(This takes 10–13 minutes to read. Aside from involving racist caricatures, it also discusses instances of animal abuse.)
Because there is a noticeable overlap between anti-Judaism and antisemitism, and there are many contexts wherein it is unclear which is which, some scholars (e.g. Susannah Heschel & Christopher J. Probst) have gone so far as to declare the distinctions between the two phenomena effectively meaningless. Nevertheless, we are perfectly capable of finding instances of Fascist aggression unmistakingly directed at Judaism, even if it was usually coloured or motivated by White supremacy.
Before I continue, I would like to take this moment to disclaim, at the risk of stating the obvious, that merely disapproving of certain Judaic phenomena—such as compulsory circumcision, gender segregation, or the excessive violence in the Tanakh—is not the same thing as opposing Judaism, as many Reform Jews, Reconstructionist Jews, and certain other Judaists can attest. While it is certainly possible for someone to exploitatively reference these practices as a justification for anti-Judaism, one should always exercise caution and examine the greater context before jumping to the conclusion that such judgements come from a place of ill faith.
Now, if you think of Fascist anti-Judaism, most likely you’ll immediately think of the Shoah, the discrimination against converts to Judaism, the destruction of synagogues, the destruction of Jewish scriptures, the destruction of other ritual objects, forcing Judaists to break their own rules, or forcibly removing their hair (because keeping facial hair is a pentateuchal commandment). However, many fascists, such as Gerhard Kittel, also expressed their anti-Judaism verbally. Quoting Alan E. Steinweis’s Studying the Jew: Scholarly Antisemitism in Nazi Germany, pages 68–69:
The religious differences between Judaism and Christianity were not merely theological, they were ethical as well. Whereas Christianity had inherited the ethical core of Old Testament Judaism, rabbinic Judaism operated according to the Talmud, which sanctioned corruption, dishonesty, materialism, and antipathy toward non-Jews.
This last accusation was hardly new in the annals of Christian anti-Judaism, but Kittel was innovative in anchoring theological and religious differences in the divergent racial developments of Jewish and non-Jewish Germans.
Here we have a xenophobe stressing purported differences between Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. On the contrary, certain scholars were already noting important similarities between Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity (and in some cases outright borrowings) long before the 1930s. The 17th century Anglican John Lightfoot, the 18th century biblical scholar Johann Christian Schöttgen, the 19th century rabbi Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik, the Christian Hebraist Karl August Wünsche, the Ashkenazi lecturer S. Schechter, the Sephardic scholar Claude Montefiore, and the Unitarian Robert Travers Herford have all pointed out numerous parallels between the New Testament and the Talmud, boldly implying that the two works might have had a ‘common ancestor’ (so to speak). Needless to say, mentioning any of this would have undermined the xenophobe’s point.
Continuing on page 73:
As a result of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E., the Talmud became the key cohesive force in Judaism. Repeating an old and persistent anti-Jewish stereotype, Kittel characterized the rabbinic Judaism based on the Talmud as excessively legalistic, in contrast to the much more spiritual and ethical religion of Christianity. Kittel reiterated the longstanding accusation that the Talmud sanctioned abusive conduct by Jews toward non-Jews, substantiating his claims with references to the Strack-Billerbeck text.⁴¹
He laid great emphasis on a supposed Jewish “will to power,” which he interpreted as a perversion of the original Jewish idea of selection by G-d. Among the Jews, Kittel explained, loss of homeland, dispersion, and oppression at the hands of others distorted the notion of divine selection into a form of megalomania. The Jews, Kittel concluded, considered themselves chosen by G-d to rule over others as a “People of World Domination” (Volk der Weltherrschaft) and regarded non-Jews as […] to be “exterminated.”⁴²
Pages 75–6:
The year 1943 also saw the publication of Kittel’s most pronouncedly antisemitic article, “The Treatment of Non-Jews According to the Talmud.”⁴⁷ It appeared in the first issue of the Archive for Jewish Questions, the organ of the “Antisemitic Action,” an initiative sponsored by the German Ministry of Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels.
