brendan wrote:CGW wrote:
One of the Amazon reviews deserves to be quoted in its entirety:
It seems obvious to me that the author of this book and most of his most favorable reviewers have little or no formal education in Judaism or comparative Western religions. I always find it illuminating, when a book so polarizes its reviewers here on Amazon, to look at the other reviews written by the readers. Here it was particularly illuminating because the readers who laud this book so far beyond its merits have equally championed books that can only be described as out there on the fringe.
Israel Shahak studied to be a rabbi before he decided to go into chemistry. The fact is he is very familiar with Jewish teachings and, besides, his books are well-documented.
Actually, Brendan, I don't think you are necessarily competent to inform me how well-documented his books are. If you are going to dismiss Amazon reviews because you don't know who the authors are, then it simply stands to reason that I may dismiss your review of Shahak's work on the same ground-- or more strongly, because I'm almost certain that you have no grounding in (among other things) Talmudic studies.
Meanwhile...
That review really proves nothing. Anyone can post a review on Amazon. These are not peer-reviewed and the authors are unknown.
Ah, but see, I didn't post it as proof, but rather as a suggestion of how the reviews are useful. Frankly, I tend to discount positive reviews in Amazon, unless I can find something out about the reviewer (which one can, to some degree, by checking out their other reviews). Negative reviews typically are useful because they have little choice but to address the content of the book. And even then there is a little information to be ferreted out of positive reviews. Plenty of these, especially in this sort of work, are obviously written by people who read the books to have their existing beliefs ratified. And in this case that turns out to be interesting....
OTOH, Kevin MacDonald is a tenured professor in psychology who's field of specialization is evolutionary psychology. He's written a number of academic books and articles in this area. If anyone has the credentials to write a credible book about Jewish group behavior, he does.
Ah, but that's also an interesting point. It seems pretty clear that he didn't set out to write that book on Jewish group behavior. That is, he didn't write a book about how there is a willful conspiracy spread over individual Jews; rather, he wrote a book treating the Jewish subculture as if it were an organism, discussing it in terms of what "it" does to ensure "its" survival.
Nearly everyone who reads the book seems to reify this "organism" into a real, organized Judaism. These readers then divide sharply into a group which already believe in this organization, and thus interpret it as justifying their beliefs; and a group which don't believe in this organization, and thus read the work as anti-Semitic. MacDonald seems a bit puzzled by this, because it appears that he refuses the same reification.
As far as this exchange is concerned, however, I note that you have turned away from my doubt that the Talmud actually teaches what you claim it teaches. Now, since you have presumably read and, I suspect, own a copy of MacDonald's book, and since you have essentially shifted to using it as your chief authority, it's only reasonable that you cough up a few citations, giving sufficient information to enable either of us to look up the Talmudic passages in context.
There's also the deeper problem that the Talmud doesn't speak for Jews; nor is it an authority acknowledged by all. If all Jews followed the conclusions of the Talmud (and by extension, the rabbis who consult it), then they would all be Orthodox. In reality, relatively few are.
Also, as I hinted earlier, the same sort of analysis can be turned upon Christianity, leading (for instance) to a depiction of its essentially genocidal nature. In the case of Christendom, this mindset is more obviously fallacious, because the various denominations and churches show it to not be an organic whole (at least on earth). But any realistic examination of Jewish culture shows that it also lacks this organization. It's just easier to believe otherwise because much of Judaism lacks any visible organization at all, leaving room for the postulation of hidden organization.
