New Shahak Book Challenges Jews, Christians, and Others

By the Rev. L. Humphrey Walz

Dr. Israel Shahak's regular articles in this magazine's pages have stirred many questions. Among them are: "How did a professor of organic chemistry at Hebrew University ever get to be so vocal on the interrelationships of Zionist nationalism, Orthodox Jewish politics, and Israeli violations of the human rights of non-Jews? And how did he come to devote his spare time in his professional career—full time in retirement—to researching and reporting such little known but highly pertinent facts?"

As he tells it, in his new book, Jewish History, Jewish Religion (Pluto Press, London), it all began quite unexpectedly in the mid-'60s when he inadvertently triggered a "media scandal."

One Saturday a man collapsed in a Jerusalem Jewish neighborhood. A concerned passer-by asked an Orthodox resident for permission to use his phone to call an ambulance. The householder refused, on religious grounds, stating that it was the Sabbath and the stricken person was a Gentile.

Shahak, who witnessed the event, was deeply troubled. He had been brought up in the tradition that God's requirements included the practice of mercy and justice toward all. His experiences in the Warsaw Ghetto and the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp under the Nazis had driven home to him the urgency of the universal application of this requirement. He regarded it, in fact, as central to his understanding of Judaism. Hence he approached the members of the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court with this question: Could that refusal of aid, perhaps at the cost of the victim's life, possibly accord with their understanding of the Jewish faith? To his consternation, the government-appointed rabbis replied that the person who withheld the telephone had behaved "correctly," even "piously." They confirmed their decision from "an authoritative compendium of Talmudic Law."

When his report of the incident, and the Rabbinical Court decision, appeared in the Hebrew-language daily Ha'aretz, it prompted a vigorous public exchange of views. The results he hoped for, however, didn't materialize. Neither in Israel nor abroad did any rabbinical authorities contradict the ruling that "a Jew should not violate the Sabbath to save the life of a Gentile."

Dr. Shahak had been acquainted with the role of the Talmud as the official body of Jewish laws and commentaries developed and interpreted by rabbis in the first through the eighth centuries and enforceable by rabbinates ever since. He had not, however, been aware of the degree to which its rulings were, and in application continue to be, anti-Gentile and, especially, anti-Christian. Their sacrosanct status with Israel's "religious" political parties will make his fifth chapter on "The Laws Against the Gentiles" particularly worrisome to Palestinians, not to say perplexing to some interfaith dialoguers.

"A Jew should not violate the Sabbath to save the life of a Gentile."

From that chapter come the following samples pertaining to the taking of human life: Murdering a Jew, no matter by whom, is a capital offense. But "a Jew who murders a Gentile is guilty only of a sin against the laws of Heaven" (punishment for which is left in the hands of God). A Gentile who murders a Gentile and converts to Judaism is also to go judicially unpunished. For a Jew to cause the death of a Gentile indirectly (say, by removing a ladder after he has fallen in a crevice) is permissible unless it may cause the spread of hostility toward Jews.

Although the State of Israel's criminal laws do not openly distinguish between Jew and Gentile, the Talmud does. The resultant published counsel circulated to Israeli soldiers by military chaplains and rabbinic advisers, as excerpted at length by Shahak, comes close to being a warrant for ethnic cleansing in wartime.

"As for Gentiles with whom we are not at war," Maimonides, the celebrated twelfth century Talmud codifier, decreed, "their death may not be caused, but it is forbidden to save them if they are at the point of death; if, for example, one of them is seen falling into the sea, he should not be rescued...." The modern carry-over to a Gentile needing an ambulance—or to many another possible or actual circumstance—is easy to conceive.

The weight of history, Shahak maintains, brought such discriminatory attitudes and segregationist practices into being and embedded them into Jewish consciousness, self-perceptions and community structures. The weight of positive trends in modern history as he sees them, however, calls for replacement with more democratic and humanly inclusive concepts and practices.

For Israel and world Jewry, as for any other country and people, such a transition has two prerequisites: "First, total honesty about the facts and, secondly, the belief (leading to action where possible) in universalist human principles and politics."

As experienced and observed by Shahak, a major obstacle encountered by those who wish to contribute positively to the process of transition has been the "deceitful, sentimental and ultra-romantic Jewish historiography from which all inconvenient facts have been expunged."

