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.
Sanhedrin 54b: A Jew may have sex with a child as long as the child is less than nine years old
This is another fake translation and discussion taken completely out of context.
The discussion is specifically about forbidden relationships and whether they attract the death penalty. What’s debated here is whether a person who engages in such horrible actions is put to death.
The Sages determined that before the age of 9, children are completely unaware and don’t understand what relations are. Between the ages of 9 and 13, while they do understand, they are not considered guilty whether passive or active players. The whole discussion is about their victimizer.
The Jewish law that is codified here is that if a man forces someone between the ages of 9 and 13 to engage in sex with him, that man gets the death penalty (and his victim does not), while under the age of 9, he does not get the death penalty but rather gets lashed in public.
The fact that he gets lashes for it instead of the death penalty doesn’t mean that it’s less a crime. It is because it’s considered something other than having relations and is considered a different crime, since a child that age is unable to understand what is happening.
For the record, Jewish law also permits you to straight up kill this victimizer if you catch him in the act and it’s necessary to stop, so it’s not like he’s being protected or we don’t believe his crime is not something heinous.
