Israel Shahak

Israel Shahak (; born Himmelstaub, April 28, 1933 – July 2, 2001) was a Polish-born Israeli professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, known especially as a radical political thinker, author, and civil rights activist. Between 1970-1990, he was president of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights and was an outspoken critic of the Israeli government. Shahak's writings on Judaism have been a source of widespread controversy.
==Biography==
Born in Warsaw, Poland,"I was born in Warsaw (the subject of a large part of the essay) and was in the Warsaw Ghetto almost till the end;" 'The Life of Death': An Exchange By Israel Shahak, Reply by Timothy Garton Ash, The New York Review of Books, Volume 34, Number 1, January 29, 1987. Shahak was the youngest child of a cultured religious pro-Zionist Jewish family."Born in 1933 into a cultured Jewish family in Warsaw," Adams, Michael. "Israel Shahak", The Independent, July 26, 2001. During German occupation of Poland, his family was forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. His brother escaped and joined the Royal Air Force. His mother paid a poor Catholic family to hide him, but when her money ran out he was returned. In 1943 was sent with his family to the concentration camp Poniatowa, near Lublin. His father died there, but Israel and his mother succeeded to escape and to regain Warsaw. In the same year they were both sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Shahak was liberated in 1945, and shortly thereafter emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine, where he wanted to join a kibbutz, but was turned down as "too weedy"."After setbacks - he was rejected as 'too weedy' when he volunteered for a kibbutz - he became a model citizen." Pallis, Elfi. "Israel Shahak", The Guardian, July 6, 2001. 
From age 12, Shahak cared for and provided economic support for his mother who survived the Nazi camp in a very poor physical condition. After a period of learning in a religious boarding school in Kfar Hassidim, he moved with his mother to Tel Aviv. After graduating from high school, Shahak served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in an elite regiment.Pallis, Elfi. "Israel Shahak", The Guardian, July 6, 2001. After completing service with the IDF, he attended Hebrew University where he received his doctorate in chemistry. He became an assistant to Ernst David Bergmann."Israel Shahak", The Independent, July 26, 2001. 
In 1961, Shahak left Israel for the United States to study as a postdoctoral student at Stanford University. He returned two years later to become a teacher and researcher in chemistry at Hebrew University, where he remained until his retirement in 1990. He published many scientific papers, mostly on organic fluorine compounds.Science Citation Index After the 1967 Six-Day War, Shahak became critical of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, a supporter of a Palestinian state, and wrote many articles and several books outlining his views of Israeli society and Judaism.
In his last years of life lived in the quarter Rehavia of Jerusalem. He died in Jerusalem at age 68 due to complications from diabetes and was buried in the Givat Shaul cemetery. In an obituary published in The Nation, Christopher Hitchens wrote that Shahak's home was "a library of information about the human rights of the oppressed", and that The families of prisoners, the staff of closed and censored publications, the victims of eviction and confiscation--none were ever turned away. I have met influential "civil society" Palestinians alive today who were protected as students when Israel was a professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University; from him they learned never to generalize about Jews. And they respected him not just for his consistent stand against discrimination but also because--he never condescended to them. He detested nationalism and religion and made no secret of his contempt for the grasping Arafat entourage. But, as he once put it to me, "I will now only meet with Palestinian spokesmen when we are out of the country. I have some severe criticisms to present to them. But I cannot do this while they are living under occupation and I can 'visit' them as a privileged citizen."Christopher Hitchens, "Israel Shahak, 1933-2001", The Nation, July 23, 2001.
==Politics and works==
Shahak reports having been radicalized first by the Suez War and his feeling of betrayal by David Ben-Gurion's push to occupy the Sinai Peninsula, and then through his experiences in the United States. In the 1960s he became involved in the Israeli League Against Religious Coercion. Following the Six-Day War of 1967, he disavowed his former affiliation with the Israeli League against Religious Coercion, believing them to be "fake liberals" who used liberal principles to fight religious influence in Israeli society, but failed to use those same principles to fight Israeli treatment of Palestinians. Shahak instead joined the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, was elected president of the League in 1970. That same year he established the Committee Against administrative detentions.