Filling in the resultant gaps and correcting related misinformation is handicapped, Shahak writes, by the added factor that "almost all the so-called Jewish studies in Judaism are polemics against an external enemy, rather than an internal debate." His chapter on related "Prejudice and Prevarication," especially in its sub-section, "The Deception Continues," reveals the complexity of the problems and pitfalls the would-be fact-finder and fact-teller must inevitably face.

To its American Christian readers, his Jewish History, Jewish Religion will bring a two-fold challenge to: 1) frankly discuss with Jews the remedial handling of the divisive, offensive calumnies against the New Testament, Jesus and Christianity perpetuated in Israeli education and "religious" political parties, and by the U.S. "Jewish establishment," and 2) be supportive of such Jewish efforts as may stimulate the internal Israeli and American Jewish organizational self-democratization the author pleads for.

News of Dr. Shahak's impending U.S. speaking tour can be found in the "Bulletin Board," on page 110 of this issue. His monthly Translations from the Hebrew Press, formerly published by the American Educational Trust, is now available from the Middle East Data Center, P.O. Box 337, Woodbridge, VA 22194. So are the occasional Shahak Papers which scrutinize and interpret current social, economic, religious and political realities from the perspective of readers of the Hebrew-language press. His article on "The Religious Settlers: Instruments of Israeli Domination" in the current Washington, DC-based quarterly Middle East Policy is typically enlightening.

More Church Leaders Die in Iran

Two prominent Christian pastors, Rev. Tateos Michaelian, former head of the Presbyterian Synod of Iran, and Rev. Mehdi Dibaj of the Assemblies of God, have been murdered this year in Iran. As noted in our April/May issue, Dibaj was released earlier this year after spending nine years on death row in an Iranian prison for "apostasy" (becoming a Christian). His release was credited to a U.N. investigation and related publicity prompted by Bishop Haik Hovsepian-Mehr. Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr was assassinated only days after the release of Michaelian, who then succeeded him as chairman of the Council of Protestant Ministers in Iran.

In this context, U.S. Presbyterian offices have expressed "growing concerns that groups within Iran are determined to wipe out the Christian community or paralyze it with fears and force it into quietism by eliminating its leadership. The Iranian government seems unable or unwilling to end such acts of terror against its citizens and to protect religious minorities."

The few Christians still in Iran hardly pose any threat.

The Iranian government countered by blaming the principal opposition group, the Mojahedin Khalq, for the murder. Massoud Rajavi, leader of the Mojahedin, accused the government of committing the crimes, and also of exploding a bomb at a Muslim religious shrine as a provocation against the opposition organization.

President Jacques Stewart of the Protestant Federation of France expressed to Iran's ambassador in Paris his distress that "intolerance has taken more victims." General Secretary Gunnar Staalsett of the Lutheran World Federation has written from Geneva to Kamal Kharrazi, Iran's ambassador to the U.N., expressing "grave and growing concern [about] the recent spate of disappearances and/or murders of Christian leaders in Iran."

World Council of Churches officials have sent a similar communication and condolences to the victims' surviving colleagues. News Network International further reports widespread protests from governments and non-governmental organizations, noting that the few Christians still in Iran hardly pose any threat to the country's well-being. Most of Iran's 62 million people are Shi'i Muslims. Minority groups include 3.5 million Sunni Muslims, 350,000 Baha'is, who also are suffering persecution, 80,000 Christians and 30,000 Jews, according to Iranian government statistics.

Because of American politicians' temptation to exploit current U.S.-Iranian tensions by portraying Iran and Islam as enemies of the West, the Presbyterian Church USA has advised members of its Middle East Peace Network not to press Congress or the administration for strong statements which could be counterproductive on this matter. It advises, rather, writing Jose Ayala Lasso, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the Center for Human Rights, New York, NY 10017, and sending copies to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Madeleine Albright at 799 U.N. Plaza, New York, NY 10017. It also sees this situation and continuing unwarranted imprisonments in Iran as an opportunity to "reach out to the Islamic community to find mutual solutions to inter-faith and inter-ethnic conflict" and to make it clear to fellow Americans that both Christianity and Islam "call upon all in authority to protect the weak and disadvantaged."

