Sunday, July 08, 2007
FROM JEWISH TRIBAL REVIEW
"What emerged for me, from the study of the first chapters [of Sefer Hatanya, the central works of the Chabad ultra-Orthodox organization] and their antecedents was the discovery that the main stream of Jewish thought is permeated by genetic spiritual superiority of Jews over Gentiles, disconcertingly reminiscent of racist notions of our time. Living in Israel for the past twenty years in a Jewish majority that is no more sensitive to the feelings of minorities than Gentile majorities are ... [with] Jews in their midst, I have come to realize the vitality of Jewish racist notions, and I am more than ever convinced that the hold Judaism will have on this and future generations will be gravely impaired unless these notions are neutralized by an internal reordering of traditional values."
Moshe Greenberg,
A Problematic Heritage. The Attitudes Toward the Gentile in the Jewish Tradition: An Israeli Perspective.
Conservative Judaism, Winter 1996, p. 33.
