not let yourselves be misled!

 

On the other hand, I agree that "Reform Judaism" is a completely new thing, which is as Jewish as Unitarianism is Christian.

 ---

 

BTW, the Church can obviously claim to be the new Israel. On purely historical terms, most neutral scholars agree that both Christianity and post-Temple (or Talmudic) Judaism are historical descendants of the Judaism of the Temple.

[Quo_Vadis_Petre]

Here also is what one Catholic scholar thought about the Talmud (this site is hosted by a sedevacantist): http://www.talmudunmasked.com/

 

I would like to post an excerpt here:

THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST  

The Seducer and Idolator could teach nothing but falsehood and heresy which was irrational and impossible to observe.

1. FALSEHOOD

In Abhodah Zarah (6a) it says:

"A Nazarene is one who follows the false teachings of that man who taught them to worship on the first day of the Sabbath."

2. HERESY

In the same book Abhodah Zar. (Ch.I, 17a Toseph) mention is made of the heresy of James. A little further on (27b) we learn that this James was none other than the disciple of Jesus:

"...James Sekhanites, one of the disciples of Jesus, of whom we spoke in chapter 1."

But James taught, not his own doctrine, but that of Jesus.

3. IMPOSSIBLE TO OBSERVE

The author of Nizzachon(31) argues as follows on this point:

"A written law of the Christians is: If a Jew strike you on one cheek, turn the other also to him and do not in any way return the blow.(32) And ch. VI, v. 27 says: Love your enemies; do good to them who hate you; bless them who curse you and pray for those who do you harm; unto him who strikes you on one cheek offer him the other. To him who takes away thy cloak do not forbid him to take thy coat also, etc. The same is found in Matthew ch. V, v.39. But I have never seen any Christian keep this law, nor did Jesus himself behave as he taught others to do. For we find in John ch XVIII, v22, that when someone struck him on the face, he did not turn the other cheek, but became angry on account of this one stroke and asked 'Why do you strike me'? Likewise in the Acts of the Apostles, ch.XXIII, v. 3, we read: that when the High Priest ordered them that stood by to strike him on the mouth, Paul did not turn the other cheek; he cursed him saying 'God shall smite thee thou whited wall, etc.' This is contrary to their beliefs and destroys the foundation upon which their religion rests, for they boast that the law of Jesus is easy to observe. If Paul himself, who may be called the Dispenser of Jesus, could not preserve the precept of Jesus, who among the others who believe in him can prove to me that he can do so?"

(31) cf. Wagens. Sota, p. 822
(32) A corruption of the text in Luke ch. VI, 29

The author, however, who had the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles under his hand, could not have failed to understand in what sense Christ commanded his followers to turn the other cheek to him who would strike them, since in another place he commanded his followers to cut off a hand or an arm, and to pluck out an eye if these should scandalize them. No one who has had the least acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures ever thought that these commands should be taken literally . Only deep malice and ignorance of the times in which Jesus lived can explain why the Jews, even to this day, use these passages to detract from the teachings of Jesus Christ.(33)

[GregPotemkin]

 Do we agree with Mr.Buchanan on this part, too? Does every American on this forum support "the right of Israel to exist"?
 
 I do, what about you?
 

I absolutely do NOT agree that the State of Israel has a “right” to exist. (I think the term “madinat Yisrael” is more accurate than “eretz Yisrael” which mean the “Land” of Israel).

People should think about what it means to say that the state of Israel (i. e – the racist Jewish state) has a “right” to exist.  It is merely another way of saying that Jews have a “right” to dispossess and ethnically cleanse Christians and Muslims.

As for the analogy that some people like to make, comparing the situation of white Americans to the Zionists, and the indigenous population of North America to the Palestinians, I think that it is false and misleading.