The point of Kittel’s article was hardly novel. Jews, he asserted, harbor a deeply rooted, “fundamental hatred of non-Jews,” a hatred that is sanctioned and encouraged in the Talmud. But while not new, the argument was now pushed to an extreme that was uncharacteristic of Kittel. He declared that the Talmud bestowed upon Jews “full freedom to kill” non-Jews.⁴⁸
Kittel derived this conclusion from a tortured and ahistorical analysis of a passage found in the tractate Sanhedrin, a part of the Talmud that deals with the adjudication and punishment of crimes. Much of Sanhedrin consists of hypothetical discussions about draconian punishments that Jewish communities never actually put into practice.⁴⁹
Chapter 9 of the tractate records rabbinic arguments about the applicability of capital punishment in cases of murder. In his article, Kittel extracted three sentences out of the complex rabbinic discussions, asserting that they equated the killing of a non-Jew to the killing of an animal.⁵⁰
[…]
Kittel thus accused Jews of the murderous dehumanization of others precisely at the moment that this treatment was being applied to them. His willful distortion of Jewish texts provided intellectual cover for genocide.
As Judaism is a closed practice, it is only natural that few gentiles have any familiarity with the Talmud, and fewer still have heard good things about it. It is worth digressing slightly to get a basic understanding of it. Briefly put: for most Jewish communities (barring the Beta Israel and the Karaites), the Talmud is a supplement to the Torah. Page 76:
Gerhard Kittel’s dishonest manipulation of passages from the Talmud represented nothing new in the history of antisemitism. This technique had an old pedigree in Christian Europe, as the Talmud had made a convenient target for anti-Jewish polemics. A vast compendium of Jewish learning, the Talmud—specifically the Babylonian Talmud—contains two and a half million words on almost six thousand folio pages. It consists for the most part of the written record of arguments carried on in the rabbinical academies of Mesopotamia during the third, fourth, and fifth centuries C.E.
The rabbis debated law, beliefs, customs, and history, with the ultimate goal of creating a comprehensive framework for Jewish life outside of Israel. The text constitutes an extraordinarily complex dialectic of arguments and counterarguments, many of which were posed speculatively, hypothetically, and hyperbolically, not to be taken literally. The vastness, depth, and complexity of the text has led many scholars to apply the description “Sea of the Talmud” to the sprawling work.⁵³
Many have regarded this quality of the Talmud in a positive light. Gerhard Kittel, writing in 1926, before his turn to antisemitism, celebrated the Talmud as “a giant sack into which was stuffed everything which Judaism had stored up in terms of memories and traditions, so that its contents are the most colorful and joyful confusion and juxtaposition that one can imagine.”⁵⁴
I am sad to say that this is the first time that I have seen a gentile compliment the Talmud. Christian Zionists often like to put on airs of being ‘Jew-friendly’, but I have never seen them express positive or even mixed feelings about the Talmud, on the sporadic occasions when they discuss the Talmud at all.
Pages 77–8:
The basic method […] was to present passages from the “Sea of the Talmud” out of their original textual or historical contexts. They seized upon utterances of ancient rabbis that originated as tactical debating maneuvers and misrepresented them as statements of Jewish doctrine.
Similarly, they pointed to unflattering Talmudic characterizations of Gentiles as proof of Jewish disdain for non-Jews, ignoring the circumstances of persecution and oppression that gave rise to such rabbinical polemics. They selected only those Talmudic passages that cast Jews in a negative light, and omitted contradictory passages that might have softened the harsh portrait.
