Roy Tov
The Road to Bethlehem tells the true story of Roy Tov, the first Christian Israeli citizen to have been recognized as a refugee by a sovereign country due to active persecution by his own government. The book’s author spent much of his exile in Asia, where the book largely takes place; later, he wrote most of the manuscript in a Bolivian church and after moving to the USA, finished it in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The book describes the author’s development from collaborator with a discriminating society into a moral person.
Roy Tov is a former captain in the IDF; he graduated the Weizmann Institute and had published in the PNAS and other prestigious scientific journals. After Dow Chemical used him – without his consent – for an illegal transfer of American Missiles technology, his underground Christianity was found by the Shin Beth. Following that he was shot at by an Israeli sniper and was recognized as a refugee by a one of the poorest countries in the Americas. Do to his attempts to publish a book named ‘The Road to Bethlehem’ he is still persecuted by the Israeli authorities. You can find more of his writings on www.roytov.com.
I lost access, jobs, and opportunities.
In 2002 I was sent – as a provocation or to test my loyalty – to the Siege of the Nativity Church. Instead of refusing, I sabotaged the function of my unit and after being released (by then I was a reserve army officer), left the country.
I began writing the book – named The Road to Bethlehem – telling about the Christian reality in Holy Land. The Shin Beth was not pleased about that, to say the least.
On December 1, 2003 I was shot at by an Israeli sniper at Jinghong, China. God saved me.
Following a desperate – but excruciatingly slow – escape, I reached the country that gave me refuge.
Israel reached me here as well. Bribing people in a country were the average salary is less than a hundred dollars is easy. Since then, every significant work opportunity had been blocked, every friend was approached and bought, and more important, any attempt to publish The Road to Bethlehem was sabotaged.
‘Come back to us, you’re our son,’ informants working for Israel say to me from time to time, while their hands are busy in attempts to destroy me.
‘I’ve only one Father, and He is in the Heavens,’ is – and will be – my only answer.
http://www.roytov.com/introduction.htm
Only for the critic of the religious practise of the Pharisees:
Is Quoting the Talmud Anti-Semitic? by Roy Tov
Should one be defined as anti-Semitic for quoting from Talmud texts that preach for committing or justifying crimes? Texts that define the Talmud supporters – at least as collaborators, or even instigators to commit, a crime?
This question is a serious one, since the modern State of Israel forces on its citizens the religious views of the Pharisees descendants, namely the rabbis. The rabbis act according to the Talmud teachings. In such a way, Israel is accepting the Talmud and its teachings. What does that mean?
Who were the Pharisees?
In 539 BC the Persians conquered Babylon, where many Jews were exiled. He let them return to Jerusalem, where the Sadducees – the priests – became the de facto authority of them. While the priests controlled the Temple, the scribes monopolized the study of the Torah, which was read publicly on market-days.
However, after the fell of the Kingdom of Judah and the exile to Babylon – where the people could witness a more developed society – the prestige of the Sadducees was in decline. The scribes took advantage of that and began the process of organizing themselves into a political party that claimed to possess the correct interpretation of the Bible, what they called the Oral Law. They based the claim on their erudition – they were among the few that could read – and on the failure of the priests to restore the splendor of the former kingdom. ‘Something is wrong with their interpretation,’ whispered the Pharisees to the people.
Much later they became the religious leaders of the people and in a brilliant marketing event they changed their title to ‘rabbi’ (’my master,’ or literally ‘my much’).
What is the Talmud?
The Old Testament was considered dangerous by the Pharisees. Simply, many of the Mosaic Laws were uncomfortable – and inconvenient – to fulfil. Moreover, the prophecies regarding Jesus – their archenemy – in the Bible were difficult to ignore.
Facing such a problem, these industrious men operated a two stages plan. First, an Oral Law was created. These were laws that defined how the Mosaic Laws in the Pentateuch should be interpreted. Using them, they could turn around any law to their convenience. They claim the Oral Law was given verbally by Moses to their ancestors. The Bible does not support this claim.
