Israel Shahak

Israel Shahak

Israel Shahak died on July 2, 2001, aged 68. Born in Warsaw on April 28, 1933 he survived the Nazi atrocities in the Warsaw ghetto and Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. In 1945 he emigrated to Palestine at the time of the British Mandate (now Israel). He was a humanist, a live-long human rights activist. For many years he was chairman of the Israeli Human Rights League and consistently criticized Zionism, Israel`s policy towards the Palastinians, the reactionary elements in Jewish religion, and Jewish fundamentalism.

The INQUISITION - Image via Wikiped

Israel Shahak was also a highly controversial Jewish intellectual. He was criticised fiercely, e.g. here and here. I don’t really know if his critics are right, or if he was right; my best guess is that there is some truth on both sides.

I started this web-page ages ago, after acquiring Shahak’s book, trying to shed light on the controversy around him, since I don’t like to condemn or defend books and writers I did not… read! However, I was not aware, at the time, how big the controversy was.

Jewish History, Jewish Religion – The Weight of Three Thousand Years (by Israel Shahak)

Chapter 4, p. 59, «The Muslim World»
_____________________

Jewish communities flourished in the famous, but socially
misinterpreted, Jewish Golden Age in Muslim countries under regimes
which were particularly dissociated from the great majority of the
people they ruled, and whose power rested on nothing but naked force
and a mercenary army. The best example is Muslim Spain, where the
very real Jewish Golden Age (of Hebrew poetry, grammar, philosophy
etc) begins precisely with the fall of the Spanish Umayyad caliphate
after the death of the de facto ruler, al-Mansur, in 1002, and the
establishment of the numerous ta’ifa (faction) kingdoms, all based on
naked force. The rise of the famous Jewish commander – in- chief and
prime minister of the kingdom of Granada, Samuel the Chief (Shmu’el
Hannagid, died 1056), who was also one of the greatest Hebrew poets of
all ages, was based primarily on the fact that the kingdom which he
served was a tyranny of a rather small Berber military force over the
Arabic- speaking inhabitants. A similar situation obtained in the other
ta’ifa Arab-Spanish kingdoms.

[…]
(page 60)

But perhaps the best Islamic example is the state where the Jews»
position was better than anywhere else in the East since the fall of the
ancient Persian empirethe Ottoman empire, particularly during its
heyday in the 16th century.[11] As is well known, the Ottoman regime
was based initially on the almost complete exclusion of the Turks
themselves (not to mention other Muslims by birth) from positions of
political power and from the most important part of the army, the
Janissary corps, both of which were manned by the sultan’s Christian –
born slaves, abducted in childhood and educated in special schools.
Until the end of the 16th century no free- born Turk could become a
Janissary or hold any important government office. In such a regime,
the role of the Jews in their sphere was quite analogous to that of the
Janissaries in theirs. Thus the position of the Jews was best under a
regime which was politically most dissociated from the peoples it ruled.

[…]
(page 61)

…in a pre- modern state, a «better» position of the Jewish community
normally entailed a greater degree of tyranny exercised within this
community by the rabbis against other Jews.
To give one example: certainly, the figure of Saladin is one which,
considering his period, inspires profound respect. But together with
this respect, I for one cannot forget that the enhanced privileges he
granted to the Jewish community in Egypt and his appointment of
Maimonides as their Chief (Nagid) immediately unleashed severe
religious persecution of Jewish «sinners» by the rabbis. For instance,
Jewish «priests» (supposed descendant s of the ancient priests who had
served in the Temple) are forbidden to marry not only prostitutes12 but
also divorcees. This latter prohibition, which has always caused
difficulties, was infringed during the anarchy under the last Fatimid
rulers (circa 1130- 80) by such «priests» who, contrary to Jewish
religious law, were married to Jewish divorcees in Islamic courts (which
are nominally empowered to marry non- Muslims). The greater
tolerance towards «the Jews» instituted by Saladin upon his accession to
power enabled Maimonides to issue orders to the rabbinical courts in
Egypt to seize all Jews who had gone through such forbidden marriages
and have them flogged until they «agreed» to divorce their wives.[13]
Similarly, in the Ottoman empire the powers of the rabbinical courts
were very great and consequently most pernicious. Therefore the
position of Jews in Muslim countries in the past should never be used
as a political argument in contemporary (or future) contexts.