He began publishing translations of the Hebrew press into English, alongside his own commentaries, arguing that Western activists needed better knowledge about conditions in Israel, and that the English-language editions of Hebrew newspapers were being intentionally distorted for Western audiences. This practice, along with writing letters to the editor, remained staples of his work for decades. 
He became a well-known activist in international circles, co-authoring papers and giving joint speaking engagements with American political dissident Noam Chomsky, and winning plaudits from Jean Paul Sartre, Gore Vidal, Christopher Hitchens and Edward Said.
Reviewer Sheldon Richman explains that for Shahak, Zionism was both a reflection of, and capitulation to, European anti-Semitism, "since it, like the anti-Semites, holds that Jews are everywhere aliens who would best be isolated from the rest of the world."
In 1994 he published Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, in 1997 he published Open Secrets: Israel's Nuclear and Foreign Policies, and in 1999 he published Jewish Fundamentalism In Israel, co-authored with Norton Mezvinsky. In the introduction to the last book, Mezvinsky and Shahak explained that, 'We realize that by criticizing Jewish fundamentalism we are criticizing a part of the past that we love. We wish that members of every human grouping would criticize their own past, even before criticizing others'.
==Alleged telephone incident==
In 1965 Shahak sent a letter to Ha'aretzChristopher Hitchens and the racist Jewish court in which he claimed to have witnessed an Orthodox JewishBogdanor, op. cit., p. 121. man refusing to allow his telephone to be used to call an ambulance for a non-Jew as it was the Jewish Sabbath. In the letter, Shahak also claimed that members of the rabbinical court of Jerusalem confirmed that the man was correct in his understanding of Jewish law, and that they backed this assertion by quoting from a passage from a recent compilation of law.Tom Segev, 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East, tr Jessica Cohen, Macmillan, London, 2007, pp. 99-100. The issue was subsequently taken up in Israeli newspapers and The Jewish Chronicle, leading to significant publicity. According to Israeli historian Tom Segev, Shahak:
...sent letters to the newspapers about the incident, and one respondent was Israel’s ambassador to Austria, Michael Simon. “This is the most horrific and shocking thing I have ever read,” he wrote to Prime Minister Eshkol. He wondered how the story would affect the country’s standing in Africa or how Israel could continue to denounce discrimination against Jews in the Soviet Union. Maariv asked for the opinion of the minister of religious affairs, Dr. Zerah Warhaftig. The minister did not refute the rabbinical ruling, but quoted from traditional Jewish sources according to which Jewish doctors had saved the lives of non-Jews on the Sabbath, although they were not required to do so. Maariv was not satisfied. “The argument over this serious matter is only just beginning,” read its editorial, asserting that in the battle he had started, Shahak “would not remain alone.”
In 1966, Immanuel Jakobovits, who later became Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Britain and the Commonwealth,In memory of Lord Jakobovits - A Sage in the Tradition of the Prophets, The Times - 1 November 1999 disputed the veracity of Shahak's story, and alleged that Shahak had subsequently been forced to admit that he had fabricated the incident (according to Jakobovits, "in true Protocols style") in order to support his thesis. Jakobovits also cites a lengthy responsum by Isser Yehuda Unterman, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel at the time, who stated that, "the Sabbath must be violated to save non-Jewish life no less than Jewish lives."Jakobovits, Immanuel. A Modern Blood Libel--L'Affaire Shahak, Tradition, Volume 8, Number 2, Summer 1966, p. 59.
Jakobovits gives two possible rationales for this ruling; first, that "Even biblical violations of the Sabbath are warranted for non-Jews 'on account of enmity', i.e., if the refusal to render such aid may imperil Jews," and second, that the Rabbis may have "deliberately introduced...a purely ethical counter-indication to laws which might otherwise be conducive to immoral results."Jakobovits, op. cit., p. 62. He also notes that, as long ago as the 13th Century, "R. Menachem Meiri had stated that the prohibition to desecrate the Sabbath for the sake of Gentiles applied only to 'the ancient heathens ... because they professed no religion at all, nor did they acknowledge their duty to human society.'"Jakobovits, op. cit., p. 63.