This tradition of anti-Talmudic polemic continued in the Third Reich, embodied most conspicuously in propaganda tracts intended for dissemination to a broad readership. Facile attacks on the Talmud saturated [Fascist] newspapers, most notably the obsessively antisemitic Stürmer.⁵⁷
Less dripping in venom, but no less misrepresentative of the spirit of the Talmudic texts, were the articles and brochures of Johannes Pohl, a trained Bible scholar who helped organize the looting of Jewish libraries in [Fascist]-occupied Europe during World War II.⁵⁸
Several book-length compilations of Talmudic passages appeared during the [Fascist] era as well. These included Walter Fasolt’s book The Foundations of the Talmud: A Non-Jewish Perspective, which was published in 1935 and then went through multiple editions; it was a malicious polemic by a propagandist whose other [Fascist]-era publications included Papal Domination, a fierce attack on the Catholic Church.⁵⁹
Both of these books were brought out by the Pötsch publishing house in Breslau, which specialized in sensationalist hate literature aimed at mass audiences. Another product of the same publisher was Gerhard Utikal’s book Jewish Ritual Murder, which purported to demonstrate the veracity of this antisemitic accusation to the nonscholarly reader in a manner that was “simple and clear” and “easy to understand.”⁶⁰
Studying the Jew says plenty more about the Fascists’ bashing of the Talmud, but I am omitting it for the sake of brevity. One other work that I want to examine, though, is the pseudodocumentary Der Ewige Jude from 1940. Of note is that the film explicitly denies that Judaism is a religion, possibly to explain why the ideal of religious tolerance should not apply to it. Late(!) in the film, the narrator comments on Judaism thus:
The following scene is taken from a […] Purim Festival, filmed by Warsaw Jews, for their own use as a cultural film:
‘Ignorant people say Purim is not a holiday … and poverty is not a disease. But Purim is a holiday.’
‘Well said, Reb Mechl. Purim is Purim and poverty makes you worry…’
This seemingly harmless family celebration commemorates the slaughter of 75,000 antisemitic Persians by the Biblical ancestors of today’s Jews. The Bible (Esther 9:16–28) reports: ‘The next day the Jews rested, and made the day one of feasting, joy, and gift-giving. They decided that these two days, ‘Purim’, should thereafter be remembered by their children’s children, forever.’
Educated, objective and tolerant Germans regard such tales as folklore and strange customs, but the race of Israel are still rubbing their hands in this feast of revenge even when dressed in Western European clothes, in which today’s Israelites hide their true murderous nature.
To truly understand the serious danger behind all this, it is necessary to look at the moral teachings of the Jewish race. From boyhood, the Jew learns his ancient laws in the Talmudic schools. As the Jew grows older, he learns more from the books of Jewish law.
But these are not religious instructions. The rabbis are not peaceful theologians, but political educators. The politics of this parasitic race must be carried on in secret. The individual ghetto Jew does not necessarily have to know all their plans, it is enough that he is filled with the spirit from youth.
What does the ancient law of the Talmud teach? ‘Always be cunning when afraid. Answer softly to calm the anger of the stranger so that you’ll be loved. Ally yourself with him on whom fate smiles at the moment.’
Five things that Canaan taught his sons: ‘Love one another, love pillage, love excess, hate your masters, and never tell the truth.’
(The easily falsifiable implication here is that Judaists are constantly engaged in a word game where they never say what they mean, even if you ask them a question as simple and mundane as ‘What time is it?’)
Further development of Jewish inner life is carried on in the synagogue. The Jews count on people not to understand their language, nor its ambiguous symbols. Here is some imagery, let them speak for themselves:
The film then shows Judaists in a synagogue speaking Biblical Hebrew.
The black boxes on their heads contain law passages.
We then see and hear a cantor’s operatic chanting.
Conducting business during the service is not considered an act of disrespect by Israelites. The law teaches that ‘Whosoever honours the Torah shall succeed in business.’ The Torah scroll, containing the five books of Moses and the Law is taken out from the so-called Holy Ark. As it is carried to the pulpit, Jews kiss the Torah scroll, thus asking forgiveness for their sins. The Torah scroll is rolled to the place to be read.
It is presumably here that one of the clergy, before reading the Torah, cleverly implied that their presence there was forced by stating in Hebrew ‘Today is Tuesday’: an unusual day for Torah reading. (Judging by the audio, however, it seems that this line is absent from the final cut.)
What sort of ‘truths’ does it teach? Listen to this example, Hora Hajum, verse 290: ‘Praise to the L-rd, who has set apart the holy, and the common nations — Israel, and the other races. The heathens who do not keep your commandments you have made enemies to be wiped out. G-d’s anger is on them. And he says, “even the best among the heathens shall I slay. There are none good among the people of the world, for they are blasphemers, but the sons of Israel are all righteous.”’
Or another example, Haghida 3, verse 1: ‘And the L-rd told the Israelites, “You have made me the one god of the world, and I shall make your people the only rulers of the world.”’
Hora Hajim 126, verse 1: ‘Glory to the Eternal One, who reduces the enemies of your people, humbles them, and wipes them out that the earth may belong to you alone, and your people.’
