31 May 2024
Shahak outlines the various phases of Jewish history: (1) OT up to the Exile in 587 BC, (2) Exile and Post-Exile through 200 AD (AKA Second Temple Period), (3) Classical Judaism (200 AD to 1600-1700s) and (4) Modern Judaism characterized by a complete breakdown of totalitarian authority over Jewish people.
On the one hand, the Exile split Judaism between two geographical centers from which the totalitarian structure was maintained (Babylon and Judea), with Jewish law reinforced by the imperial power of Persia. Once Alexander the Great conquered the area, it was hands-off. The time from the influence of Hellenism in about 300 BC to about 200 AD, there was no power enforcing Judaism's controls over Jews living outside of those two power centers. Finally, in 200 AD Rome decided to reinstate Judaean authority over all Jews, and Christians were regarded as a renegade sect to be forced back under Jewish control.
He notes that there were "dark ages" when records of Jewish life ceased to exist. It varies by region. In places dominated by the Latin Church, it was between 200 and around 950 AD. In places where Islam dominated, the silence started later (500 AD) ended a little earlier, around 800 AD. Still, Classical Judaism appears to emerge from the silence intact and unchanged.
But Classical Judaism had no peasants. This represents a profound change in Jewish society. Shihak says that English language Jewish histories hide this fact, offering a picture that is quite false. Persecution there was, but it was far more easily borne by the dominance of middle-class Jews, and there was no grinding poverty among Jews as there had been for Gentile serfs.
The quintessential agrarian character of Old Testament Law disappeared into a people who developed a rabid hatred for agriculture in the period of Classical Judaism. Jews in Europe were uniformly middle to upper class economically, and contemptuous of Gentile peasants. When Jews gave birth to communism, their anti-peasant hatred was palpable. Attempts to organize protection for Catholic peasants were decried as antisemitism. This characterized Jewish racism toward the suffering peasants in places like Russia, and it still shows itself wherever Jewish leftism dares to discuss matters in private.
At the same time, Jews catered to royalty, nobles and other powerful figures. Their internal Talmudic laws required it. Many rulers in European history kept Jewish doctors on staff. While Jews were forbidden to provide medical treatment to Gentiles in general, it was just the opposite for Gentile rulers. This was a reciprocal agreement. When Constantine granted tax exemption to Christian clergy, he was copying earlier Roman charters to the Jewish rabbinate. And the charters for Jews in Europe proliferated throughout the period of Classical Judaism, granting the rabbis totalitarian control over their own communities.
The rabbinical contempt for Jewish lower classes is clearly reflected in the Gospels, referring to them as accursed and ignorant of the Talmud. As we might expect, this reappeared during Classical Judaism anywhere enough Jews lived together for there to be a lower class of any sort. Judaism has always been elitist. The position of Jewish leaders deteriorated wherever genuine government reform elevated the condition of Gentile peasants. Thus, the pattern of when and where Classical Judaism ended mirrors the rise of the secular state where Jews lived, spreading over a couple of centuries across Europe.
In England, the Magna Carta soon meant Jews were expelled for resisting such reform. In France, it came with the rise of the Estates General. The decentralized enlightened principalities of Italy saw few Jews in the first place, and only the larger domains of the Papal Estates, Sicily, Naples and Piedmont had many of them (until around 1500).
Under Islam, expulsion of Jews was forbidden. There was a Jewish Golden Age across the Islamic countries wherever the rulers were remote from their subjects. Jews were drawn by tyranny and oppression, and their culture was inhibited wherever enlightened rulers held sway. That's because Jewish leadership is itself oppressive and tyrannical, and it always gives fanatical support to Gentile rulers who permit them to be that way with their own kind.
Shahak details how Jewish tyranny reached its peak in Spain and Poland. It is a mixture of sad tales where Jews became the chief enforcement magistrates employed by depraved Gentile rulers, because they were reliably pitiless with the subjects. In the case of Poland, this continued until very late in history, deeply affecting how things stand today.
Nobody in their right mind would be surprised when Jews were persecuted once the tables were turned. This justified reaction became the whole story Jews tell now, only with the claim that it was unjustified. Shahak notes that the Jews descended from those who served oppression in places like Poland form a large portion of today's Israeli government. It shows in how they govern Israel. He notes that, aside from the rare cases like Nazi Germany, in which the ruling elite drove Jewish persecution, every historical purge of Jews was a popular revolt. But Jewish leadership complains that the Nazi persecution is the sole model, when it's actually the popular revolts the Israeli leaders remember when they act against Palestinians.
During the popular pogroms, the Gentile governments actually sought to protect the Jews. How conveniently that has been forgotten. Jewish propaganda is pathologically blind to this truth.
Obviously Shahak loves the modern democratic open society. In his eyes, modern antisemitism is quite different from the popular uprisings against Jews in Europe. He insists that it does not arise from mere capitalism. On the contrary, capitalism is actually blind to Judaism. He associates it with sloppy conspiracy theory, the mythology of "good old days" that never were.
He theorizes that modern antisemitism is responsible for poking at Jews as an ethnic identity, as opposed to a more intelligent reaction to Judaism and its Talmudic perversions. It's now simple racism. In this, he partly buys into the propaganda of the Jewish leadership he condemns. There is a substantial amount of anti-Jewish racism, but it comes from people who seldom take any real action, just wishful thinking from cowards.
Shahak seems wholly unaware that there is a very significant community of folks who read books like his. We know the real problem is not Jewish ethnicity. Our concern is a particular kind of Jewish self-identity that lies behind a very real plot to destroy the West and rule of the world. We are concerned about the rabbinate that hates their own Jewish people, and Zionism which does not hesitate to slaughter their own. Meanwhile, the residual effects of that very real grand plot tends to drag regular Jewish folks along, so that they unconsciously cooperate with some portion of the elite agenda, while consciously ignoring just enough to keep it hidden. The problem is the elitist Jewish identity itself, never mind DNA or false front religion.
Out of that community, a few of us are genuine followers of Christ who have no plans to do anything to Jews at large. We know that they belong to Satan, and can't be removed until Judgment Day.
Shahak goes on to attack what is essentially a straw man, racism in general, with antisemitism as a subset of that. He believes that Zionism is just as bad. He praises the so-called Jewish Enlightenment that sprang to life when common Jewish people were emancipated from rabbinical tyranny. Paradoxically, according to Shahak, modern antisemitism was born about the same time. But the Zionists decided they could make good use of this antisemitism and allied themselves with the leaders of it. Most shocking was the large number of Zionists serving in the Nazi government of Germany. It meant the defeat of liberalism in Germany, which was also the enemy Zionism.
The Zionists welcomed Nazi laws that forbid mixing with Jews, for the obvious reason it prevented dilution of Jewish identity. Having gone this far, I was disappointed that Shahak didn't enunciate how cynically the Zionists used the later Nazi attack on Jews as part of their programming to create a justification for seizing Palestine. The oppression didn't hurt them, as they were in the German government and protected their own fellow elites, but they considered less Jews as canon fodder in building their propaganda case.
However, he does note that Jews alone complain of racism in situations where no one else would. In historical uprisings, you don't see the revolting Irish peasants accused of anti-English racism, or anti-French racism in the slave revolts in places like Santo Domingo. Thus, Shahak resounds with the call to a western style "universal" and distinctly secular sense of morals.
This document is public domain; spread the message.