Shahak repeated his account in the opening chapter of his 1994 book, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, stating that "Neither the Israeli, nor the diaspora, rabbinical authorities ever reversed their ruling that a Jew should not violate the Sabbath in order to save the life of a Gentile. They added much sanctimonious twaddle to the effect that if the consequence of such an act puts Jews in danger, the violation of the Sabbath is permitted, for their sake."Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, pp4-5, 1994, London, Pluto Press ISBN 978-0745308197 
Writing in 2008, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach cited Eli Beer, chief coordinator Israel's volunteer ambulance service, who "oversees 1,100 medical volunteers, approximately 60 percent of whom are Orthodox," as stating:
If someone would say we won't save a non-Jewish life on the Sabbath, he is a liar. If he is Jewish, Christian, or Muslim we save everyone's life on any day of the year, including the Sabbath and Yom Kippur, and I have done so myself. Indeed, as an orthodox Jew it is my greatest honor to save the life of a non-Jew, and I would violate any of the Jewish holy days to do so.Boteach, Shmuley. "Confronting a Prominent Writer's Untruths", The Jewish Press, February 6, 2008.
==Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight Of Three Thousand Years==
In 1994 Shahak published Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight Of Three Thousand Years. In it he proposes that most nations' histories are initially ethnocentric. However they then evolve through a period of critical self-analysis to incorporate other perspectives. Jewish emancipation by the Enlightenment was a dual liberation, from both Christian anti-Semitism and a 'ghetto priesthood' with its 'imposed scriptural control'.Christopher Hitchens, Forward to Israel Shahak, Open Secrets:Israeli Nuclear and Foreign Policies, Pluto Press, London, Sterling, Virginia, 1997 p.xi But, he argued, the history of Judaism itself had not yet been the full beneficiary of modern critical perspectives. For Shahak, open public discussion of what he called 'Jewish ideology' is required if people are to take the same attitude towards Jewish chauvinism as is commonly taken towards anti-Semitism and all other forms of xenophobia, chauvinism and racism. He believed the political influence of Jewish chauvinism and religious fanaticism was much greater than that of anti-Semitism, and affirmed his belief that anti-Semitism and Jewish chauvinism could only be fought simultaneously.Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, Pluto Press, London, Sterling, Virginia (1994 , 1997) 2002 pp.11-12
According to Shahak Talmudic Judaism is a totalitarian religion where rabbinical law governs every aspect of Jewish behaviour.'The legal system of the Talmud can be described as totally comprehensive, rigidly authoritarian, and yet capable of infinite development, without however any change in its dogmatic base. Every aspect of Jewish life, both individual and social, is covered, usually in considerable detail, with sanctions and punishments for every conceivable sin or infringement of the rules' p 40 Shahak's approach to the subject draws on both Karl Popper's concept of a closed society, his analysis of totalitarian thought-patterns in Plato's thought, and also on Moses Hadas's suggestion of a Platonic influence on rabbinical thought.Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, Pluto Press, London, Sterling, Virginia (1994 , 1997) 2002 pp.12-13 He views Jewish chauvinism and religious fanaticism as grounded in this theological tradition. For Shahak, the religious roots of this 'Jewish ideology' had two important consequences:
* Attempts by Western analysts to explain contemporary Israeli politics in purely secular terms such as imperialism are fundamentally flawed.
* More controversially, that 'Jewish chauvinism' can be a causal factor in antisemitism, and that both must be fought simultaneously.
Shahak also analyses the period from the beginning of the last millennium (CE) to the advent of the modern state when most Jews lived under rabbinical law in segregated communities. These communities, writes Shahak, were under the patronage of non-Jewish nobles who typically used them to enforce their authority on a non-Jewish peasant class. Rebellions by such peasants in which all feudal agents were attacked, Shahak argues, have wrongly been perceived as anti-Jewish persecutions. Consequently, he calls for significant parts of Jewish history to be re-evaluated from a universal perspective.
