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 57a: When a Jew murders a Gentile, there will be no death penalty
This is a mistranslation, plus something taken completely out of context.
Here, there is a whole discussion about the Seven Laws of Noah, a set of universal moral laws which, according to the Talmud, were given by God as a covenant with Noah and with the “sons of Noah”—that is, all of humanity. The discussion revolves around whether a non-Jew who transgresses them is liable to the death penalty or not. Here the Talmud states that laws against murder are stronger for non-Jews.
As is codified in Halacha, a non-Jew who kills a fetus, for example, is going to be put to death, while it might not be the case for a Jew depending on the case. Same if he killed someone who was dying, or put them in a situation where they died indirectly because of him.
So, if a non-Jew hired a hitman, locked someone and left them to starve to death, or pushed them in front of a lion, they will be put to death while a Jew might not be in this situation. That doesn’t mean that a Jew is allowed to do such a thing; the Jew will in fact be punished.
The only distinction here is that “seven mitzvot (commandments) you can’t violate, you can do whatever you want but otherwise you deserve the death penalty if you violate them.” Think of it like Adam in the Garden of Eden being told he has one thing to do, and one thing only. Breaking it is much worse.
Since for Jews there are 613 mitzvot to keep instead of seven, there are more punishments than just the death penalty/nothing, which means that in certain cases, a Jew might be punished with lashes or spend the rest of his life in prison versus being put to death.
This doesn’t mean that non-Jewish lives don’t matter.
I should also note that according to Talmudic law, the authority to apply capital punishment ceased with the destruction of the Second Temple. The Mishnah states that a Sanhedrin that executes one person in seven years — or seventy years, according to Eleazar ben Azariah — is considered bloodthirsty.
