Rating: 
Summary: Excellent introduction to Shahak's position
Review: "Jewish History, Jewish Religion" is an excellent, concisely written introduction to the ideas of the late Israeli dissenter Israel Shahak (in fact, it almost reads like an abridged edition of a larger book, so unfortunately brief it is). Perhaps closest to Shahak's ideas that I have seen in a current writer would be Israel Shamir, an Israeli journalist- their position is essentially, simply, anti-Zionist, for, as Shahak questions, how can Palestinians really have any justice in a land officially recognized as a "Jewish state," and exclusively a Jewish state?The author's arguments are compelling, supported by a strong grasp of his people's history and of talmudic law (he goes to great efforts to show how the racism latent in talmudic writing does influence the Israel of today, notwithstanding one critic's argument that virtually all religions contain hateful- but obsolete- passages). A warning though: this book is designed as a brief overview of the author's position, but will serve as a crash-course of shocking "hate" to the uneducated and/or close-minded in its searing indictments of the Israeli government and even the Jewish people collectively. These are things that people have become so accustomed to not saying that it is difficult to grasp when a writer does have the courage to speak up. For example, the fact of numerous Zionists' enthusiasm for and collaboration with Hitler, including Israel's first prime minister, helps to show that Zionism is similar if not identical to extreme racism; plenty more facts detailing the government's scorn of its Palestinian subjects (in comparison with South African apartheid, he boldly claims, Palestinians are worse off, because they cannot actually own land, and cannot even legally work in the Jewish state- this has interesting solutions) support this. And how about government-sponsored New Testament-burning in Tel Aviv, he asks? The author discusses the Sabbath and related policies and talmudic literature in depth, and he offers up the choicest quotes as he makes quite an effort as showing the link between talmudic racism and the Israeli government's actual policies, beginning with the rather shocking opening story of the book (which involves what would probably be considered homicide in most countries). Shahak's work here is by no means comprehensive but is an excellent overview and concise dictionary of the late chemistry professor and Holocaust survivor's views and criticisms of his country.
Rating:
Summary: AN EXCELLENT WORK!!
Review: Although I would say that this may not be acceptable reading for Reactionaries..of any race or religion, I found this book to have been highly educational and enlightening. Shahak has a style of writing that will quench a thirsty reader. As an individual who studies religion I can now finally understand one event in the Christian New Testement...that concerning the woman taken in adultery. I have wondered for years why only SHE was to be stoned and not the man. After reading some of the Talmudic laws concerning non-Jews it is now clearly before me that this woman had to be a Gentile. It is also clear that interferring and saving this Gentile woman's life by the Jew called Yesu would have caused great anger amoung the Priests for breaking the religious law. This act and others would have certainly provoked the Priests to seek his death. This type of thing is seen over and over again in history where ANY religion is threatened by new and conflicting ideas. As with ALL books it is good to investigate other books that pertain to this subject.
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Summary: A Timely Historical Text To Challenge Myths
Review: Dr. Israel Shahak deserves a literary prize and a commendation from the international community in his painstaking effort to examine the complicated and often confusing history of the world's oldest monotheistic faith. His courage in presenting a highly informative and scholarly work such as this in a country where many of his fellow Israeli citizens consider him a "self-hating Jew" shows the determination of an individual to present sometimes unpleasant facts without fear of potential consequences. Shahak's book needs to be read by religious scholars and students to help them shatter the myths that are often parroted as facts in mainstream media and culture. (p) Israel Shahak is unfortunately no longer with us to continue his work in disseminating knowledge and information in areas considered too sensitive to challenge or question because of the overwhelming influence of special interest groups. Shahak's book should be an eye opener to many and serve as a useful guide to do further research for those who have unquestionably accepted facts relating to the concept of a "Lord's Chosen People".
Rating: 
Summary: An profoundly anti-Jewish book
Review: Far from being anti-semitic this book is actually the pyrimid of neo-fascism, a virtual bible of anti-jewish hate speech. This book claims that the Jewish faith has been abducted by orthodox Judaism and corrupted through the use of the Talmud and other religious texts. Unfortunatly the exivdence is lax and mostly unsubstantiated. Many of the footnotes are quotes come from 'eminent historians' but these 'primary sources' turn out to be nothing more then Jewish converts to christianity, writing about why they left their religion. Anyone will recognize the frequently the most fanatical people are the converts, and thus these sources are weak at best, lies at worst. This book makes many offensive claims and beyond the claims its contention that modern Judaism is far seperated from the original faith is not proved. This book does not hide its anti-semitism, rather many quotes clearly show that the authors approved of pogroms in eastern europe and the writing here clearly argues that terror is not only good but is actually totally acceptable. Not objective and very offensive.