This is not a religion! And G-d is there no more. This is a conspiracy against all gentiles: a conspiracy by a sick, deceitful and poisonous race against the healthy Aryan folk and their moral laws.
One of the most illuminating customs of the Jews’ so-called religion is the slaughter of animals. The following actual scenes are among the most horrifying ever captured. We show them despite objections about poor taste. It’s more important that our folk know the truth about Jewry. Sensitive citizens are advised not to watch.
Their religion allegedly forbids Jews from eating ordinarily butchered meat, so they let the animals bleed to death while conscious. This cruel method of Jewish slaughter is deceptively described as the most humane. […] Jewish law has no love and respect for animals in the Germanic sense. It is even forbidden that the suffering animal be put out of its misery.
Many kosher slaughterhouses are unexceptional when it comes to the indisputable animal abuse in the meat industry. That is just a fact; many Judaists would sadly be inclined to concede that, but I think that they’ll be happy to agree that Jewish law, indeed, has no love and respect for animals in the ‘Germanic’ sense:
In Crimea on May 4, 1944, the retreating [Fascists] slaughtered about 30,000 horses to keep them from falling into enemy hands (Meyer p. 90). The poor animals were led in rows to a precipice, then shot and hurled off the cliff (Piekalkiewicz, p. i). […] Despite widespread hunger these horses were not butchered and eaten. The routine resembled the mass executions of Jews or partisans, who would also be shot in such a way as to make them fall into mass graves. The slaughter, in addition to violating the animal-protection laws, was unnecessary from the point of view of rational self-interest.
(Emphasis added in all cases. Click here if you have time to read more.)
Given that he insisted that Jews were a nation and not a religious community, you may be surprised at how rarely Adolf Schicklgruber hisself talked about Judaism. Nevertheless, he did disparage it on occasion. Here are some quotes thereanent from Mein Kampf, ch. IV:
It is one of the most brilliant tricks ever invented to have this State sail under the colors of a “religion,” and thus to assure it of the toleration which the Aryan is always ready to allow to a religious persuasion. For the Mosaic religion is in fact nothing but a doctrine for the preservation of the Jewish race. This is why it includes almost every field of sociological, political and economic knowledge which could possibly serve that purpose.
Jewry has always been a people with definite racial characteristics, and never a religion; only the matter of its advancement caused it early to seek a means to distract inconvenient attention from its members.
And what indeed could have been more fitting and at the same time more innocent than the insinuation of the borrowed idea of a religious community? For even here everything is borrowed, or rather stolen, the Jew can derive no religious institution from his own original nature because he lacks idealism in any form, and the belief in a Hereafter is therefore absolutely foreign to him.
But according to the Aryan concept no religion is imaginable which lacks a belief in some form of survival after death. And in fact the Talmud is a book to prepare not for the Hereafter but for a practical and prosperous life in this world.
The Jewish religious teaching is primarily a rule to keep the blood of Jewry pure and to regulate the intercourse of Jews among themselves, and still more with the rest of the world—with the non-Jews. But even here it is a matter not of ethical problems but of extremely elementary economic ones. Of the moral value of Jewish religious instruction there are and have long been quite detailed studies (not of Jewish authorship; the creeds of the Jews themselves, of course, are made to suit the purpose) which to Aryan eyes make this sort of religion seem absolutely monstrous.
But the best indication is the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is of this world alone, and his spirit is inwardly as foreign to true Christianity as his nature was two thousand years ago to the great Founder of the new teaching Himself.
He, it is true, made no secret of His disposition toward the Jewish people, and even resorted to the whip if necessary to drive out from the L-rd’s temple this adversary of any real humanity, who then as always saw in religion only a means for a business livelihood. But of course Christ was nailed to the cross for this, while our present party Christianity lowers itself in elections to beg for Jewish votes, and afterward tries to hatch political skulduggery with atheistical Jewish parties—and against its own nationality, at that.
In conclusion, all of this propaganda is necessary to justify the oppression of harmless civilians. That is why these allegations against Judaism are very similar to common ones against Islam.
See also: ‘Why Did the Nazis Burn the Hebrew Bible? Nazi Germany, Representations of the Past, and the Holocaust’