At certain stage – before Jesus was born – the compilation of this Oral Law into books began. The result was the creation of a new layer of books – collectively known as the Talmud – that included all the formal interpretations of the Pentateuch – the Bible’s first five books. All the other books in the Bible were considered little more than fables by the Pharisees.
Nowadays, the rabbis – the Pharisees spiritual descendants – consider the Talmud as the main book of law. Since then, the Pharisees and rabbis can manipulate the law interpretations to their personal benefit.
Jesus and the Talmud
In the times of Jesus the Talmud was still incomplete, but its foundations already managed the Pharisees behaviour. The manipulation of the Mosaic Law for the Pharisees personal profit – the main task of the Talmud – is time and again denounced by Jesus. The strongest text on the issue is the whole of Chapter 23 in the Gospel of Matthew.
But not only there. He also said:
Matt. 15:6-9 … Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.
15:7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
15:8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
15:9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
And:
John 8:44: Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because the truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it.
Soncino
The Talmud – written in Hebrew and Aramaic – was largely ignored by the world until the Jews’ College translation was published through Soncino Press between 1935 and 1948. This was the first complete English translation, produced by authoritative Jewish scholars in the world and is considered a reliable text. It is important to keep that in mind while judging the next sections.
Elizabeth Dilling
Once this task was accomplished, the way was open for an international examination of the text. Elizabeth Dilling published the first critique of the Talmud, a book called The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today. She used the Soncino Talmud, and quotes also the Jewish Encyclopedia, the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia and other publications. Her analysis is considered serious.
My readers can download here her book and here the bulky exhibits accompanying it.
Before continuing with the answer of the Jewish community to Dilling’s publication, I would like to bring some of the commentaries appearing in her book.
Racism
Moses taught again and again that the stranger is to be treated the same as the Israelites:
Lev 19:34 But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
19:35 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure.
Deut 10:19 Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Numbers 9:14 ‘ye shall have one ordinance, both for the stranger, and for him that was born in the land.
Yet, the oral law, or the Traditions of the Pharisees, as recorded in the Talmud, reverses Moses teachings. In Baba Mezia 108b it says: “Only ye are designated as ‘men.’” The Baba Mezia passage is about the graves of Gentiles which rank like the graves of animals. “The graves of Gentiles do not defile,” is the edict.
No wonder Christ said:
Matt 15:3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?
Mark 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.
Non-Jews Have No Property Rights
The Talmud teaches in Baba Bathra, Folio 54b, that non-Jews have no property rights. Their possessions are “like unclaimed land in the desert.” The passage appears on page 222 of the Soncino edition: “Rab Judah said in the name of Samuel: The property of a heathen is on the same footing as desert land; whoever first occupies it acquires ownership.”
Doesn’t the occupation of Palestine appear now in a new light?
Bestiality
The Talmud is obsessed with pornographic issues, touching some of them here is unavoidable. Moses commanded that if a woman have intercourse with a beast, both should be killed (Leviticus 20:16), and that a priest must not marry a harlot or woman who is profane (Lev. 21:7), the Talmud inverted that and teaches that “unnatural intercourse does not cause a woman to be forbidden to marry a High Priest,” since then “you will find no woman eligible ‘” (See Exhibit 157, from the Yebamoth, Folios 59a-59b)
Then, the ruling of the rabbis is: “A woman who had intercourse with a beast is eligible to marry a priest — even a High Priest,’ and ‘the result of such intercourse being regarded as a mere wound, and the opinion that does not regard an accidentally injured hymen as a disqualification does not regard such as intercourse either.” (See Exhibit 158)
Babies
The Talmud enlightens us that baby boys may be used as subjects for sodomy by grown men (See Exhibit 54). The Pharisaic excuse is that until a child reaches sexual maturity, he or she does not rank as a person, hence Biblical laws against sodomy do not apply. Throughout the Talmud “nine years and one day” is the age of male maturity.
According to the Talmud, under “nine years and one day,” the “first stage of intercourse” of a boy with the mother, or any grown woman, is harmless. Shammai – who contributed vast texts to the Talmud, lowers the age to eight years in some cases. (See Exhibit 82 from Sanhedrin 69b).
