Richard Francis Burton

“ A Jewess may not live amongst the heathen, because possibly the latter do not hold adultery to be a sin; a Jew should also beware for fear of their killing him, as they probably will do. Israel was purified of every sin upon Mount Sinai; but the descendants of the peoples not present there preserve their perversity (p. 22) . If a Hebrew wayfarer meet a Gentile armed with a sword (worn on the left) , he should pass on the other’s right side, and vice versa if the stranger has only a staff, so that the arm can be seized before the weapon can be used ”

“ The Oral Law is superior in dignity to all others.2
1 “A Gentile who employs himself in the Law is guilty of death. He is not to employ himself except in the seven commandments that belong to the Gentiles. And thus a Gentile who keeps a Sabbath—though it be on one of the weekdays—if he make it to himself as a Sabbath, he is guilty of death.” And the measure of difference between Gentile and Jew is that, whilst the former has seven commandments, the latter has six hundred and thirteen. ”

“ But if the tomb be that of a Gentile, he must say: “Shame upon thy mother, cursed be she that bare thee; for the end of the heathen shall be dry and desolate as the soil of the desert” (p. 58) . It also explains earthquakes by the lamentations of the Lord, who bewails the miseries of the Jews (p. 59) . If a Jew find an object lost, we will say, by a Muslim, he must not restore it, even though he knew the pro­prietor. Also, if a Gentile make any mistake in accounting with the Jew, or leave property in his
[p. 90]
house, the latter, when not in fear of the authorities, must rob him. ”

“ A Gentile forfeits life if he cause a pregnant Jewess or her fruit to perish; a Jew is not to be punished capitally for such crime, but he must pay for the loss of the child (p. 57) . The “son of Noah” who blasphemes the Holy Name, who has committed adultery with or who has slain a co‐religionist, ceases to merit death by becoming a sojourning proselyte; but he must not be suffered to escape if he has slain a Jew, or if he has committed adultery with a Jewess (p. 71) . ”

“ But the Rabbis and Doctors exaggerate all things, and they have still, like excision, be stoned to death, or incur the flogging of rebellion, that is, he must be “beaten until his soul go out,” like all those who transgress affirmative commandments. Some Rabbis hold that a Hebrew, hearing the sound of the trumpet, should stand or sit in the same position until the evening of the Holy Day. All manner of work is absolutely forbidden to the Jew: he is guilty of capital crime if he carry a snuff‐box or a pocket‐handkerchief ”

“ At all times, in fact, the Jew should spoil the Gentile as much as possible. If one Jew injure another, though even his personal enemy and the greatest villain in the world, especially if such injury be to the advantage of a Gentile, the Jew shall surely die (chap. 388 of the Khalehah Orah Haím Meshat, one of the most accredited parts of the Oral Law) . All those present are bound to put the denouncer to death before he can do the deed ”

“ Gentiles should be prevented as much as possible purchasing immovable property. It is not allowed to speak well of a Gentile, man or woman, and it is a sin to make a present to them (p. 20) , to greet or to approach them; and the Jew becomes as cere­monially impure by handling anything touched by them, by drinking out of the same cup, or by sleep­ing under the same roof, as if eating with them. Hebrews should never tether their beasts in places not belonging to them, at least without locking them up, lest the heathen plunder or pollute them. ”

“ We read in the tract Sanhedrin (fourth of fourth order, p. 58) that the Gentile who strikes a Jew has committed a capital offence; this ordinance is as old as the sojourn of Moses in Egypt. He who strikes a Jew strikes the Deity. The “sons of Noah” may be slain by the sentence of a single Rabbi, or upon the testimony of a solitary witness, although the latter be a relation. ”

“ He also forbids the doctor who has not thoroughly studied the healing art to attend one of his own faith, lest his ignorance cause death; [6] but he may practise amongst all others, because if he kill them it is lawful and no matter (commentary of Gittin, the sixth tract of the third order) . Others declare that the Hebrew physician must not treat a stranger even for fees; but if he fear the Gentile, and the latter know him to be a Jew, he may do so for money. ”