Christian Spain

[…]

Politically, the position of Jews in the Christian Spanish kingdoms was
the highest ever attained by Jews in any country (except some of the
ta’ifas and under the Fatimids) before the 19th century. Many Jews
served officially as Treasurers General to the kings of Castile, regional
and general tax collectors, diplomats (representing their king in foreign
courts, both Muslim and Christian, even outside Spain), courtiers and
advisers to rulers and great noblemen. And in no other count ry except
Poland did the Jewish community wield such great legal powers over
the Jews or used them so widely and publicly, including the power to
inflict capital punishment. From the 11th century the persecution of
Karaites (a heretical Jewish sect) by flogging them to death if
unrepentant was common in Castile. Jewish women who cohabited with
Gentiles had their noses cut off by rabbis who explained that «in this
way she will lose her beauty and her non- Jewish lover will come to hate
her.» Jews who had the effrontery to attack a rabbinical judge had their
hands cut off. Adulterers were imprisoned, after being made to run the
gauntlet through the Jewish quarter. In religious disputes, those
thought to be heretics had their tongues cut out.

Historically, all this was associated with feudal anarchy and with the
attempt of a few «strong» kings to rule through sheer force,
disregarding the parliamentary institutions, the Cortes, which had
already come into existence. In this struggle, not only the political and
financial power of the Jews but also their military power (at least in the
most important kingdom, Castile) was very significant. One example
will suffice: both feudal misgovernment and Jewish political influence
in Castile reached their peak under Pedro I, justly nick- named the
Cruel. The Jewish communities of Toledo, Burgos and many other cities
served practically as his garrisons in the long civil war between him and
his half – brother, Henry of Trastamara, who after his victory became
Henry II (1369- 79).[15] The same Pedro I gave the Jews of Castile the
right to establish a country- wide inquisition against Jewish religious
deviantsmore than one hundred years before the establishment of the
more famous Catholic Holy Inquisition.

[…]
(page 66)
We must, first, draw a sharp distinction between the persecutions of
Jews during the classical period on the one hand, and the Nazi
extermination on the other. The former were popular movements,
coming from below; whereas the latter was inspired, organized and
carried out from above: indeed, by state officials. Such acts as the Nazi
state – organized extermination are relatively rare in human history,
although other cases do exist (the extermination of the Tasmanians and
several other colonial peoples, for example). Moreover, the Nazis
intended to wipe out other peoples besides the Jews: Gypsies were
exterminated like Jews, and the extermination of Slavs was well under
way, with the systematic massacre of millions of civilians and prisoners
of war. However, it is the recurrent persecution of Jews in so many
count ries during the classical period which is the model (and the
excuse) for the Zionist politicians in their persecution of the
Palestinians, as well as the argument used by apologists of Judaism in
general; and it is this phenomenon which we consider now.
It must be pointed out that in all the worst anti – Jewish persecutions,
that is, where Jews were killed, the ruling elitethe emperor and the
pope, the kings, the higher aristocracy and the upper clergy, as well as
the rich bourgeoisie in the autonomous citieswere always on the side of
the Jews. The latter’s enemies belonged to the more oppressed and
exploited classes and those close to them in daily life and interests,
such as the friars of the mendicant orders.[18] It is true that in most
(but I think not in all) cases members of the elite defended the Jews
neither out of considerations of humanity nor because of sympathy to
the Jews as such, but for the type of reason used generally by rulers in
justification of their intereststhe fact that the Jews were useful and
profitable (to them), defense of «law and order,» hatred of the lower
classes and fear that anti – Jewish riots might develop into general
popular rebellion. Still, the fact remains that they did defend the Jews.
For this reason all the massacres of Jews during the classical period
were part of a peasant rebellion or other popular movements at times
when the government was for some reason especially weak. This is true
even in the partly exceptional case of Tsarist Russia. The Tsarist
government, acting surreptitiously through its secret police, did
promote pogroms; but it did so only when it was particularly weak
(after the assassination of Alexander II in 1881, and in the period
immediately before and after the 1905 revolution) and even then took
care to contain the break~down of «law and order.»

