Page 55 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg

one and wound round his neck; one witness draws one end towards
himself, and the other draws the other towards himself, until the
criminal opens his mouth. In the meantime one heats lead and pours
it into his mouth so that it goes down to his entrails and burns
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them".
Through the laws of the peoples hosting the Jews this
brutality was countered, which however did not prevent attempts in
this direction from being continued until the present time. But
especially in earlier times the rabbis did not have any mercy either
in the case of individual persons or of apostate sects. Through
excommunication and economic boycott the Talmudists were able
to suppress every other intellectual movement. Instructive in this
context is the history of the Karaites (Karaes or Karaims).
These rejected the scholarly discussions of the Jewish
scholars of the Talmud and held strictly to the word of the Old
Testament law. Scattered through the countries, they lived in bitter
conflict with the other Jewish communities.
They were reviled everywhere and polemical writings were
composed against them wherein a scholar from Toledo, Abraham
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Ben Dior, distinguished himself particularly and criticised the
Karaites powerfully. Not content with that, every social and human
communication with them was stopped and kept them from their
undertakings at every turn.
The result was that the Karaites gradually disappeared from
the West, from Spain, for example, where they had been most
numerous already long before the expulsion of the Jews from this
country. They moved increasingly to the East and existed only as
small colonies in the south of Russia, especially in the Crimea, and
in small numbers in Palestine. A similar enmity existed between the
Rabbanites and the Sadducees. Wherever the number of one
community was greater than that of the other, a constant terrorism
over the minority was exercised. Normally the Rabbanites, as by
far the most numerous, were the definite victors and pressurised the
Sadducees, but, wherever possible, the latter did not give in to them.

83
Sanhedrin, fol.52a.
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[Abraham Ben Dior (d. 1 1 99) was a rabbi from Toledo.]
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