“ When after two hundred years of energetic struggles against an empire which was fated to be universal the Hebrew race found its political nationality in peril, the first want felt was to lighten, as much as possible, the bonds of personality, so as morally to preserve by identity of belief that unity which dis­persion was about to dissolve. ”

“ But they left something more—a tradition which presently enabled the Christians to recover power in the Holy Land, and their abomination of the Jew inspired him with kindred sentiments. Nor can we wonder that the later and more fanatical writings are preferred by the Israelites to those of the earlier schools. Religious exclusiveness and the ambition of being a peculiar people, set apart from and raised above the rest
[* The Empress of Constantinople.]
[p. 113]
of humanity, appeal to the heart of every man through the sure channel of his passions. ”

“ As a rule the services are the reverse of impressive. They are in a dead language “not understanded of the people”; they are hurried over with unseemly haste; and, as in most ceremonial faiths, the profuse outward observances contrast strangely with the apparent absence of religious feeling. ”

“ He may not eat bread prepared by the heathen, for fear of undue intimacy being the result. Market bread may be bought and eaten, but on condition that it was made for sale, not for private use and then sold—it is usual to burn a bit of such bread before using it. A Jew may not eat victuals cooked by Gentiles, although vessels from a Jewish house were used in the presence of Jews—this extends even to a roasted egg. ”

“ The amount of intrigue and plotting is excessive even in a Syrian settlement, the charges bandied about by men against one another are atrocious—this doctor is a murderer, that scribe is an adulterer, and the third is a swindler and a thief. ”

“ The Hebrew scribe is supposed to be speaking.]
1 Here the scribe does not explain himself. What he refers to is the supposed system of reducing the blood to ashes.
6
[p. 82]
A Jew abandoning the faith of Israel must die the death; also he should be surely slain for all such breaches of the Law as committing adultery. All who admit the doctrine of the Trinity, whether they be Jewish perverts, Christians, Muslims, or Pagans; all Hebrews who have violated the secrets of the Synagogue; [2] and all those especially who speak against or who injure a co‐religionist, have forfeited their lives. ”

“ Others, however, whilst including all Gentiles in these Seven Tribes, assert that the prohibition was not on account of any special im­purity, such women being vermin or brute beasts not subject to the normal feminine infirmities. Thus the learned restrain their weaker brethren who might suppose that an impure Gentile woman is pure to them and who might even extend it to the case of a Jewess. ”

“ The tract Abodah Zarah, before alluded to, asserts (p. 4) that all the commandments kept by Jews [5] shall bear friendly and favourable witness in heaven before all the assembled souls of men, and to the confusion of every other faith. Hebrews dwelling out of the four Holy Cities are as idol‐worshippers, but without blame. A Jew going to a Gentile marriage feast eats impure food, although the meats be cooked by Jews and served by Jews in the presence of Jews ”

“ A descendant of the Hebrews who, learning the true God in the days of Abraham, thereby separated themselves from and exalted themselves above the rest of humanity, may not be put to death but by the decision of twenty Rabbis and on the testimony of two witnesses. ”

“ The rich divines are accused of shamelessly embezzling the Halúkah, large sums sent from Europe for the maintenance of the community; and the poor are ready with com­plaints upon the most trivial occasions—the breaking of a hen’s leg sends them on a hurried official visit to their Vice‐Consuls. It is not too much to say that if Safed again produced a theological school, it would rival in its narrow bigotry and peculiar ferocity that which disgraced the sixteenth century. ”

“ When the patient is evidently moribund, not a drop of medicine or even a drink of water must be given to him unless he ask for it himself, lest such act hasten dissolution, and make the giver guilty of having caused the death of a brother Hebrew. ”

“ But this is by no means contrary to Scripture doctrine; for instance, Jeremiah (x. 8) calls the votaries of false religion “altogether brutish and foolish.” Thus the Law and the Prophets belong exclusively to the Jews; the Gentile reading or even buying a copy should be put to death. All the books of other faiths must be burnt, even though they contain the name of Jehovah; and if any but a Hebrew write the name of God in a Bible which is not a Jewish manuscript, the volume must also be burnt.
The Jew who does not keep the Sabbath (Satur­day) 2 according to Rabbinical Law must suffer ”