Shahak also claims that Zionism is an attempt to re-establish a closed Jewish community and that this has resulted in discrimination against non-Jews. He also argued that on several occasions Zionists held links with anti-Semites, as was the case of Herzl and Count von Plehve, the antisemitic minister of Tsar Nicholas II; Jabotinsky and the Ukrainian leader Petlyura, whose forces, Shahak says, massacred some 100,000 Jews in 1918-21; Ben-Gurion and the French extreme right, which included notorious antisemites, during the Algerian war; and others such as the Zionist rabbi Joachim Prinz, who welcomed Hitler’s rise to power, since they shared his belief in the primacy of ‘race’ and his hostility to the assimilation of Jews among ‘Aryans’. Shahak notes that Prinz, whose book Wir Juden (We Jews, 1934) celebrating Hitler's German Revolution and its defeat of liberalism, subsequently emigrated to the USA, where he rose to be vice-chairman of the World Jewish Congress and a leading light in the World Zionist Organization.'Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, p.71 He concluded by arguing the struggle against Jewish chauvinism and exclusivism, which must include a critique of classical Judaism, was of equal or greater importance as the struggle against antisemitism, and all other forms of racism. 
The work was praised by Gore Vidal and Edward Said, both of whom wrote introductions to the book at various times. Robert Fisk wrote that his 'examination of Jewish religious fundamentalism' was "invaluable":
[Shahak] concludes that "there can no longer be any doubt that the most horrifying acts of oppression in the West Bank are motivated by Jewish religious fanaticism." He quotes from an official exhortation to religious Jewish soldiers about Gentiles, published by the Israeli army's Central Region Command in which the chief chaplain writes: "When our forces come across civilians during a war or in hot pursuit or a raid, so long as there is no certainty that those civilians are incapable of harming our forces, then according to the Halakhah (the legal system of classical Judaism) they may and even should be killed ... In no circumstances should an Arab be trusted, even if he makes an impression of being civilised ... In war, when our forces storm the enemy, they are allowed and even enjoined by the Halakhah to kill even good civilians, that is, civilians who are ostensibly good."Fisk, Robert. Religion in the Middle East: the fundamental problem, The Independent, December 03, 1997.
Some authors, including Werner Cohn, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of British Columbia, have described specific claims in Jewish History, Jewish Religion as fabrications, and have accused Shahak of making "grotesque charges".Cohn, Werner. "The Jews are Bad! (review of 'Jewish History, Jewish Religion,' by Israel Shahak)", Israel Horizons, vo. 42, no. 3 of 4, Autumn 1994, pp. 28-9. Werner Cohn writes:
Dr. Shahak is full of startling revelations, if that is the word, about Jewish history and the Jewish religion. None of those I was able to check had any foundation...Some are just funny. He says (pp. 23-4) that "Jewish children are actually taught" to utter a ritual curse when passing a non-Jewish cemetery.'(T)almudic passages directed against Christianity or against non-Jews had to go or to be modified . . a few of the most offensive passages were bodily removed from all editions printed in Europe after the mid-16th century. In all other passages, the expressions ‘Gentile’, ‘non-Jew’, ‘stranger’ (goy, eino yehudi, nokhri). . were replaced by terms such as ‘idolator’, ‘heathen’ or even ‘Canaanite’ or ‘Samaritan’, terms which could be explained away but which a Jewish reader could recognize as euphemisms for the old expressions...Following the establishment of the State of Israel, . . all the offensive passages and expressions were restored without hesitation in all new editions. . . So now one can read quite freely - and Jewish children are actually taught - passages such as that which commands every Jew, whenever passing near a cemetery, to utter a blessing if the cemetery is Jewish, but to curse the mothers of the dead if it is non-Jewish.' Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, ibid. pp.23-4 He also tells us (p. 34) that "both before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes his hands....On one of these two occasions he is worshiping God... but on the other he is worshiping Satan..."'Other prayers or religious acts, as interpreted by the cabbalists, are designed to deceive various angels (imagined as minor deities with a measure of independence) or to propitiate Satan. . both before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes his hands, uttering a special blessing. On one of these two occasions he is worshiping God, by promoting the divine union of Son and Daughter; but on the other he is worshiping Satan, who likes Jewish prayers and ritual acts so much that when he is offered a few of them it keeps him busy for a while and he forgets to pester the divine Daughter.' Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, ibid.p.34
==Reception==
In his memoirs, To Be an Arab in Israel, Palestinian poet Fouzi El-Asmar described Shahak as a "remarkable and outstanding individual", and Gore Vidal, who wrote the introduction to Shahak's Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, described him there as 'the latest, if not the last, of the great prophets.'" According to Haim Genizi, "Shahak's extreme anti-Israeli statements were welcomed by the PLO and widely circulated in pro-Arab circles".Genizi, Haim. The Holocaust, Israel, and Canadian Protestant Churches, McGill-Queen's Press, 2002, p. 94.
