Israel Shahak
Israel Shahak (April 28, 1933 - July 2, 2001) was a Professor of Chemistry at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and an outspoken critic of the Israeli government and of Israeli society in general.
He was born in Warsaw, Poland, was a survivor of Belsen concentration camp and he emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1945 (shortly before the establishment of the State of Israel). A critic of Zionism and a supporter of a Palestinian state, he wrote many influential books which argue that Israeli law and society contained entrenched attitudes of Jewish supremacy.
He began in the 1970s the monthly publication of translations of the Hebrew press into English, arguing that the English-language editions of these newspapers were being intentionally sanitised for Western audiences, and that the true views and intentions of many Israelis were only revealed in Hebrew.
In 1993 he authored Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years (ISBN 0745308198), in which he argued that Judaism was a racist religion that taught its adherents to hate all non-Jews. The first chapter of Jewish History is infamous for a blood libel against Jews, which onyl later did Israek Shahak later admit was fictional. In that book he originally claimed:
- ...I had personally witnessed an ultra-religious Jew refuse to allow his phone to be used on the Sabbath in order to call an ambulance for a non-Jew who happened to have collapsed in his Jerusalem neighbourhood. Instead of simply publishing the incident in the press, I asked for a meeting which is composed of rabbis nominated by the State of Israel. I asked them whether such behavior was consistent with their interpretation of the Jewish religion. They answered that the Jew in question had behaved correctly, indeed piously, and backed their statement by referring me to a passage in an authoritative compendium of Talmudic laws, written in this century. I reported the incident to the main Hebrew daily, Ha'aretz, whose publication of the story caused a media scandal.
- The results of the scandal were, for me, rather negative. Neither the Israeli, nor the diaspora, rabbinical authorities ever reversed their ruling that a Jew should not violate the Sabbath in order to save the life of a Gentile. They added much sanctimonious twaddle to the effect that if the consequence of such an act puts Jews in danger, the violation of the Sabbath is permitted, for their sake...
Rabbis responded by accusing Shahak of lying about Jewish law (Jewish law explicitly states that a Jew must save the life of either a gentile or Jew, even if involves violating the laws of the Sabbath) and of fabricating this specific incident. When asked to identify the person in question, Shahak later admitted that the person did not exist. (Source: Tradition, Volume 8, Number 2, pp. 58-65.)
Shahak's claims have been criticised as being very misleading. Rabbis from all the Jewish denominations (Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism) have stated that Shahak's claims about Jewish law are merely the opinions of a handful of fanatics, and that it should be considered an anti-Semitic fabrication to claim that these views are representative of Judaism in general of of Israelis. Shahaks' claims have been viewed as a blood libel.
His writings have become very popular among left-wing intellectuals like Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, and Christopher Hitchens. A search on Google shows that his writings appear on a huge number of anti-Semitic sites.
He died in Israel.
Criticism and accusation of anti-Semitism
Shahak is viewed as anti-Semitic by much of the Jewish community. A common criticism is that he takes the actions of individual Jews with extremist views, yet portrays their actions as representative of Judaism. His critics further hold that Shahak has deliberately engaged in fraud and lying, especially in regard to his claims about the Talmud (one of Judaism's most sacred books). Shahak claims that Judaism teaches that its adherents must hate Christians, yet rabbis and educators in all the Jewish denominations deny these claims outright. Those trying to verify some of Shahak's claims have reported that some of his charges appear to have been fabricated.
Other writings of his include Open Secrets: Israel's Nuclear and Foreign Policies (1997; ISBN 0745311512), and Jewish Fundamentalism In Israel (1999; ISBN 0745312764).