Israelis Invade Lutheran Hospital

As we go to press, the Lutheran World Federation has yet to receive a satisfactory Israeli explanation for the July 2 military raid on its Augusta Victoria Hospital, including maternity and children's wards, in East Jerusalem. Describing physical abuse, intimidation and pointing of guns at the patients by the Israeli soldiers, David Johnson, LWF Jerusalem representative, called the invasion "systematic and disciplined but sometimes violent."

The spacious hospital, located on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, was originally built as a hostel for Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land. Since the 1948 creation of Israel, it has been used in collaboration with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to provide medical and surgical services to uprooted Palestinians.

After its 1967 occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli government tried to confiscate the property on the grounds of alleged collaboration with the enemy! Although it has not resumed that effort, Israeli roadblocks seriously impede access to Augusta Victoria by the refugees and Gentile locals its services are intended to help.

Sudan Hosts Western Christian Guests

Civil war between the Sudanese central government in the mostly Arab/"Muslim" north and the mostly Black/"Christian" Sudan People's Liberation Army in the south has turned the economy of the "Breadbasket of Africa" into a basketcase and prevented developing natural resources, including oil, for the public good. In human terms, it has cost some million lives and uprooted another five million people.

The Sudanese government claims that Western press reports of mistreatment of refugees from the south have unfairly stigmatized Sudan. To help change that image, it has invited a number of Western Christians to come for a personal look. Among recent guests were nine Midwestern church people, one of whom, Rev. Frank Baldwin of First United Church, Oak Park, IL, wrote up his detailed reactions for the July 20 Christian Century. His readers will conclude that, as a public relations venture, the Sudanese government's hospitality was less productive than it apparently expected.

After closely monitored tours and selective personal contacts, "we were interviewed by the Sudanese press," Baldwin writes. "Regardless of what we said, we were 'quoted' as affirming Sudanese government policies and refuting allegations that Sudan sponsors terrorism and denying any violations of human rights. Previous visiting dignitaries, including Pope John Paul II and U.N. envoys, have been similarly 'quoted.'"

In January the Archbishop of Canterbury, objecting to restrictions in the government's proposed guest itinerary, went instead via Nairobi to visit Christians in the rebellious south. The government called this decision "an affront to Sudan's sovereignty" and expelled the British ambassador in protest.

The Midwestern visitors were, nonetheless, able to make contacts throughthe Sudan Council of Churches, which includes Catholics and 11 other Christian entities.

"No church can be built," the visitors were told, "without government permission," which keeps congregations waiting indefinitely. "Sanctuaries built without permission are bulldozed," they were told. Travel permits to church conferences abroad are especially awkward to negotiate. Christian students suffer discrimination. "Christian judges and civil servants have been removed. Morality police are stationed at street corners to enforce Muslim law. There is always the risk that those who criticize the government will disappear or be tortured." Nonetheless, "the churches continue to grow."

Various factors do exist, moreover, which could lead to governmental improvement, even if slowly and painfully. Inflation and food and fuel shortages have weakened the government's credibility at home as well as abroad. The U.N.'s February report documenting human rights violations in Sudan, though rejected by the government as "blaspheming Islam," has had a sobering impact. One can always hope, Baldwin wrote, that memories of "childhoods when Christians and Muslims lived peacefully side by side in the same village....even under the same family roof," will help generate momentum toward a better day.

Local "Handshake" Anniversary Celebrations Proposed

The U.S. Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East, 2920 Holme Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19136, has called upon its members to stimulate grassroots observances of Sept. 13, the first anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Principles for Peace by Israel and the PLO. Achievements of the globally televised handshake on the White House lawn, the Committee believes, merit observances of its results and discussions of difficulties still unresolved.

The introduction to a six-page memorandum from the Committee's Muslim, Christian and Jewish co-chairs comments that "everyone is aware that the road to peace is still very difficult. This makes it even more important for Jews, Christians and Muslims to come together to reflect on the sources for peace in our faith, to listen to each other's hopes and fears and to rededicate ourselves to working together for lasting peace in the Middle East."

