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

When Being Jewish Was A Crime, by Rachmiel Frydland. 1978

Candor on THE TALMUD AGAINST JESUS CHRIST, the Admission of GOYIM to the Temple for Prayer, and the ALEINU

The author lived in Lesniczowka, near Chelm. (p. 97). He was an Orthodox Jew. One of the yevishas he attended, in Warsaw, was so strict that it expelled a student for suspected membership in the MIZRACHI–an Orthodox political party that deviated from Orthodoxy by accepting the political aspirations of Zionism and participating in the World Zionist movement. (p. 64).

Shortly before WWII, Frydland became a believer in Jesus. He miraculously survived the Holocaust, and emigrated to the USA.

In this short book, Frydland presents much theological information. I elaborate on just some of it.

THE TALMUD AGAINST JESUS CHRIST

Rachmiel Frydland comments, (quote) In these early years I had few contacts of any sort with Christianity. At about this time I learned the stories of Jesus from the Jewish point of view. They are given in the infamous book of legends composed in the Middle Ages and entitled TOLEDOT YESHU (THE HISTORY OF JESUS). Some of the material is already embodied in the Talmud: That Jesus was born an illegitimate child and He forced Mary his mother to admit it; how He learned sorcery in Egypt; how He made Himself fly up into the sky by sewing the ineffable name of Jehovah into the skin of his leg, but a famous rabbi did the same and brought Jesus down. (unquote). (p. 51).
Frydland continues, (quote) As I continued studying the Talmud, I came to a passage that told of a cruel punishment for that Sinner of Israel, meaning Jesus. For one sin of deriding the rabbis, He was punished forever and ever with cruelty as to be “judged in boiling excrement.” (unquote). (p. 55).

The Talmudic references, to Jesus Christ as being of illegitimate birth, are Sanhedrin 67a and Shabbat 104b. The one about Him burning in hell, in hot excrement, is Gittin 57a. Please see my review of JESUS IN THE TALMUD, by Peter Schaefer:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/talmud-antichristian-schafer/

“It is all about interpretation”, we are told, when it comes to the Talmud. Exactly correct. It does not matter what the authors of the passages had in mind when they wrote the passages. From Frydland’s testimony quoted above, it is obvious that the Jews did in fact interpret the TOLEDOT YESHU, and the Talmudic verses identified above, as referring to Jesus Christ. This refutes the silly argument, advanced by some, that the Talmud, and the TOLEDOT YESHU, have nothing to say about Jesus Christ.

CANDOR ON JEWISH PREJUDICES AGAINST THE GOYIM, INCLUDING THE ALENU

Frydland portrays prejudice as a multi-faceted process. He notes that he used to say a prayer (the ALEINU), every morning, in which he thanked God that he was not created a GOY or a woman. (pp. 76-77). He used to think that the reference, in Isaiah 56:7, about the house (temple) being a house of prayer for all peoples, referred exclusively to all types of Jews. (p. 51). (This is ironic, because the alleged admission of non-Jews to the temple, for prayer, is often quoted as proof of the early universalism of Judaism.)

The author freely admits the outworking of his Jewish prejudices, (quote) On the way to school we passed a Roman Catholic church and a Russian Orthodox church, and we spat, pronouncing the words found in Deuteronomy 7:26, “…thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.” (unquote). (p. 54).