Rating: 
Summary: Casually written defamations
Review: I have plenty of complaints with monotheistic religions. I think that it is more natural for humans, a varied and fickle bunch, to worship a large number of gods and goddesses. I think that monotheistic theology makes little sense in many other ways. I mistrust many monotheistic traditions and rules. And I think that monotheistic versions of history are often terribly flawed. I'm a polytheistic liberal humanist.
However, in no way would I abide propaganda that serves to support religious wars against monotheism in general, nor against various monotheistic factions. That goes for Jezebel fighting Jews, Pagans fighting Christians, the Crusades, various Muslim jihads, Saint Bartholomew's night, and so forth. Nor do I think that one ought to deprive monotheist factions of human rights. And this book serves to encourage just this sort of thing. Far from being a sober critique of monotheism or Judaism, it is simply a collection of misrepresentations of Judaism which are so extreme that they serve to encourage violence against Jews.
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Summary: Such views are usually censored...
Review: I highly recommend reading the book "Jewish history, Jewish Religion". Its author, Israel Shahak, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, engages in deep introspection about Jewish religion and practices. He seems deeply toubled by the rigidity, and intolerance of Jewish religion. Shahak quotes from the Talmud and points out a pervasive Jewish racism and haughtiness toward non-Jews. He believes that anti-semitism may have its roots in this historic Jewish mindset. Shahak also points out a wide-spread practice of deception and double-speak. In writing this book, he hopes that other Jews will engage in similar introspection to estabish a more harmonious relationship with Goyims. Recommended books: 'The Holocaust Industry' (by Finkelstein) 'An Eye for an Eye' (John Sack)
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Summary: A guide to understanding Israel.
Review: In his most illuminating and disturbing book Professor Shahak takes the lid off previously hidden Orthodox Jewish beliefs and practices. He explains how these beliefs are at the heart of the Zionist adventure and constitute a major influence upon Israeli government policies and actions. We are made aware of the paradox of a largely secular state basing its raison d'etre and future direction upon biblical text. The depth of Orthodox Jewish antipathy toward the gentile, and especially toward Christianity (and Jesus) will come as an unsettling surprise to the many millions of American evangelical Christians who uncritically accept a fawning admiration of all things Israeli repeatedly displayed by the TV evangelists. Frightening, too, is the near-total control of most Jewish organizations now in the hands of Zionists; it is now almost impossible for a Jew to openly disassociate him or herself from, let alone be critical of, the state of Israel or the aims of Zionism. Whereas the critical gentile must be an 'anti-Semite' so must the critical Jew be 'self-hating'. Whatever your point of view on the situation in Israel, whatever your religion or philosophical perspective, however deeply you hold your convictions, you cannot fail to be challenged by this marvelous book.
Rating: 
Summary: flawed but important
Review: Shahak said there could be no Palestinian "Bantustan" offer - he was wrong, as we have seen with Oslo and Camp David-2000. So fundamentalism is not so strong in modern Jewish minds.
Yet Jewish chauvinism and the romanticization of the Jewish past are still very common, and Jewish chauvinists have much more influence in the U.S. (and perhaps Israel) than they did when Shahak wrote this. That is why I encourage people to read this book, to abandon apologetics about Jewish innocence and powerlessness and move on to more realistic views of Judaism and Jewish/Gentile relations, past and present.
Of course, this book is not itself a balanced account, but rather a critique of the Talmud and Jewish apologetics exclusively, a countervailing force to destroy the current bias on these matters.
Rating:
Summary: flawed but important
Review: Shahak said there could be no Palestinian "Bantustan" offer - he was wrong, as we have seen with Oslo and Camp David-2000. So fundamentalism is not so strong in modern Jewish minds.
Yet Jewish chauvinism and the romanticization of the Jewish past are still very common, and Jewish chauvinists have much more influence in the U.S. (and perhaps Israel) than they did when Shahak wrote this. That is why I encourage people to read this book, to abandon apologetics about Jewish innocence and powerlessness and move on to more realistic views of Judaism and Jewish/Gentile relations, past and present.
Of course, this book is not itself a balanced account, but rather a critique of the Talmud and Jewish apologetics exclusively, a countervailing force to destroy the current bias on these matters.