The fact of the matter is that the United States is NOT an exclusivist White Anglo-Saxon Protestant state(s) the way that “Israel” is an exclusivist Jewish state.  There was certainly maltreatment of red Indians at the hands of white settlers in the past, but the US is not today the exclusivist home of the Whites.  No Indians born here are forced to live in exile, while a white protestant from Germany or wherever is allowed to come here and receive immediate citizenship.

That is in stark contradistinction to the situation in Occupied Palestine, today.  Palestinians (whether Christian or Muslim) who were born there, are not permitted to return after being ethnically cleansed by the Zionists, while a Jew, like Mr. Sharansky (regardless of the fact that he was born in Russia, and can not trace his direct lineage back to anyone who had ever lived in Palestine, has the “right” (under the Zionist “Law of Return”)  to “return” there.

This is what the existence of the state of Israel is all about – the right of Jews to ethnically cleanse non Jews from the territories that the Jews want for their exclusivist “homeland”

I defy anyone to look at this picture (which is the practical meaning of the state of Israel) and explain to me why it should be allowed to exist.

Considering CURRENT circumstances, regardless of the details of what exact borders that State should have, do we believe that the State of Israel and its millions of citizens (mostly Jewish) have a right to stay there now? The option, remember is the annihilation of the State of Israel.

In my view, the destruction / annihilation / liquidation / (choose whatever word you will) of the state of Israel is a moral imperative.  That does not mean that all Jews who were born there, or are now living there must leave, just that the racist Jewish state (the institutionalization of the ethnic cleansing of the Christians and Muslims) must be destroyed (and those responsible for its establishment should be punished).

[Roman]

In my view, the destruction / annihilation  / liquidation / (choose whatever word you will) of the state of Israel  is a moral imperative.

 
  Well, we know what happened the last time the "liquidation" of a "Jewish problem" was considered a "moral imperative"...
 
 
 

[MauricePinay]

Here is what pope Clement VIII had to say about the Talmud: 

 

"The impious Talmudic, Cabalistic and other wicked books of the Jews are hereby entirely condemned and they must always remain condemned and prohibited and this law must be perpetually observed." (Pope Clement VIII, 1592)

 

Which was reinforced by Pope Leo XIII:

 

"Although in the Index issued by Pope Pius IV, the Jewish Talmud with all its glossaries, annotations, interpretations and expositions were prohibited: but if published without the name Talmud and without its vile calumnies against the Christian religion they could be tolerated; however, Our Holy Lord Pope Clement VIII in his constitution against impious writings and Jewish books, published in Rome in the year of Our Lord 1592 … proscribed and condemned them: it was not his intention thereby to permit or tolerate them even under the above conditions; for he expressly and specifically stated and willed, that the impious Talmudic Cabalistic and other nefarious books of the Jews be entirely condemned and that they must remain always condemned and prohibited, and that his Constitution about these books must be perpetually and inviolably observed."(Pope Leo XIII, Index Expurgatrius, "The Talmud and other Jewish books," 1887)

 

When confronted by Zionist, Theodore Herzl, who sought Pope Saint Pius X's recognition of his movement to create a modern Israeli state, this is how that great pope Saint responded:

 

"We are unfavorable to the movement. We cannot prevent Jews from going to Jerusalem, but we can never sanction it. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people. Should the Jews manage to set foot on the once promised old-new land, the missionaries of the Church stand prepared to baptize them." (Pope St. Pius X)

[GregPotemkin]

In my view, the destruction / annihilation  / liquidation / (choose whatever word you will) of the state of Israel  is a moral imperative.

 Well, we know what happened the last time the "liquidation" of a "Jewish problem" was considered a "moral imperative"...
 

 

If you are trying to draw an anology between my position of opposing Zionism (i.e. - wanting to see the Jewish racist state of Israel destroyed) and Nazism (i.e. - establishing a racist state and implementing a racist anti-Jewish program), I must ask you honestly, if you really think that is a valid argument?

