Page 78 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

The Track of the Jew through the Ages

themselves in the following manner: in place of the observations
disparaging Christ a sign was made in the form of a cross, regarding
which the following rabbinical order was issued (163 1): "Since we
have experienced that many Christians have made great efforts at
learning the language in which our books are written, we instruct
you, under the threat of a major ban, to publish in no edition of the
Mishnah or the Gemara anything on Jesus of Nazareth . We order
.
.
that, when you publish a new edition of these books, the passages
relating to Jesus of Nazareth be removed and the gap be filled with
a cross. The rabbis and teachers will know how to instruct the youth
orally. Then the Christians will have nothing more to produce on
this subject against us and we can expect liberation from
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hardships". This piece of writing is interesting not only because
the rabbis were fully aware that a part of the Jewish persecutions
had their cause in disparagements of Christ but also because it shows
that the Jews did not for a moment have the intention of giving up
this disparagement of Christ.
And that prayer in the synagogue which should end with a
request for the welfare of the rulers ofthe country had the following
formula: "May Judah in his and our days be freed and may Israel
live securely and may the saviour come from Zion". To which Isaak
Abrabanel gives the explanation: "The entire liberation that is
announced to the Israelites will occur with the fall of Edom
(Christendom)".
Today it has indeed come so far. These short observations
will in this case establish the Tightness of the action of the Roman
Catholic Church. But, since I cannot avoid discussing briefly the
Roman Catholic principle in general, let the following observations
be mentioned here.
If Rome was justified in forbidding foreigners the
disparagement of the religion of the host people, this right action
did not flow so much from the knowledge of this justification but
was only an expression of an intolerance that would not tolerate
128
Strack, Einleitung in den Talmud, Leipzig, 1894, p. 74. [Hermann Strack(1848-
1922) was a Protestant theologian and orientalist who sought to combat anti-
Semitism and founded an Institutum Judaicum in Berlin in 1883 to encourage
Jews to convert to Christianity.]
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