Rating:
Summary: Valuable empirical material, seriously flawed historiography
Review: The author (the late professor Israel Shahak) provides a comprehensive summary of racist elements in talmudic sources, which (in his opinion) reveals that anti-Gentile racism is built into and deeply codified in Orthodox ("Classical") Judaism. The book also deals with Israeli politics and Jewish History, since (as Shahak claims) this inherently racist world view has influenced Jewish attitudes to Gentiles from the Middle Ages to the present. Shahak's approach to Orthodox Judaism is analogous to that of "Endecktes Judenthum" (Judaism Unmasked) by Johann Andreas Eisenmenger (1654-1704), an established Christian scholar who produced a similar compilation of offensive material from talmudic sources (see Jacob Katz's "From Prejudice to Destruction"). However, Eisenmenger and Shahak acted in different historical and political contexts: while the former was criticizing the religion of a weak and oppressed minority from a position of power, the latter was a political activist confronting the same religion, but now turned into the state religion of a modern nation state (Israel). As Shahak argues, convincingly, the symbiotic alliance between Zionist ideology and religious orthodoxy implies that clericalism and institutionalized discrimination against non-Jews are inherent (not circumstantial) features of the Israeli state. In this context and notwithstanding skepticism regarding Shahak's exegesis of Orthodox Judaism, the book has brought to a wide readership empirical material of undeniable value in contemporary political debate, since talmudic sources provide ideological sanction to many groups that play an important role in internal Jewish and Israeli politics and in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Unfortunately, the historiographical work that accompanies the book's critique of Jewish religion and Zionism is seriously flawed. Shahak is more concerned in condemning Jewish racism than in achieving a critical but well balanced explanation of Jewish-Gentile relations. While he correctly criticizes apologetic historiographies that stress anti-Semitism and ignore Jewish racism, the alternative he has produced is a long moralistic and polemical pamphlet that reduces the History of the Jews to the History of Jewish racism (something equivalent to judging the servings of a restaurant by sampling only its rubbish bin). Thus, for example, all that readers unfamiliar with Jewish History will learn about an important Jewish political-cultural movement like the Bund, is that its leaders where prejudiced against Gentile peasants (a claim which Shahak fails to substantiate). While Jewish racism (as any other racism) is clearly immoral, Shahak's purely moralistic approach to this issue ignores the different conditions in which Jews related to Gentiles throughout history. Shahak is not justified in judging anti-Gentile racism of Jews who lived as ethno-religious minorities in historical circumstances of political weakness, persecution and discrimination, with the same standards as the anti-Semitism of the Gentile majority (like equating the racism of Blacks with that of White supremacists). Certainly, these considerations do not apply to West Bank settlers, who rule over an oppressed Gentile (Palestinian) population by means of the full political and military apparatus of the Israeli state. However, Shahak makes no distinctions: he castigates every manifestation of Jewish racism (regardless of which Jews are involved) with angry, often sarcastic, vitriol. As a contrast, his condemnation of anti-Semitism and Nazism is correct and sanitized, even polite. Perhaps this explains why this book is so popular among anti-Jewish hate groups and web sites. Throughout the book Shahak makes questionable judgments on various Jewish individuals and groups. Anti-Jewish massacres in medieval times are justified as liberating acts by oppressed peasants that should be "applauded" by "progressive historians". I wonder if any "progressive historian" would agree to this demagogic glorification of mob revenge (even if done by former victims: imagine Jewish mobs slaughtering German civilians after WWII). Shahak claims (page 17), without providing evidence, that left wing parties have been infiltrated by "disguised Jewish racists" on behalf of a sinister "Jewish interest" (a vaguely defined ethnic loyalty). Shahak justifies this contention by arguing that Jewish leftists have never denounced the kibbutz for systematically excluding non-Jews. While Shahak's criticism of Jewish leftists tending to play down racism in Israel is justified, his allegations about a secret Jewish conspiracy on this issue are pure demagoguery. Another example concerns American rabbis campaigning for civil rights who failed to denounce Maimonides' anti-Black passages (pages 25-26). Shahak is right in criticizing them, but this issue alone cannot justify his unwarranted accusation that they were "secret racists" whose support for Martin Luther King was dishonest. As a contrast, XIX century European anti-Semites are sympathetically described (page 66) as "bewildered men who believed in conspiracy theories, hated modern society and cast the Jew as the scapegoat", as if their anti-Semitism was a harmless detail that did not merit condemnation. Thus, Shahak expects absolute moral integrity only from Jews, excusing nuances and contradictions in the behavior of non-Jews. According to Shahak, most Jews nowadays (except for some individual "Jews by descent" who have internalized the values of Popper's "Open Society") are willing prisoners of a sort of totalitarian Orwellian anti-utopia, a modern incarnation of the old "closed" Jewish society, demanding uncritical support for the State of Israel, just as in the "closed" medieval communities rabbis demanded absolute obedience to religious law. Although this is an interesting historical analogy, it is a flawed substitute for a proper understanding of the complex interplay between modern Jewish identity and contemporary politics. In spite of containing valuable material, its deficient historiographical methodology and the contemptuous dismissal of all studies of Jewish History and religion carried on by Jews (other than the author), detracts from this book being a scholarly work. ...
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