Abstract
This chapter will give an overview of some of the texts from the Jewish legal literature, the halakhah, in the context of the material presented in the prior chapters. The Jewish legal perspective starts with the assumption that there are texts of the halakhah that favor Jews and considers gentiles as outside the normative system. In this status as outsiders, gentiles occupy a similar legal position as heretics and nonobservant Jews.
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Notes
Yaacov Lev, Saladin in Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 185–93.
On the historical background of allowing association (shituf) for gentiles, see Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times (New York: Schocken, 1969), 35–6. Katz also discusses the ad hoc decision of Rabbenu Gershom (eleventh century), to permit trade with Christians on their holy days based on a statement of Rabbi Yohanan, namely that “Gentiles outside the Land of Israel are not idolatrous, but they are merely following the customs of their ancestors” (B. Hullin 13b).
Shiiat Yaavetz (Aitona, 1738), 1:41; 2: 133; Mor u-Ketziah 224. On these passages, see Moshe Miller, “Rabbi Jacob Emden’s Attitude Toward Christianity,” Turim: Studies in Jewish History and Literature: Presented to Dr. Bernard Lander (New York: Touro College Press-KTAVPub., 2007), 105–36.
Kaufman Koehler, “Cross,” Jewish Encyclopedia IV (1901): 369.
Abraham Ibn Ezra, Sefer Ha-Az’amim, Kitvei R. Avraham Ihn Ezra, vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 2001), 15–21; London 1901, 17–19.
R. Ishmael ben Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen (1723–1811), in Zer’a Emet, vol. 2 (Leghorn, 5556), fol. 34b., held that the Eucharist is an idolatrous service with a magical element; cited by J. Faur, “The Legal Thinking of the Tosafot,” Dine Yisrael, 6 (1975): 67 n. 50.
Moshe Halbertal, “Ones Possessed of Religion: Religious Tolerance in the Teachings of the Me’iri,” Edah Journal 1,1 (2001): 1–25;cf. Aryeh Klapper, “The Meiri’s Halakhah about Christians and Christianity: A Response to Halbertal,” unpublished AJS paper, who thinks Meiri is just continuing the ger toshav tradition and not creating a new category.
Also see Yehudah Henkin, Shut Benai Banim III (1997): 121, who also limits the range of application of Meiri.
J. David Bleich, “Divine Unity in Maimonides, the Tosafists and Meiri,” in Lenn Goodman, ed., Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 237–54.
Neta Ecker, “Universlaism in the Thought of Rabbi Eliezer Ashkenazi” (Unpublished Dissertation presented to Haifa University, 2010).
Joseph M Davis, Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller: Portrait of a Seventeenth-Century Rabbi (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004), 93–7.
Jacob Katz, “The Vicissitude of Three Apologetic Passages,” Zion 23–24 (1957–58): 175–93
Frankfurt edition, 5:2; Azriel Shohat, “The German Jews’s Integration Within Their Non-Jewish Environmentin the First Half of the Eighteenth Century,” [Hebrew] Zion 21 (1956): 230–1.
For example, on the topic of entering churches, the following contemporary legal authorities provide an summary of relevant sources: Ovadiah Yosef, Yahia Omer II Yoreh Deah 11:4; idem., Yehaveh Daat 4:45; Eliezer Walenberg, Teitz Eliezer 14:91; David Hayim Halevi, Ashe Lekhah Rav vol. 1 (2009): 59; 4:53. The first two legal authorities ban entering a church, the latter writes that one can visit a church that is no longer active. On entering Mosques, Obadiah Yosef allow one to enter, even to pray, in a mosque, and Eliezer Walenberg bans it. Rabbi Eliezer Berkovis permits entrance into a church for aesthetic and tourist reasons: see “Responsa on Entering a Church,” Millin Havivin (2009).
Isaac Herzog, Tehumim 2 (1981): 169–79. Herzog’s preferred interpreter of tosafot was [Binjamin] Zev Wolf Boskowitz, Seder Mishneh: heurim al Yad ha-hazakah le-rahenu ha-Rambam (iPrague: 1820).
Ariel Picard, “The Status of the Gentile in the State of Israel in the Legal Decisions of Religious Zionist Rabbis” Reshit 1 (2009): 187–208.
Jay R. Berkowitz, Rites and Passages: The Beginnings of Modern Jewish Culture in France, 1650–1860 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 130; idem., “Authority and Innovation at the Threshold of Modernity: The Me’orei Or of Rabbi Aaron Worms,” in Ezra Fleischer, et al., eds, Me’ah She’arim: Studies in Medieval Jewish Spiritual Life in Memory of Isadore Twersky (Jerusalem 2001), 275–77.
R. Zvi Hirsch Chajes, Hilkhot Melakhim 10:9 Kol Sifrei Maharatz Chajes (Jerusalem, 1958): vol. 1, 483–91; vol.2, 1036.
David Zohar, “Jewish Commitment in a Modern World” [Hebrew] (Tel-Aviv, 2003), 227, 233.
David Zvei Hoffmann, “Problems of the Diasporain the Shulkah Arukh,” in Jacob Breuer, ed., Fundamentals of Judaism (New York: Feldhiem, 1969), 181–91.
See the correspondence between R. Haim David HaLevy and Prof. Aviezer Ravitzky that was published in Zvi Zohar and Avi Sagi, eds, Yahadut shel Hayyim: Iyyunim BeYetzirato ha’Hagutit-Hilkhatit shel HaRav Hayyim David HaLevi (Jerusalem: Hartman Institute, 2007), 255–85.
Meir Simkhah of Dvinsk, Meshekh Hokhmah (Jerusalem, 1974); Yonah Ben-Sasson, Mishnato Ha lyunit shel Baal Meshekh Chokhmah (Jerusalem, 1984).
There are three main categories of gentiles: see R. Yom Tov ben Avraham Alshevili, Hiddushei ha-Ritva—Masekhet Makkot (Jerusalem: Mossad ha-Rav Kook, 1984), Makkot 9a, 113–14.
S. Grama, Kuntres Romemut Yissrael (Lakewood: 2002).
Gerald Blidstein, “Jews and the Ecumenical Dialogue,” Tradition 11 (1970): 103–10.
Gerald Blidstein, “The Non-Jew in Jewish Ethics,” Sh’ma 7, 125 (1977).
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© 2010 Alan Brill
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Brill, A. (2010). Gentiles. In: Judaism and Other Religions. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230105683_8
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