Anti-humane ethos

The King’s Torah, a controversial rabbinic text, forced itself on Arab public opinion last week, when Col. Eyal Karim was named as chief rabbi for the Israeli forces. Rabbi Karim is known to be a strong believer in the perverted interpretation of religious texts detailed in the King’s Torah, which permits the killing of children of the enemy, and the rape of non-Jewish girls in time of war. 

I am a strong believer that the true Torah, as a holy book, does not condone such racist, anti-humane ethos. 

Reuven Hammer, former president of the International Rabbinical Assembly and a member of its committee on Jewish Law and Standards, writes that “it is clear that the Torah itself and biblical writing in general posit the basic equality of all humankind and demonstrate God’s love of all human beings, even while recognising a special role for Israel as a kingdom of priests. Israelites are seen as having a special relationship to God since they are given the task of being God’s specific servants, God’s priests. This does not, however, imply racial superiority, as the prophets, especially Isaiah and Amos, make clear, and does not imply the right to discriminate against non- Jews in their civil rights.”

“The basic ethical norms of the Torah apply to all, Israelites and non-Israelites,” he adds.

The perverted interpretations promoted by Torat Hamelech or King’s Torah started in a synagogue near Nablus when four rabbis published a new interpretation of the Jewish holy book, and called their work an explanation of the Torah itself. 

A year ago, in August, the same four rabbis collected signatures from more than 50 other rabbis in support of a legislature not to allow Jews to rent their homes to Palestinians. 

The four rabbis are Dov Lior, Yitzhak Ginsburg, Yosef Elitzur, and Yitzhak Shapira. The same year, Lior wrote an approbation stating that non-Jewish non-combatants, including children, may be pre-emptively killed in time of war. 

In a response to the Torat Hemelech, Hammer issued a statement expressing rejection of “any ideas found in Jewish writings, be they ancient, mediaeval or modern, that consider Jews to be inherently superior to gentiles or the soul of non- Jews to be somehow inferior to that of Jews”. 

The belief in superiority, he added, “contradicts the basic laws or teachings of the Torah and of rabbinic Judaism as found in the Mishna, Talmud and Tannaitic Midrashim”.