After his death, Shahak received tributes from a number of sources. His friend and co-author the historian Norton Mezvinsky stated he was "a rare intellectual giant and a superior humanist", and Edward Said described him as "a very brave man who should be honored for his services to humanity."Mezvinsky, Morton. "In Memoriam: Israel Shahak (1933-2001)", Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2001, page 11. Christopher Hitchens, who considered Shahak a "dear friend and comrade", said he was a "a brilliant and devoted student of the archaeology of Jerusalem and Palestine", and that "during his chairmanship of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, [he] set a personal example that would be very difficult to emulate." Hitchens, Christopher. Israel Shahak, 1933-2001, The Nation, "Minority Report", July 23, 2001. On Antiwar.com Alexander Cockburn described him as a "tireless translator and erudite footnoter" and "a singular man, an original",Cockburn, Alexander. "Remembering Israel Shahak", Left Coast, Antiwar.com, July 13, 2001. Retrieved July 21, 2006. while Allan C. Brownfeld, of the American Council for Judaism, writing in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, said he had a "genuinely prophetic Jewish voice, one which ardently advocated democracy and human rights."Brownfeld, Allen C. "With Israel Shahak’s Death, A Prophetic Voice Is Stilled", Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October 2001, p. 71. Retrieved July 21, 2006. In his obituary in The Guardian Elfi Pallis described him as "an old-fashioned liberal", and Michel Warschawski stated that he was "above all one of the last philosophers of the 18th century school of enlightenment, rationalism, and liberalism, in the American meaning of the concept."Warschawski, Michel. "Israel Shahak", Jerusalem Quarterly, Issue 13, Summer 2001. 
Shahak's works have also found a receptive audience among neo-Nazis, antisemites and Holocaust deniers, and articles of his have been republished on websites such as Radio Islam, Bible Believers, Jew Watch, CODOH, and "Historical Review Press".
*"It's a truism that you can tell a man by the company he keeps, and if you go to just about any neo-Nazi or fundamentalist Islamic website you'll see the company that keeps Shahak: His articles and commentaries are lovingly preserved under such titles as 'The Jewish Hatred Towards Christianity'; 'The Jewish Laundry of Drug Money'; and Israel's Discriminatory Practices Are Rooted in Jewish Law." Jason Maoz, "Media Monitor", The Jewish Press, September 19, 2001.
*Jewish History, Jewish Religion (1994) is... more likely to be cited on a neo-Nazi website, than your local synagogue's... (Radio Islam contains the full text of Shahak's work) as well as groups that are often openly anti-Semitic (David Duke and Bradley Smith include Shahak's book on their websites)." Ari Alexander. "Israel and Anti-Gentile Traditions", MyJewishLearning.com. Accessed January 1, 2007.
*"...the present-day disciples of Hitler were equally enthusiastic: 'Dr. Israel Shahak risked all...' mourned the American Nazi leader David Duke..." Bogdanor, Paul. "Chomsky's Ayatollahs", in Edward Alexander and Paul Bogdanor (editors), The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders, Transaction Publishers, 2006, p. 124.
*"In most of these anti-Semitic websites, homage is paid to one Professor Israel Shahak who is described as a courageous and knowledgeable Jew presumably for his resurrection of the old distortions and canards about the Talmud in his book, Jewish History, Jewish Religion. Laudable reviews, quotations and even whole chapters from the book appear on many anti-Semitic websites." Posner, Laurence. "Anti-Semitic Groups Maintain Talmud Websites", The Jewish Journal, September 17 - September 30, 1999.
*"Shahak's book and the articles may also be found on Radio Islam's Internet site, and Radio Islam acts as a retailer for the book." Sweden, Antisemitism and Xenophobia Today, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, December 1996.
