The Talmud is assigned reading to all Elementary school kids here

[brogan]

I've taken a job in Korea. This is a decission that I now regret becuase I stupidly misred sspx's website and thought that they offered mass every sunday. Its actually only once a month.

 

Anyways, I just found out that all the little kids have to read the Talmud in elementary school. I couldnt believe this. There arnt even any jews in Korea. I think I'm going to look into whether or not foods here have koser lables on them. This is just rediculis. I truely doubt that even .00001% of the population here is Jewish.

[VoxClamantis]

Are you serious? In what sort of context does the Talmud have to be read? As part of a "religious studies" thing? What parts of the Talmud have to be read? What edition is used? (obviously a vernacular one, heavily expurgated!) Are other religious texts covered or only the Talmud? How did this start and who started it?

[brogan]

You know I didnt ask any of the specifics. I'll try to find out about under what pretext it is. Whats most interesting is the way it was communicated to me it wasnt just some schools but all schools (i.e. some type of national requirement.)

[brogan]

So I asked some of my students today and am now even more weirded out than before. One class told me that they all had to read it in elementary school. When I asked them what class they all acted really confused. They didnt understand what I was asking them. Then I asked the next class about it. They told me that it was not part of thier school curiculem yet every single one of them had read it as a child. When I asked them if they had read the Koran both classes burst into laughter. "Of course not thats the Muslim book".

 

They didnt get it when I was trying to explain to them that the Talmud was a Jewish book. They just kept saying "in Korea it is just a good book." One student told me that he loves the Talmud becuase it is the "light of Knowledge". Mind you, these kids barely speak english yet he said that exact phrase. I dont know what to make of it. 

 

So what I'vwe learned so far is that All of them read it as children and love it yet dont know that it is Jewish. All of them read it during elementary school yet I dont think it was required in any class. But I tell you what they way they acted was more fanatical then american kids about Harry Potter. I mean they LOVED the Talmud.

 

Something else I found weird was after the first class told me that they had all read it I started talking to them about the Jews. All they knew about the Jews was that they were killed by Hitler. I asked them "who killed more people, Hitler or Stalin?" They all shouted "Hitler Hitler!" The strangest thing about this is that they knew that millions of Korean settelers had been killed by Stalin yet had no idea about the other 60 million or so that he killed.

 

How strange. The second class didnt have any answer asto why they read it. "its a really goooood book". ""before I read the talmud I used to think that he was ugly" (pointing to another student...everyone laughs). Now I know the truth. "The Talmud is the light of knowledge".

 

I'm going to find out still more about this. I want an answer asto whether or not its required, becuase if its not why have EVERY SINGLE ONE of them read it in elementary school?

 

Btw I told them that it was anti-Christian and said to kill Christians. I think this is true but umm...does it specifically say to kill Christians?

 

[VoxClamantis]

There just has to be some kind of mistake somewhere -- unless there's a game being played. The Talmud is mostly a bunch of extremely boring, crazy nonsense that no child could POSSIBLY think great, fun, or enlightening reading. Either they have the name wrong, or there is another work out there being called "Talmud" (possibly so that a whole nation will think "'Talmud'? Great stuff!"), or something. But what? Ask them what the Talmud teaches -- what about it is "enlightening," what it says, etc. I just "gotta" know what is going on here; it is too strange!

 

It is simply wild that even in Korea, "The Holocaust" is more widely known than the crimes of Stalin. AY-MAZING. But no one should go thinking anything "anti-semitic" about "Jewish power," now!

[DominusTecum]

If the Talmud that they have read is not Korean for some children's book, that is insane! I can't believe that every elementary school student has been forced to read this.

 

Winoblue, aren't you from Korea? If you are reading this, care to elucidate for us?

 

 

[KyrieEleison]

This is outrageous!! What about the Poles? 6 million of us died too, you know?!

Perhaps everyone should read Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz and The Deluge, The Teutonic Knights, With Fire and Sword, Sir Wolodyjowski, all by Henryk Sienkiewicz?

 

Every person in the world should at least know this piece by heart!

 

Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteœ jak zdrowie;  

Ile ciê trzeba ceniæ, ten tylko siê dowie,  

Kto ciê stracil.