[…]
(page 68)

Early modern antisemitism (1880-1900) was a reaction of bewildered
men, who deeply hated modern society in all its aspects, both good and
bad, and who were ardent believers in the conspiracy theory of history.
The Jews were cast in the role of scapegoat for the breakup of the old
society (which anti-semitic nostalgia imagined as even more closed and
ordered than it had ever been in reality) and for all that was disturbing
in modern times. But right at the start the antisemites were faced with
what was, for them, a difficult problem: how to define this scapegoat,
particularly in popular terms? What is to be the supposed common
denominator of the Jewish musician, banker, craftsman and beggar,
especially after the common religious features had largely dissolved,
at least externally? The «theory» of the Jewish race was the
modern antisemitic answer to this problem.

In contrast, the old Christian, and even more so Muslim opposition to
classical Judaism was remarkably free from racism. No doubt this was
to some extent a consequence of the universal character of Christianity
and Islam, as well as of their original connection with Judaism (St
Thomas More repeatedly rebuked a woman who objected when he told
her that the Virgin Mary was Jewish). But in my opinion a far more
important reason was the social role of the Jews as an integral part of
the upper classes. In many countries Jews were treated as potential
nobles and, upon conversion, were able immediately to intermarry with
the highest nobility. The nobility of 15th century Castile and Aragon or
the aristocracy of 18th century Polandto take the two cases where
intermarriage with converted Jews was widespreadwould hardly be
likely to marry Spanish peasants or Polish serfs, no matter how much
praise the Gospel has for the poor.

It is the modern myth of the Jewish «race»of outwardly hidden but
supposedly dominant characteristics of «the Jews,» independent of
history, of social role, of anythingwhich is the formal and most
important distinguishing mark of modern antisemitism. This was in
fact perceived by some Church leaders when modern antisemitism first
appeared as a movement of some strength.

[…]
(p.69)

The effectiveness of modern antisemitism, and of its alliance with
conservatism, depended on several factors.

First, the older tradition of Christian religious opposition to Jews,
which existed in many (though by no means all) European countries, could,
if supported or at least unopposed by the clergy, be harnessed to the
antisemitic bandwagon. The actual response of the clergy in each
country was largely determined by specific local historical and social
circumstances. In the Catholic Church, the tendency for an opportunistic
alliance with antisemitism was strong in France but not in Italy; in
Poland and Slovakia but not in Bohemia. The Greek Orthodox Church had
notorious antisemitic tendencies in Romania but took the opposite line
in Bulgaria. Among the Protestant Churches, the German was deeply divided
on this issue, others (such as the Latvian and Estonian) tended to be
antisemitic, but many (for example the Dutch, Swiss and Scandinavian)
were among the earliest to condemn antisemitism.

Secondly, antisemitism was largely a generic expression of xenophobia,
a desire for a «pure» homogeneous society. But in many European
count ries around 1900 (and in fact until quite recently) the Jew was
virtually the only «stranger.» This was particularly true of Germany. In
principle, the German racists of the early 20th century hated and
despised Blacks just as much as Jews; but there were no Blacks in
Germany then. Hate is of course much more easily focused on the
present than on the absent, especially under the conditions of the time,
when mass travel and tourism did not exist and most Europeans never
left their own country in peacetime.

Thirdly, the successes of the tentative alliance between conservatism
and antisemitism were inversely proportional to the power and capabilities
of its opponents. And the consistent and effective opponents of antisemitism
in Europe are the political forces of liberalism and socialism historically
the same forces that continue in various ways the tradition symbolized by
the War of Dutch Independence (1568- 1648), the English Revolution and the
Great French Revolution. On the European continent the main shibboleth is
the attitude towards the Great French Revolution roughly speaking, those
who are for it are against antisemitism; those who accept it with regret
would be at least prone to an alliance with the antisemites; those who
hate it and would like to undo its achievements are the milieu from
which antisemitism develops.

[…]
(p.70)

Nevertheless, a sharp distinction must be made between conservatives
and even reactionaries on the one hand and actual racists and
antisemites on the other. Modern racism (of which antisemitism is part)
although caused by specific social conditions, becomes, when it gains
strength, a force that in my opinion can only be described as demonic.
After coming to power, and for its duration, I believe it defies analysis
by any presently understood social theory or set of merely social
observationsand in particular by any known theory invoking interests,
be they class or state interests, or other than purely psychological
«interests» of any entity that can be defined in the present state of
human knowledge. But this I do not mean that such forces are
unknowable in principle; on the contrary, one must hope that with the
growth of human knowledge they will come to be understood….