Greg

[MauricePinay]

Here also is what one Catholic scholar thought about the Talmud (this site is hosted by a sedevacantist): http://www.talmudunmasked.com/

 

Although the site which contains the book, "The Talmud Unmasked" is hosted by a sedevacantist, I would like to add that the book itself was written by a Catholic priest and has the church imprimatur.

 

"Talmud Unmasked"

 

[Author Fr. I. B. Pranaitis]- Roman Catholic Priest; Master of Theology and Professor of the Hebrew
Language at the Imperial Ecclesiastical Academy of the Roman Catholic Church in Old St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg, Printing office of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1892

*IMPRIMATUR:
St. Petersburg, April 13, 1892
KOZLOWSKY
ARCHBISHOP METROPOLITAN OF MOGHILEFF

C. Propolanis, S.Th.C, Secretary  

All Rights Reserved
Printed at the Imperial Academy of Sciences (Vas. Ostr., 9 Line, No. 12)

Copyright 1939 by E. N. SANCTUARY, 156 Fifth Avenue - New York

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

[Roman]

[

I would like to add that the book itself was written by a Catholic priest and has the church imprimatur.

 

 

Which means that it does not contradict prima facie any Catholic teaching, which is not surprising for any book about the Talmud.
 

 

Written, of course, in the very height of the harshest persecutions  of the Jewish people in modern times before Hitler, directed from that  very capital of the Pogroms, St.Petersburg, and printed on the  very Imperial Academy. No wonder its translation in English dated from  the other dark decade of anti-Semitism after the 1890s, the 1930s.
 

 

[Roman]

As I have mentioned before, the very best available online (you can  find better resources in a good library) about the Talmud written from  a Catholic perspective and by a RELIABLE Catholic scholar is the  article of the old Catholic Encyclopedia.
 

[MauricePinay]

[  

I would like to add that the book itself was written by a Catholic priest and has the church imprimatur.

Which means that it does not contradict Priam face any Catholic teaching, which is not surprising for any book about the Talmud.

Written, of course, in the very height of the harshest persecutions of the Jewish people in modern times before Hitler, directed from that very capital of the Pogroms, St.Petersburg, and printed on the very Imperial Academy. No wonder its translation in English dated from the other dark decade of anti-Semites after the 1890s, the 1930s.

 

This is a curious position for a traditional Catholic--defending the Talmud and "it's vile calumnies against the Christian religion," as Pope Clement VIII, put it, against a Catholic priest and his book on the irrelevant, absurd, and unsubstantiated grounds that he was "anti-semitic" and "unreliable"?

 

Where should the scrutiny be focused here, on the Talmud and "it's vile calumnies against the Christian religion," or on a Catholic priest and his book exposing the blasphemous Talmud?

 

If anything, Fr Pranaitis' book leaves a lot of the Talmud's blasphemy and perversion unrevealed. For Fr. Pranaitis lacked what we have today--the largely uncensored Steinsaltz edition of the Talmud where one can read passages like this one:

 

"If a grown man has intercourse with a little girl less than three years old, all agree that it is not a significant sexual act, for having intercourse with a girl when she is less than three years old is like putting a finger in an eye. Just as a tear that is shed when a finger is inserted in an eye will be replaced by another tear, so too will the virginity of a little girl who is less than three years old be restored, for her hymen will grow back." (Talmud Tractate Ketubot 11b, "The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition," volume 7, p. 145; Rabbi Israel V. Berman, translator and senior editor [New York: Random House, 1991]).

 

If only Saint Thomas could have soared to these great heights in "logic."

 

One should read the Catholic Encyclopedia essay on the Talmud as you suggest. But one should bear in mind that the Catholic Encyclopedia essay--which is a basic overview and offers no quotes from the Talmud--leaves out the embarrasing details, which are many, which I must assume is why you promote it and dissuade people from reading "The Talmud Unmasked" which directly quotes and addresses the passages from the Talmud which are of concern to Christians.