6/2/12

ADL: Arabic Talmud has 'dangerous and defamatory' introduction

The Times of Israel reports that the ADL has filed a complaint with Jordan over the new Arabic translation of the Talmud.
The Anti-Defamation League has harshly criticized an editor’s introduction to the first-ever Arabic translation of the Talmud for propagating age-old anti-Semitic concepts about Jews and Judaism, and called on the Jordanian government to step in and take action.

The ADL contends that the introduction to this translation charges the Talmud with promoting trickery, cheating and the murder of non-Jews. The translation in question, published by a Jordanian think tank, the Middle East Studies Center (MESC), includes an introduction which misquotes some Talmudic passages while taking others out of context, all of which leave the reader with the impression that religious Jewish law, teachings and tradition view non-Jews with contempt....
We said when we first heard about the Jordanian project that it was fraught with potential danger - antisemitism and the like is a commonplace motivating assumption for such a project in the Arab world.

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