[…]

The Zionist Response

Historically, Zionism is both a reaction to antisemitism and a
conservative alliance with it, although the Zionists, like other European
conservatives, did not fully realize with whom they were allying
themselves.

Until the rise of modern antisemitism, the mood of European Jewry was
optimistic, indeed excessively so. This was manifested not only in the
very large number of Jews, particularly in western countries, who
simply opted out of classical Judaism, apparently without any great
regret, in the first or second generation after this became possible, but
also in the formation of a strong cultural movement, the Jewish
Enlightenment (Haskalah), which began in Germany and Austria around
1780, was then carried into eastern Europe and by 1850- 70 was making
itself felt as a considerable social force. I cannot enter here into a
discussion of the movement ‘s cultural achievements, such as the revival
of Hebrew literature and the creation of a wonderful literature in
Yiddish. However, it is important to note that despite many internal
differences, the movement as a whole was characterized by two
common beliefs: a belief in the need for a fundamental critique of
Jewish society and particularly of the social role of the Jewish religion
in its classical form, and the almost messianic hope for the victory of
the «forces of good» in European societies. The latter forces were
naturally defined by the sole criterion of their support for Jewish
emancipation.

The growth of antisemitism as a popular movement, and the many
alliances of the conservative forces with it, dealt a severe blow to the
Jewish Enlightenment. The blow was especially devastating because in
actual fact the rise of antisemitism occurred just after the Jews were
emancipated in some European countries, and even before they were
freed in others. The Jews of the Austrian empire received fully equal
rights only in 1867. In Germany, some independent states emancipated
their Jews quite early, but others did not; notably, Prussia was grudging
and tardy in this matter, and final emancipation of the Jews in the
German empire as a whole was only granted by Bismarck in 1871. In the
Ottoman empire the Jews were subject to official discrimination until
1909, and in Russia (as well as Romania) until 1917. Thus modern
antisemitism began within a decade of the emancipation of the Jews in
central Europe and long before the emancipation of the biggest Jewish
community at that time, that of the Tsarist empire.

It is therefore easy for the Zionists to ignore half of the relevant facts,
revert to the segregationist stance of classical Judaism, and claim that
since all Gentiles always hate and persecute all Jews, the only solution
would be to remove all the Jews bodily and concent rate them in
Palestine or Uganda or wherever.[26] Some early Jewish critics of
Zionism were quick to point out that if one assumes a permanent and
ahistorical incompatibility between Jews and Gentiles (an assumption
shared by both Zionists and antisemites!) then to concentrate the Jews in
one place would simply bring upon them the hatred of the Gentiles in
that part of the world (as indeed was to happen, though for very
different reasons). But as far as I know this logical argument did not
make any impression, just as all the logical and factual argument s
against the myth of the «Jewish race» made not the slightest difference
to the antisemites.

In fact, close relations have always existed between Zionists and
antisemites: exactly like some of the European conservatives, the
Zionists thought they could ignore the «demonic» character of
antisemitism and use the antisemites for their own purposes. Many
examples of such alliances are well known. Herzl allied himself with the
notorious Count von Plehve, the antisemitic minister of Tsar Nicholas II;
[27] Jabotinsky made a pact with Petlyura, the reactionary Ukrainian
leader whose forces massacred some 100,000 Jews in 1918- 21; Ben-
Gurion’s allies among the French extreme right during the Algerian war
included some notorious antisemites who were, however, careful to
explain that they were only against the Jews in France, not in Israel.
Perhaps the most shocking example of this type is the delight with
which some Zionist leaders in Germany welcomed Hitler’s rise to power,
because they shared his belief in the primacy of «race» and his hostility
to the assimilation of Jews among «Aryans.» They congratulated Hitler
on his triumph over the common enemy: the forces of liberalism. Dr.
Joachim Prinz, a Zionist rabbi who subsequently emigrated to the USA,
where he rose to be vice- chairman of the World Jewish Congress and a
leading light in the World Zionist Organization (as well as a great friend
of Golda Meir), published in 1934 a special book, Wir Juden (We, Jews),
to celebrate Hitler’s so- called German Revolution and the defeat of
liberalism:

