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alexist at 06:38pm on 31/12/2004
alexist at 06:38pm on 31/12/2004I needed books. ;-) Failed to be inspired in Foyles, so we went across the road to Borders. I got 2 novels, a cookery book, and a DVD.
I was not pleased to see Israel Shahak's Jewish History, Jewish Religion for sale in Foyles. It's basically an anti-Semitic hate tract, which Shahak got away with because he's Jewish. Shamefully, it gets many 5 star reviews on Amazon, because it SEEMS impressive, with quotes from the Talmud and so on. The trouble is that it's very bad, selective quoting: since the Talmud records a great variety of opinions, not just the accepted ones, it's easy to pick out offensive quotes. (You could just as easily pick out a crazed imam and say "This is Islam.") This is mixed with blatant falsehoods (such as the story about an Orthodox Jew refusing to violate the Sabbath to save the life of a non-Jew--Shahak was forced to admit that the incident did not take place, but continued to repeat the story for decades!) Ironically, if this were France no respectable bookshop would stock it: it's published by La Vielle Taupe, the neo-Nazi publishing house. I'm not advocating censorship, but I do worry about anti-Semitic hate being presented as objective research, and people buying and believing it.
(Have a look at http://www.lukeford.net/profiles/profiles/israel_shahak.htm, http://andrew.mathis.net/shahak.html and http://www.wernercohn.com/Shahak.html, which includes the link to Lord Jacobovits' article on the Shabbat incident.)
I was not pleased to see Israel Shahak's Jewish History, Jewish Religion for sale in Foyles. It's basically an anti-Semitic hate tract, which Shahak got away with because he's Jewish. Shamefully, it gets many 5 star reviews on Amazon, because it SEEMS impressive, with quotes from the Talmud and so on. The trouble is that it's very bad, selective quoting: since the Talmud records a great variety of opinions, not just the accepted ones, it's easy to pick out offensive quotes. (You could just as easily pick out a crazed imam and say "This is Islam.") This is mixed with blatant falsehoods (such as the story about an Orthodox Jew refusing to violate the Sabbath to save the life of a non-Jew--Shahak was forced to admit that the incident did not take place, but continued to repeat the story for decades!) Ironically, if this were France no respectable bookshop would stock it: it's published by La Vielle Taupe, the neo-Nazi publishing house. I'm not advocating censorship, but I do worry about anti-Semitic hate being presented as objective research, and people buying and believing it.
(Have a look at http://www.lukeford.net/profiles/profiles/israel_shahak.htm, http://andrew.mathis.net/shahak.html and http://www.wernercohn.com/Shahak.html, which includes the link to Lord Jacobovits' article on the Shabbat incident.)
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