Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi. 1996

Jews Killed Other Jews in the First Crusade: The Jewish Concept of Martyrdom. The Unborn Child and the Torah

The author, Yosef Hayim Yerushalemi, identifies himself as a professional historian. (p. 81). He alludes to the J, or Yahwist, writer (p. xxv), which implies that he accepts the JEPD hypothesis and its rejection of the historicity and the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. On the other hand, he takes a middle view of the Bible between that of it being “factual” in the modern sense or “fictional” in the modern sense. He thus stresses the fact that later Bible authors did not rewrite earlier portions of the Bible to fit the realities of the more recent epochs. (p. 13).

POLISH SCHOLAR EWA KUREK IS RIGHT ABOUT JEWISH MARTYRDOM

In medieval Jewish thinking, Christianity became Esau, and Islam became Ishmael. (p. 36). The author touches on the form of Jewish martyrdom during the 1st Crusade, “Confronted with the intolerable–the gruesome scenes of Jewish mass suicide in the Rhineland, which which, by mutual consent, compassionate fathers took the slaughterer’s knife to their children and wives and then to themselves rather than accept baptism–the chronicles of the Crusdades turn repeatedly to the image of Abraham, ready to slaughter Isaac at Mount Moriah.” (p. 38). For more on this kind of martyrdom, please see: TWO NATIONS IN YOUR WOMB, by Yuval, and read the detailed Peczkis review:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/ritual-murder-accounts-actual-origins-yuval/

The facts are clear: Many if not most of Jews killed in the First Crusade had been killed by other Jews, and not by Christians. Yet only Christians are blamed for the deaths.

THE UNBORN CHILD: PRO-LIFE AND ANTIABORTION

Author Yosef Yerushalmi occasionally mentions the Talmud. He cites the tractate NIDDAH, which mentions the fetus in the womb knowing the entire Torah, only to lose this knowledge at the moment of birth owing to the actions of an angel, and being forced to learn the Torah anew as the child grows up. (p. 108). [How does this square with Jews being among the strongest champions of abortion rights, which, of course, implicitly or explicitly rejects any humanity of the fetus?]