The meaning of the German Revolution for the German nation will
eventually be clear to those who have created it and formed its image.
Its meaning for us must be set forth here: the fortunes of liberalism are
lost. The only form of political life which has helped Jewish
assimilation is sunk.[28]

The victory of Nazism rules out assimilation and mixed marriages as an
option for Jews. «We are not unhappy about this,» said Dr. Prinz. In the
fact that Jews are being forced to identify themselves as Jews, he sees
«the fulfillment of our desires.» And further:

We want assimilation to be replaced by a new law: the declaration of
belonging to the Jewish nation and Jewish race. A state built upon the
principle of the purity of nation and race can only honored and
respected by a Jew who declares his belonging to his own kind. Having
so declared himself, he will never be capable of faulty loyalty towards a
state. The state cannot want other Jews but such as declare themselves
as belonging to their nation. It will not want Jewish flatterers and
crawlers. It must demand of us faith and loyalty to our own interest.
For only he who honors his own breed and his own blood can have an
attitude of honor towards the national will of other nations.[29]

The whole book is full of similar crude flatteries of Nazi ideology, glee
at the defeat of liberalism and particularly of the ideas of the French
Revolution [30] and great expectations that, in the congenial
atmosphere of the myth of the Aryan race, Zionism and the myth of the
Jewish race will also thrive.

Of course, Dr. Prinz, like many other early sympathizer s and allies of
Nazism, did not realize where that movement (and modern antisemitism
generally) was leading. Equally, many people at present do not realize
where Zionism -the movement in which Dr. Prinz was an honored figure- is
tending: to a combination of all the old hates of classical Judaism
towards Gentiles and to the indiscriminate and ahistorical use of all
the persecutions of Jews throughout history in order to justify the
Zionist persecution of the Palestinians. For, insane as it sounds, it is
nevertheless plain upon close examination of the real motives of the
Zionists, that one of the most deep-seated ideological sources of the
Zionist establishment’s persistent hostility towards the Palestinians
is the fact that they are identified in the minds of many east-European
Jews with the rebellious east-European peasants who participated in the
Chmielnicki uprising and in similar revolts and the latter are in turn
identified ahistorically with modern antisemitism and Nazism.

Confronting the Past

All Jews who really want to extricate themselves from the tyranny of
the totalitarian Jewish past must face the question of their attitude
towards the popular anti – Jewish manifestations of the past,
particularly those connected with the rebellions of enserfed peasants.

On the other side, all the apologists of the Jewish religion and of Jewish
segregationism and chauvinism also take their stand both ultimately
and in current debates on the same question. The undoubted fact that
the peasant revolutionaries committed shocking atrocities against Jews
(as well as against their other oppressors) is used as an «argument» by
those apologists, in exactly the same way that the Palestinian terror is
used to justify the denial of justice to the Palestinians.

Our own answer must be a universal one, applicable in principle to all
comparable cases. And, for a Jew who truly seeks liberation from
Jewish particularism and racism and from the dead hand of the Jewish
religion, such an answer is not very difficult.

After all, revolts of oppressed peasants against their masters and their
masters’ bailiffs are common in human history. A generation after the
Chmielnicki uprising of the Ukrainian peasants, the Russian peasants
rose under the leadership of Stenka Ryazin, and again, one hundred
years later, in the Pugachev rebellion. In Germany there was the Peasant
War of 1525, in France the Jacquerie of 1357- 8 and many other popular
revolts, not to mention the many slave uprisings in all parts of the
world. All of them (and I have intentionally chosen to mention examples
in which Jews were not targets) were attended by horrifying massacres,
just as the Great French Revolution was accompanied by appalling acts
of terror. What is the position of true progressives and, by now, of most
ordinary decent educated people be they Russian, German or Frenchon
these rebellions? Do decent English historians, even when noting the
massacres of Englishmen by rebellious Irish peasants rising against
their enslavement, condemn the latter as «anti-English racists»? What is
the attitude of progressive French historians towards the great slave
revolution in Santo Domingo, where many French women and children
were butchered? To ask the question is to answer it. But to ask a similar
question of many «progressive» or even «socialist» Jewish circles is to
receive a very different answer; here an enslaved peasant is
transformed into a racist monster, if Jews profited from his state of
slavery and exploitation.