After presenting ideas and guidelines for local observances, the memorandum analyzes "Crucial Issues Still to Be Negotiated." These include Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders and modes of cooperation. Reciprocal, open interfaith dialogue, the Committee suggests, can contribute to clarifying and resolving related problems. For discussion starters it presents the answers of a dozen seasoned activists to the question, "Where do we go from here?"

Heading the list, which includes former Assistant Secretaries of State Harold Saunders and Richard Murphy, is the Carter administration's Middle East adviser, William Quandt. With them are Khalil Jahshan of the National Association of Arab Americans, David Wortman of the Philadelphia Jewish Community Relations Council, Rabbi Joseph Eisenkranz of Sacred Heart University's Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding, Tom Smerling of Project NISHMA, Albert Mokhiber of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Judith Hertz of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Abdurahman Alamoudi of the American Muslim Council, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg of the World Jewish Congress and David Shipler, formerly of The New York Times.

Also included are prayers by Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, Rev. Carol A. Jensen and Abdelwahab Hechiche, based on cited portions of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Holy Qur'an.

MECC Expands Human Rights Involvements

At the annual Middle East Council of Churches' Human Rights Training Seminar in August 1993, participants in the two-week session from across the Middle East suggested that MECC's Department of Justice, Peace and Human Rights establish a Human Rights Institute as a "ministry and witness of the Christian Church" to the region.

MECC has informed this year's human rights seminar in Limassol, Cyprus, that funds now are available for a one-year ecumenical feasibility study of the proposal. The study is to concentrate initially on relations with human rights organizations in just six countries: Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. It will expand as circumstances and funds permit.

Among foreign consultants included in the new enterprise is the Rev. Dr. Donald Wagner of the Evanston, IL-based Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding, who also serves Mercy Corps International. He expects the challenge of exclusivist "religious extremists" to stay high on the agenda, along with the extension and strengthening of ecumenical and interfaith joint endeavors.

Eastern Orthodox Glimpses into the Balkan Tragedy

For his fellow-American co-religionists, Eastern Orthodox Brother Isaac Melton edits the quarterly Doxa (Greek for "Opinion") in Canones, NM. In its pages he reports unfamiliar phases of history, theology, and denominational, ecumenical and interfaith events.

The current issue's "News from Serbia" brings both hopeful and distressing items from the devastated Balkans. Candidly and vividly it gives insights into "religious" factors that have enhanced the conflict there. Contrastingly, it also reports evidences of significant interreligious good will.

On the first day of this year's Muslim holy month of Ramadan, it notes, Patriarch Pavle I of Serbia, accompanied by several Orthodox bishops, made an official visit to Islamic headquarters in Belgrade. There, he and the key Muslim leader in the area, Mufti Handija Jusufspahic, whom he calls "a good friend," co-drafted a joint public plea to "end the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in the other regions of former Yugoslavia." The atmosphere of the meeting, Doxa quotes the Croatian daily Vjesnic (Messenger) as saying, was "open and friendly." The urgency of implementing their plea has long been familiar to regular readers of the Washington Report.

A different kind of cooperation, this time by the Catholic bishop of Mostar, made it possible for Serbian Orthodox Bishop Athanasius to make his first pastoral visit in many months to his diocese in the areas under the control of Croatian independence forces. This thoughtful gesture had both cheering and heartrending aspects. It opened the door for Athanasius to bring communion to many villages. It also let him see some of the ways some of his parishes had "gone with the wind." His report to Patriarch Pavle I includes these observations:

"We were profoundly saddened and upset by what we discovered. The Monastery of Jitomislic is totally destroyed, the church razed, the belltower and the new two-story building has been mined, and they burned down the old building as well as the monastery school. In Stolac, the 18th century church was burned down. On the route from Domanovici to Caplijina, a number of Serbian and also Moslem houses are no more than ashes and rubble....Out of 550 Serbian villages in Herzegovina, about 200 have been depopulated and destroyed; 35 churches are damaged or razed, as well as two ancient monasteries and the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity and the Episcopal Residence in Mostar."

Amidst this turmoil, Brother Isaac emphasizes, "The Serbian Orthodox Church has repeatedly, openly, and severely condemned the war, and favors negotiations."

Rev. L. Humphrey Walz, D.D., retired associate executive of the Presbyterian Synod of the Northeast, is active in ecumenical and peacemaking activities.