Not less shocking is the following text: “When a grown up man has intercourse with a little girl it is nothing, for when the girl is less than this — that is, less than three years old — it is as if one puts the finger into the eye — tears come to the eye again and again, so does virginity come back to the little girl under three years.” (See Exhibit 136, Kethuboth 11b).
This is the Talmudic doctrine on babies. Sodomy and intercourse with them is the prerogative of the Talmudic man. What a contrast to Christ’s teachings!
However, that’s not all. “A maiden aged three years and one day may be acquired in marriage by coition ‘” See Exhibit 55 (Sanhedrin 55b), Exhibit 81 (Sanhedrin 69a-69b), and others.
Baby girls of three can invoke sadistic punishments on those who have intercourse with them when they are “Niddahs” (menstruating), a physical impossibility (Sanhedrin 55b – Exhibit 55; Sanhedrin 69a – Exhibit 81).
This type of crimes – and all their imaginable variations – appear time and again. What type of men wrote these texts? What type of men are their followers?
Every single rabbi in the world studied this text in order to graduate. Would you hire one as a babysitter?
Quoting the Talmud Heresies in Public is Dangerous
In 1944, Dilling’s views involved her in was called ‘mass sedition trial.’ The case was ultimately dismissed by a Federal Court as “a travesty on justice.”
I am afraid to comment on that, I am already a refugee and do not need to add reasons for my persecution. Instead, I’ll bring Dilling’s own words that appear on a later edition of her book:
‘The hub of world Jewish anti-Christ power, the financial and industrial power best described in Rev. 18:11-, is the AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE with its B’nai B’rith brotherhood, and its “secret police”, smear and ruin arm, the Anti-Defamation League. After having pushed a reluctant USA into World War II–to spread Communism across the earth, and with its first world base, Soviet Russia, as our “ally”, it was decided to crush all ANTI-COMMUNISTS by trying them as “Fascists, Nazis”. A series of indictments against some 30 anti-Communists, of which I was one, was engineered by the American Jewish Committee, in 1942, 1943, 1944. The 1942 indictment never came to trial. The 1943 indictment was dismissed in Washington by Judge Adkins. Only the 1944 indictment went to trial under a stooge judge Eicher. An unbelievable farce was staged without any legality or fact. After the death of judge Eicher, the case was dismissed by Judge Bolitha Laws with the scathing denunciation that it had been a crime to hold those people on trial all that time without a single piece of evidence in accordance with the charge being introduced by the prosecution against ANY defendant. The Communist press had been gloating that the “sedition trial” was part of the “Moscow Purge trials” then in session all over Europe. I reproduced the item on one of my Bulletins, sent to every Congressman.’
I want to ask again:
Is Quoting the Talmud Anti-Semitic?
Is Israel Sovereign?
Thursday, 09 July 2009 14:54 Roy Tov
On Limited Human Sovereignty
“This is another funny term from Political Sciences,†I told myself when I began writing this article. After all, no one of the humanly recognized sovereign entities can decide that the sun would rise on the west tomorrow. In theological terms, the only possible sovereign is God. Yet, to make this text clearer, I adopted the definitions used in Political Sciences texts and the media.
Tricky Definition
A short definition of the term says that sovereignty is the right to exercise the highest authority by the law within a specific territory. The key point is the exclusivity of jurisdiction; when a decision is made by a sovereign entity, it cannot generally be overruled by any other authority.
The current notions of state sovereignty were defined in the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, and include territorial integrity, border inviolability, and supremacy of the state rather than the Church; the sovereign is the supreme lawmaking authority. Another important change occurred by the end of the 18th Century, when the American Constitution of 1787 and the French Revolution of 1789 shifted the possession of sovereignty from the king to the people. However, how can such a power be recognized?
On Internal and External Sovereignty
There are two parameters that allow recognizing the existence of sovereignty: internal and external.
Internal sovereignty refers to the relations between the sovereign and its own subjects; it deals with the question: by what right does the sovereign exercise authority over its subjects? In the past, the most common answer was by divine right, nowadays a social contract (like a Constitution) is the norm.
