Page 76 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

The Track of the Jew through the Ages

entire Jewish people. It is high time that the knowledge ofthat finally
enters into the widest circles, for here lies hidden the key to the
understanding ofthe effectiveness ofthe Jews. The Europeans must
see that there are things that sleep concealed under just a thin veneer
of Christian culture. If this falls off, the same spirit and character
faces us today as that which, almost two thousand years ago, struck
the founder of Christianity on the cross.
About the omissions of the Jews the Christians were well
informed already early, but it was still long before a censorship of
the Jewish writings was seriously undertaken. Only at the beginning
th
of the 13 century did the confiscation and burning of the Talmud
begin and indeed on the basis of disputes within Jewry itself. The
writings of Maimonides had, for example, set Jewish thought in
great agitation. To be sure, this the "greatest man after Moses" as
he was called was completely in accord with the strictest Talmudist
on the point that only Jews are men and would be resurrected: the
benefit of the rain is for the good as well as for the bad, but
resurrection only for just Jews.
He is also in agreement with the fact that one can cheat
non-believers, and even shares the stricter view that one must indeed
do that, and follows Tevi ben Gerson, who maintains: "This
commandment that one should conduct usury with foreigners is one
of the 248 commandments that God wishes to uphold and indeed in
such a way that we should not only lend money to a foreigner but
we should also in addition cause harm to him, as much as possible,
and it is not a choice to us whether we wish to conduct usury or not
but it is a commandment of God, because foreigners serve a foreign
god". Maimonides is also of the view that the Epicureans and other
non-believers should be destroyed in order to lead them back to the
sole true faith. We see therefore that essentially he was completely
true to the Talmud.
But he tries nevertheless to hack through the frightful maze
of hair-splitting and to trace the entire tradition back to some main
points. This effort aroused, as mentioned, great indignation. Jewry
was divided into two parts that mutually insulted each other bitterly
and each in turn banished the other. To snatch power for themselves

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