 David Duke mourned Shahak, stating he had exposed "numerous examples of hateful Judaic laws... that permit Jews to cheat, to steal, to rob, to kill, to rape, to lie, even to enslave Christians,"Bogdanor, Paul. "Chomsky's Ayatollahs," in Edward Alexander and Paul Bogdanor (editors), The Jewish Divide Over Israel, p. 124. and dedicated his book Jewish Supremacism to him."In 2000, David Duke published in Russia his latest controversial book: Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening on the Jewish Question. The book eschews the layout of his first autobiographical work, and instead purports to "examine and document elements of ethnic supremacism that have existed in the Jewish community from historical to modern times". The book is dedicated to Israel Shahak, a critical author of what Shahak saw as supremacist religious teachings in modern Jewish culture. Duke denies the book is motivated by anti-Semitism." David Duke, The Coordination Forum for Countering Antisemitism, 2006. Retrieved March 15, 2007. Duke's antisemitic theories defaming the Talmud and Judaism drew on material from the works of Shahak and Elizabeth Dilling."Duke draws his antisemitic theories from a number of sources: [...] defamation of the Talmud and Judaism from Elizabeth Dilling and Israel Shahak,..." Tuchman, Aryeh, "Duke, David (1950- )", in Levy, Richard S. Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, ABC-CLIO, 2005, p. 193. In a new introduction to his re-edition of their Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Norton Mezvinsky wrote that antisemites and antisemitic groups "utilize unduly Shahak's criticisms in trying to justify their hatred of Jews. They have continued to do this either by citing and/or using out-of-context some of Shahak's points."Israel Shahak, Norton MezvinskyJewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Pluto Press, London, 2004 p.xiii</blockquote>
Shahak has been accused of fabricating incidents, "blaming the victim", distorting the normative meaning of Jewish texts, and misrepresenting Jewish belief and law.Jakobovits, Immanuel. A Modern Blood Libel--L'Affaire Shahak, Tradition, Volume 8, Number 2, Summer 1966. According to Paul Bogdanor, Shahak "regaled his audience with a stream of outrageous libels, ludicrous fabrications, and transparent hoaxes. As each successive allegation was exposed and discredited, he would simply proceed to a new invention."Bogdanor, op. cit., p. 119. Ari Alexander, co-founder of the Children of Abraham Organization for Jewish-Islamic dialogue, while noting the widespread use of Shahak's works by neo-Nazis and in Arab countries, concludes that:
'the texts that Shahak cites are real (though Shahak's sporadic use of footnotes makes it difficult to check all of them). Oftentimes, the interpretation of these texts is debatable and their prominence in Judaism negligible, but nonetheless, they are part of Jewish tradition and, therefore, cannot be ignored.'"Israel and Anti-Gentile Traditions", MyJewishLearning.com.
In reaction to his writings about Judaism and the Talmud, Shahak has been accused of antisemitism. The Anti-Defamation League listed Shahak as one of four authors of polemics in its paper The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics, while Paul Bogdanor accused Shahak of "recycling Soviet antisemitic propaganda".Bogdanor, op. cit., p. 122. 
In 1995 Werner Cohn wrote of Shahak:
Without question, he is the world's most conspicuous Jewish antisemite... Like the Nazis before him, Shahak specialized in defaming the Talmud. In fact, he has made it his life's work to popularize the anti-Talmud ruminations of the 18th century German antisemite, Johann Eisenmenger.Cohn, Werner. Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers, Avukah Press, 1995, p. 18.
Emanuele Ottolenghi argues that Jews like Shahak act as enablers for antisemites, stating that their rhetoric plays a "crucial role... in excusing, condoning, and — in effect — abetting anti-Semitism." In his view:
Anti-Semites rely on Jews to confirm their prejudice: If Jews recur to such language and advocate such policies, how can anyone be accused of anti-Semitism for making the same arguments? [...] The mechanism through which an anti-Semitic accusation becomes respectable once a Jew endorses it is not limited to Israel’s new historians... Israel Shahak made the comparison between Israel and Nazism respectable — all the while describing Judaism according to the medieval canons of the blood libel.Ottolenghi, Emanuele. "The War of the Jews", National Review, September 20, 2006.
==Notes==
==References==
*Sweden, Antisemitism and Xenophobia Today, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, December 1996.
*David Duke, The Coordination Forum for Countering Antisemitism, 2006. Retrieved March 15, 2007.
*"David Duke Visits Syria In Support of Bashar al-Assad". Middle East Media Research Institute, Special Dispatch Series - No. 1035, November 29, 2005.
*, Anti-Defamation League, February 2003.
*"Edward Said's Documented Deceptions", Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, August 1999.