External sovereignty concerns the relationship between sovereigns. Foreign governments recognize the sovereignty of a state over a territory and its denizens, or not. This parameter is not exact; in the near past the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China claimed sovereignty over the same territory. Different countries adopted different answers on the issue.
External Sovereignty is Secondary
This fluidity in the definition of external sovereignty shows that the internal sovereignty is more important and is – de facto – the defining quality of sovereignty. A state can exist without external sovereignty, but it would fail without internal one.
Sovereignty may be recognized even when the sovereign possesses no territory or its territory is under occupation by another sovereign. It happened to the Holy See during the annexation of the Papal States by Italy in 1870 and the signing of the Lateran Treaties in 1929, when it was recognized as sovereign and was granted the Vatican City. After it lost Malta to Napoleon, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta rules only over two properties in Rome, but is widely recognized and even is an observer at the UN. Occupied European countries during WWII were still recognized as sovereign.
Even under these strained condition, these entities kept their sovereignty because their subjects recognized it and fought for it. If having lose the people’s support during the occupation period, they would have been effectively terminated, as it did happen with many political entities during human history; under this test, the sovereignty awarded by the people had been proved as being more stable than the one relying on a king. The last disappears more easily, especially if the king and his heirs are killed in a war against other sovereign.
Thus, the key issue while testing sovereignty is its support by the people comprising it.
Acquisition of Sovereignty
In modern states – those defined by popularly invested sovereignty – the acquisition of sovereignty by the state is defined by a social contract, often based on a single document – called constitution – which is ratified by the people and later expanded into laws by a legislative body. This is the case with countries defined as democracies; the UK doesn’t have a constitution but it did replace it with a legal tradition spanning many centuries.
Thus, the people are the source of all political power. Benjamin Franklin expressed the concept when he wrote, “In free governments the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns.” Thomas Jefferson – in a similar statement – said in 1799: “The whole body of the nation is the sovereign legislative, judiciary, and executive power for itself†(both quotations from (http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff0300.htm).
Did the State of Israel Sign a Social Contract with Its Subjects?
On November 29, 1947, Resolution 181 of the UN General Assembly decided to divide Palestine between Jews and Palestinians and became the base of the external recognition of the State of Israel by other sovereign entities.
On May 15, 1948, Israel’s Declaration of Independence was issued by a small group of people – lead by David Ben-Gurion – who did not get popular consent for that. The declaration was never ratified by popular vote, though it was recognized by several other states.
The new state never issued a social contract. Israel has no constitution, and thus never ratified one. That means the State of Israel never got its people’s consent to be a sovereign entity – in other words, a state. The recent Base Laws legislated by the Knesset – the Israeli Parliament – are a fig leaf. The state claims they are the base for a future Constitution, but they do not cover key issues like human rights, are subject to arbitrary changes due to special needs of the coalition governments and – most important of all – were never ratified by the people. In a secondary issue, the entity doesn’t have a defined territory; there are neither internal nor external resolutions awarding the Stateof Israel a well defined territory. A problem deriving from the last is: Who are the sovereign’s subjects? Again, the State of Israel fails to fulfill the basic requisits to become a sovereign entity.
Is Israel Sovereign?
Under these circumstances, the external recognition of Israel is baseless; the recognition of other sovereigns – especially those defining themselves as democracies – of a non-ratified entity which has obviously not been invested by God contradicts their own social contracts and thus would not stand a serious test. The internal recognition of Israel is not an issue since it has never been ratified by its subjects.
State propaganda over the local and international media cannot change the simple fact that the State of Israel is not a sovereign entity.
Roy Tov is a former captain in the IDF; he graduated the Weizmann Institute and had published in the PNAS and other prestigious scientific journals. After Dow Chemical used him – without his consent – for an illegal transfer of American Missiles technology, his underground Christianity was found by the Shin Beth. Following that he was shot at by an Israeli sniper and was recognized as a refugee by a one of the poorest countries in the Americas. Do to his attempts to publish a book named “The Road to Bethlehem†he is still persecuted by the Israeli authorities. You can find more of his writings on http://www.roytov.com.
http://www.therebel.org/opinion/middle-east/is-israel-sovereign?/