“ Tract Arubim (second of the second order, Seder Moed, Of Appointed Seasons) declares (p. 62) that if a Jew live under the same roof with a Gentile who breaks the Sabbath (Saturday) ,2 the former, lest he be robbed, should drive out the latter by hiring the whole house. But he may expel the heathen as he can or as he pleases; all tenements inhabited by others than Jews are dens of beasts which cannot
1 “It is unlawful to bake or to cook on a holy day, in order to feed Gentiles or dogs ”

“ This return to Hebrew lines of thought is not a little curious, and it may be remarked that every fresh branch put forth by the tree of “Protestantism,” as it is called, invariably reverts more and more to the old type. Indeed, whenever in these days we hear of a new “religion” having been born into the world, we may determine, à priori, that it is more Jewish than its predecessors. And traces of the same operation may be found amongst the Hindu Sikhs and the Muslim Babees.
7
[p. 98] ”

“ It revels more than any known faith in the degradation of women; the Rabbinic court declares women “disqualified by the Law from giving testimony”; the Talmud excludes them from the public worship of God, and teaches that they are under no obligation to learn the re­vealed will of their Creator,—peculiarly antipathetic doctrines to those who believe in an Immaculate Virgin and in a St. Mary Magdalen. Moreover, the large space given to cursing the Jew and the non­-Jew, and to the unhallowed practices of magic and
1 Here, however, we can hardly find the Talmud alone guilty. ”

“ The most important and pregnant tenet of modern Jewish belief is that the Ger, or stranger, in fact all those who do not belong to their religion, are brute beasts, having no more rights than the fauna of the field. ”

“ The oath of a Gentile or a Samaritan cannot be taken in evidence against a Jew. If a dispute occurs between two Israelites, they must go before their own judge.1 It is sinful to have recourse to foreign tribunals, and all the decisions of the latter, when adverse to Jews, must be quashed. Although the heathen court pass sentence according to Hebrew Law, the plaintiff or denouncer becomes impious, sacri‐
1 The system of the Beth‐din (house of judgment) is kept up even in the British Islands. ”

“ This right was first conferred by Jehovah during the Exodus from Egypt, and it was confirmed to the descendants of the wanderers by the Talmud (Baba Masiaah, or Middle Gate, second of the fourth order, and Abodah Zarah, eighth of the same) .
Rabbinical religion is rampant in the kitchen. Blood first forbidden to Noah (Gen. ix. 4) , and afterwards to all the sons of Abraham (Lev. iii. 17 and vi. 30) —because it was supposed to contain the vital principle which it does not—must be drained out of the meat before this can be eaten. The
women by the latter rite only. ”

“ The School of this commentator was kept up by Moses of Trani in Apulia, who lectured during fifty‐four years to A.D. 1580, the year of his death. The next name of repute was R. Joseph Karo, or Caro, a Jew of Spanish descent, born at Constanti­nople, who died in A.D. 1575. He was a voluminous writer. In the Shoulkhan Aroukh, a code of religion adopted universally by the Israelites, he analyzed and resumed the opinions of his predecessors. ”

“ Even the Muhammadans contrast the facile manners of their own women at soft and low‐lying Tiberias with the asperity and the violence of those who inhabit the upland settlement. “Safad fasad” (Safed ever giveth trouble) is the jingling saw of the neighbourhood, and it contains abundant
1 After the second expulsion of the Templars, Sultan Bibars repeopled Safed with a colony from Damascus, and local tradition asserts that of these many were Kurds.
[p. 109]
truth. ”

“ Finally, about the middle of the second century, during the reign of Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138—161) , it was trans­ferred to Tiberias, another city of Galilee. Rabbi Yahúda, universally known as ha‐Kodesh, or the saint, was the Nashi (Prince) of his nation and the President of the Sanhedrin. He lived at Saffúríah, where there is a cave through which the Roman
1 The word clearly shows the immense effect of the Hellenic Conquest. ”