Libels about the Talmud are almost as old as the Talmud itself, and have been used as a justification for centuries of Jew-hate. Misquoting Talmudic texts or taking them out of context is an age-old method used to incite antisemitism.
In fact, most people do not even know what the Talmud is: the textual record of generations of rabbinic debate about law, philosophy, and biblical interpretation, compiled between the 3rd and 8th centuries and structured as commentary on the Mishnah with stories interwoven.
The libels continue to this very day and are being disseminated online by the worst of the worst.
The supposed quotes and meaning behind them that we are seeing these days come from a Third Reich book: Unmoral im Talmud (translation: Immorality In The Talmud) By Nazi Alfred Rosenberg.
I have decided to publish this new series as an online, easy-to-find record for fighting these libels. The responses are primarily based on those given by Rabbi Yisrael M. Eliashiv, who goes by the name Shevereshtus on Twtter/X, but in some cases also other sources. Each post will deal with one of the libels.
Yevamot 98a: All children of Goyim are animals
This is a mistranslation and something taken out of context.
It comes from a discussion about what happens when identical twin brothers converted, one marries a Jewish woman and he dies without having an heir. Does his existing brother perform levirate marriage, or give her a form of divorce?
There’s a whole debate about whether or not he’s permitted to do a levirate marriage. One of the arguments that is brought is that since there was so much licentiousness among the non-Jewish nations at the time, we couldn’t know who was anyone’s father and thus the levirate marriage wasn’t allowed.
To back this opinion, a verse from Ezekiel about the licentiousness of the Egyptians that compares their views on relationships with the way animals mate with each others without caring about who they mate with is brought. The verse is “Whose flesh is the flesh of donkeys, and whose semen is the semen of horses.”
The verse is not “children of non-Jews are animals,” nor is its meaning to be taken as such. Furthermore, the opinion was based on the behavior of the Gentile nations during that time period, and is not meant to reflect on the nature of Gentiles throughout the ages.