*'The Life of Death': An Exchange By Israel Shahak, Reply by Timothy Garton Ash, The New York Review of Books, Volume 34, Number 1, January 29, 1987.
*Adams, Michael. "Israel Shahak", The Independent, July 26, 2001.
*Alexander, Ari. "Israel and Anti-Gentile Traditions", MyJewishLearning.com.
*Bogdanor, Paul. "Chomsky's Ayatollahs", in Edward Alexander and Paul Bogdanor (editors), The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders, Transaction Publishers, 2006. ISBN 0765803275
*Boteach, Shmuley. "Confronting a Prominent Writer's Untruths", The Jewish Press, February 6, 2008.
*Brownfeld, Allen C. "With Israel Shahak’s Death, A Prophetic Voice Is Stilled", Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October 2001.
*Cockburn, Alexander. "Remembering Israel Shahak", Left Coast, Antiwar.com, July 13, 2001.
*Cohn, Werner. "The Jews are Bad! (review of 'Jewish History, Jewish Religion,' by Israel Shahak)", Israel Horizons, vo. 42, no. 3 of 4, Autumn 1994.
*Cohn, Werner. Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers, Avukah Press, 1995. ISBN 0964589702
*Fisk, Robert. Religion in the Middle East: the fundamental problem, The Independent, December 3, 1997.
*Genizi, Haim. The Holocaust, Israel, and Canadian Protestant Churches, McGill-Queen's Press, 2002. ISBN 0773524010
*Hitchens, Christopher. Israel Shahak, 1933-2001, The Nation, "Minority Report", July 23, 2001.
*El-Asmar, Fouzi (1975). To Be an Arab in Israel, London: Frances Pinter. ISBN 0903804085.
*Jakobovits, Immanuel. A Modern Blood Libel--L'Affaire Shahak, Tradition, Volume 8, Number 2, Summer 1966.
*Maoz, Jason. "Media Monitor", The Jewish Press, September 19, 2001.
*Mezvinsky, Morton. "In Memoriam: Israel Shahak (1933-2001)", Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2001.
*Ottolenghi, Emanuele. "The War of the Jews", National Review, September 20, 2006.
*Pallis, Elfi. "Israel Shahak", The Guardian, July 6, 2001.
*Posner, Laurence ."Anti-Semitic Groups Maintain Talmud Websites", The Jewish Journal, September 17 - September 30, 1999.
*Safian, Alex. "NPR's Special Bias", Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, September 30, 2002.
*"Solomon Socrates". "Israel’s Academic Extremists", Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2001.
*Strom, Ron. "The mother of all anti-Jew sites", WorldNetDaily, May 27, 2002.
*Warschawski, Michel. "Israel Shahak", Jerusalem Quarterly, Issue 13, Summer 2001. 
==Bibliography==
===Books (partial)===
* Israel Shahak, (ed.), The Non-Jew in the Jewish State; a collection of Documents, Jerusalem, 1975
* Israel Shahak (ed), Begin & Co as they really are, Glasgow 1977
* Israel Shahak and Noam Chomsky, Israel's Global Role: Weapons for Repression (Studies in Geophysical Optics and Remote Sensing), Association of Arab-American University Graduates, Inc., April 1982, paperback, ISBN 0-937694-51-7
* Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, Pluto Press, London, 1994 
* Israel Shahak, Open Secrets: Israeli Foreign and Nuclear Policies, Pluto Press, London, 1997
* Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (Pluto Middle Eastern Series), Pluto Press (UK), October, 1999, hardcover, 176 pages, ISBN 0-7453-1281-0; trade paperback, Pluto Press, (UK), October, 1999, ISBN 0-7453-1276-4; 2nd edition with new introduction by Norton Mezvinsky, trade paperback July, 2004, 224 pages
* Israel Shahak, Israel's Global Role : Weapons for Repression (Special Reports, No. 4), Association of Arab-American University Graduates, 1982, paperback
=== Articles by Shahak (partial list) ===
*What Are My Opinions? March - April 1975 The Link - Volume 8, Issue 2
*The Racist nature of Zionism and of the Zionistic State of Israel The Link, volume 8, issue 5 Winter 1975
* The `Historical Right' and the Other Holocaust, in Journal of Palestine Studies, 10, no. 3 (Spr. 1981): 27-34.