The maxim that those who do not learn from history are condemned to
repeat it applies to those Jews who refuse to come to terms with the
Jewish past: they have become its slaves and are repeating it in Zionist
and Israeli policies. The State of Israel now fulfills towards the
oppressed peasants of many countries (not only in the Middle East but
also far beyond it) a role not unlike that of the Jews in pre-1795 Poland:
that of a bailiff to the imperial oppressor. It is characteristic and
instructive that Israel’s major role in arming the forces of the Somoza
regime in Nicaragua, and those of Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile and the
rest has not given rise to any wide public debate in Israel or among
organized Jewish communities in the diaspora. Even the narrower question
of expediency (whether the selling of weapons to a dictatorial butcher of
freedom fighters and peasants is in the long term interest of Jews) is
seldom asked. Even more significant is the large part taken in this business
by religious Jews, and the total silence of their rabbis (who are very vocal
in inciting hatred against Arabs). It seems that Israel and Zionism are a
throw-back to the role of classical Judaism writ large, on a global scale,
and under more dangerous circumstances.

The only possible answer to all this, first of all by Jews, must be that
given by all true advocates of freedom and humanity in all countries, all
peoples and all great philosophies – limited though they sometimes are,
as the human condition itself is limited. We must confront the Jewish
past and those aspects of the present which are based simultaneously
on lying about that past and worshiping it. The prerequisites for this
are, first, total honesty about the facts and, secondly, the belief (leading
to action, whenever possible) in universalist human principles of ethics
and politics.

__________________________

Web-searches for more information on Israel Shahak brought up this controversial post-post (I do NOT yet know this blog; trying to verify that the information is correct):

Letter to the editor by Prof. Israel Shahak (survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto) published on 19 May 1989 in Kol Ha’ir, Jerusalem.

«I disagree with the opinion of Haim Baram that the Israeli education system has managed to instil a «Holocaust awareness» in its pupils (Kol Ha’Ir 12.5.89). It’s not an awareness of the Holocaust but rather the myth of the Holocaust or even a falsification of the Holocaust (in the sense that «a half-truth is worse than a lie») which has been instilled here.

As one who himself lived through the Holocaust, first in Warsaw then in Bergen-Belsen, I will give an immediate example of the total ignorance of daily life during the Holocaust. In the Warsaw ghetto, even during the period of the first massive extermination (June to October 1943), one saw almost no German soldiers. Nearly all the work of administration, and later the work of transporting hundreds of thousands of Jews to their deaths, was carried out by Jewish collaborators. Before the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (the planning of which only started after the extermination of the majority of Jews in Warsaw), the Jewish underground killed, with perfect justification, every Jewish collaborator they could find. If they had not done so the Uprising could never have started. The majority of the population of the Ghetto hated the collaborators far more than the German Nazis. Every Jewish child was taught, and this saved the lives of some of them «if you enter a square from which there are three exits, one guarded by a German SS man, one by an Ukrainian and one by a Jewish policeman, then you should first try to pass the German, and then maybe the Ukrainian, but never the Jew».

One of my own strongest memories is that, when the Jewish underground killed a despicable collaborator close to my home at the end of February 1943, I danced and sang around the still bleeding corpse together with the other children. I still do not regret this, quite the contrary.

It is clear that such events were not exclusive to the Jews, the entire Nazi success in easy and continued rule over millions of people stemmed from the subtle and diabolical use of collaborators, who did most of the dirty work for them. But does anybody now know about this? This, and not what is «instilled» was the reality. Of the Yad Vashem (official state Holocaust museum in Jerusalem — Ed.) theatre, I do not wish to speak at all. It, and its vile exploiting, such as honouring South Africa collaborators with the Nazis are truly beneath contempt.

Therefore, if we knew a little of the truth about the Holocaust, we would at least understand (with or without agreeing) why the Palestinians are now eliminating their collaborators. That is the only means they have if they wish to continue to struggle against our limb-breaking regime.

Kind regards,

[Israel Shahak]»

________________

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