O Lithuania, my country, thou art like good health;  

I never knew till now how precious, till I lost thee

The beginning of Pan Tadeusz[Sir Thaddeus] by Adam Mickiewicz. Such beautiful words, no?

[francis]

I googled korea + talmud and found this at http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200507/kt2005071319472810600.htm

There were nearly 50 students in the auditorium, all of them dressed in hanbok,or traditional Korean garments, of different hues....
After they were seated, a male student in a green gown banged a wooden hammer, followed by one in a purple gown on his right calling out 'Arise, the court session is to begin.'..

Thus began the Student Courtat the Korean Minjok Leadership Academy (KMLA) in Hoengsong, Kangwon Province.

A student judge rules on school violators at the student court of the Korean Minjok Leadership Academy in Hoengsong, Kwangwon Province, last Thursday.  
The KMLA is one of the nation's renowned private high schools, famous for its Western-inspired curriculum and a large number of its students going onto prestigious universities in the United States and Great Britain...

Student Court is held every Thursday during evening study hall, and the students who have broken the rules during the week have to attend the court to receive sentences by three judges, all in their junior year...


Seung-jik was given three points in accordance to the rules outlined by the school's rule book. If he gets 7 more points in the following week, he will have to read chapters of Myongshimpogam, or the Korean Talmud, as punishment.

So, are they actually reading The Talmud as punishment, (LOL) or, as I suspect, does Korean Talmud refer to some Confucian, Buddhist or Taoist legal/moral text? (As a person might refer to the Quran as "the Muslim Bible."

I googled Myongshimpogan, but all I found were several sites written in Vietnamese. Curioser and curioser. But that in itself, suggests a Confucian, Buddhist or Taoist legal/moral text. There can be hardly any Jewish influence in Vietnam.

Anyone here read Vietnamese?

[brogan]

I googled korea + talmud and found this

 

I did the same thing last night so I asked another teacher today at the school to try and get the bottom of this. I asked her if there  was some Korean book called the Talmud or if it was Jewish. She said "Yes it is Hebrew but it is not bad like the one you read. They have Talmuds for elementary, middle, and high school... Even Christians in Korea LOVE the talmud." I'm still very confused. I mean the students have all told me that its just stories, ect. Could this teacher have been wrong about it being jewish?

 

So now guess what else. A student told me that people here REGULARLY experience "sleep paralysis". She herself said it has happened to her 5 times. She said the Korean word for it and all the other kids new instantly what she was talking about. Everyone else said they had experienced this also...

 

For an explanation of what "sleep paralysis" is read my post on this page.

 

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/apologia/vpost?id=516903&trail=45

 

 

There may be something very evil going on in Korea.

 

 

UPDATE: OK just taught my final class of the day and got the full scoop. It's been hard up till now because everyone (except this last class) can barely speak any english (including my co-workers at the school), and I can speak no Korean. Anyways the Myongshimpogan is something altogether different from the Talmud. These students had never heard it called the "korean talmud". They said that the Korean Times must have said that because the actual Talmud is so familiar to people. These students confirmed that they all had read the actual Jewish Talmud. They said it had stories about a Queen and a "Lappi". I guess a "Lappi" is a professor. Anyways they all told me that it was just good stories. Something about how the queen hated the Lappi because he was ugly but then he had people put wine into gold vases and the gold of the containers ruined the taste of the wine. (i.e. its what on the inside that matters). They must have been referencing the exact same story that another student talked about yesterday (except he could barely speak english so he said "before I read Talmud I thought him ugly").

 

Anyways this class couldn't tell me the name in english of the class that they all read the Talmud in but they could explain to me what they do in the class. They said its just a class where you read literature and then you write about what you have read in the class. I asked them what other books you read in that class and do you know what the first thing they answered?  THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK!!!!!!!! All the other books were Korean and they didnt know any english title for them.

 

 

This is tooo creepy. 

 

 

[AdoramusTeChriste]

That is too creepy, Brogan.

 

Do you want me to send you some scapulars and holy water?

 

I'm serious. Or anything else you feel you need.

 

Have you had anymore experiences with the sleep paralysis? Make sure you wear your scapular to bed.