* Israeli Apartheid and the Intifada, in Race and Class, 1988: Volume 30, no. 1: 1-13.
*AFL-CIO Pension Funds Invested In Faltering Israeli Institutions December 1988, Page 17 WRMEA.
* A History of the Concept of `Transfer' in Zionism, in Journal of Palestine Studies, 18, no. 3 (Spr. 1989): 22-37.
*Human Rights in the Occupied Territories: Comparing the Hebrew and US Press Extra! Summer 1989
* Shamir's Manipulation of American Jewish Groups: A Disaster For All January 1991, Page 6 WRMEA
* Soviet Immigration Deprives Israelis of Housing and Arabs of Jobs January 1991, Page 27 WRMEA
* Journalists Link Israeli Financial Woes to Shamir-Bush Confrontation January 1991, Page 67 WRMEA
* Letter from Jerusalem Lies of Our Times, February 1991, p. 8.
* The Israeli Occupation Three Years After the Intifada March 1991, Page 27 WRMEA
* Israel Will Withdraw Only Under Pressure July 1991, Page 20 WRMEA
* Internal Criticism of Racism Would Be Called "Anti-Semitic" Outside Israel August/September 1991, Page 23 WRMEA
* Israel Uses Increased US Aid to Prepare 1992 Attack on Syria October 1991, Page 19 WRMEA
* Why Israel Can Never Repay the Loans to be Guaranteed by the US November 1991, Page 17 WRMEA
* America "No Longer Under Our Rule": Israelis Discuss Collapse of US Lobby December/January 1991/92, Page 11, WRMEA
* The Occupied Territories' True Ruler: Israel's Corrupt and Inefficient Shabak February 1993, Page 28, WRMEA
* With Iraq Neutralized, Israelis Seek Catalyst for War With Iran April/May 1993, Page 15 WRMEA
* Can Religious Settlers Scuttle an Israeli-Palestinian Peace? By July/August 1993, Page 11
* Oslo Agreement Makes PLO Israel's Enforcer November/December 1993, Page 7-16 WRMEA
* Israeli Cultivation of Cuba Reflects Contempt for U.S. Policies January 1994, Page 18 WRMEA
* Israel's State-Assisted Terrorism: "Settlers" as Armed Combatants February/March 1994, Page 16 WRMEA
* Poverty, Religious Instruction Breed Xenophobia in Israel July/August 1994, Page 19 WRMEA
* Settling the West Bank and Israeli Domestic Politics April/May 1995, Pages 15, 108-110 WRMEA
* Downturn in Rabin's Popularity Has Several Causes March 1995, pgs. 11, 97-98 WRMEA
* Israel's Discriminatory Practices Are Rooted in Jewish Religious Law July/August 1995, pgs. 18, 119 WRMEA
* What Will Likud Do When It Comes to Power in Israel? December 1995, Pages 18, 82 WRMEA
* Rabin's Murder Spotlights Religious Influence in Israeli Police and Army January 1996, pgs. 8, 97-98 WRMEA
* The Real Israeli Interests in Lebanon, in WRMEA, July 1996, pgs. 19, 11
* Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu November/December 1996, pages 19, 106 WRMEA
* A Practical Look at Settlements From the Israeli Point of View March 1998, Pages 8, 86 WRMEA
Collections of articles:
*Israel Shahak Articles, list of articles and interviews with Shahak in Middle East Policy Journal
* Israel Shahak comments & articles in The New York Review of Books
===Interviews with Shahak (partial list)===
*An Interview with Israel Shahak, interview in Journal of Palestine Studies, 4, no. 3 (Spr. 1975): 3-20. 
*No Change in Zion, interview in Journal of Palestine Studies, 7, no. 3 (Spr. 1978): 3-16.
==External links==
*Mathis, Andrew. "The Interpretational Errors of Israel Shahak", June 8, 2000.
*Student, Gil. Shabbat and Gentile Lives, AishDas Society website, 2001.
Category:1933 births
Category:2001 deaths
Category:Antisemitism
Category:Polish Jews
Category:Stanford University alumni
Category:Nazi concentration camp survivors
Category:Jewish anti-Zionism
Category:Jews and Judaism-related controversies
Category:Hebrew University of Jerusalem faculty
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