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Rabbi Daniel Rowe - Does the Talmud say a Jew can 'lie to Goyim'? - By Rabbi Daniel Rowe

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Short Summary

Main recommendation: Viewers should not accept the quote from "Lib David 37" (presented as Talmud evidence that Jews may lie to non-Jews) as authentic, because the speaker says it is a fabrication. The video traces its origin to August Rohling's 1880s work, which he says was itself mostly copied from an earlier 17th-century work, and explains why Jewish law forbids falsifying Torah. The speaker says the claim persists online despite being exposed as fraud.

Key Points

  • The quote attributed to "Lib David 37" is, according to the speaker, not from any real work; "lib" is not a Hebrew word.
  • The quote is traced to August Rohling, a professor in Prague in the 1880s, whose book was mostly copied from an earlier 17th-century work (the transcript does not say this earlier work was written by a rabbi; the next sentence separately introduces Rabbi Joseph Bloch, who challenged Rohling).
  • Rabbi Joseph Bloch publicly challenged Rohling's falsehood and offered 3,000 thaler if he could read any randomly chosen piece of Talmud.
  • Rohling sued Bloch for libel, but after a 2.5-year expert review showed he would lose, he withdrew the charge, was ordered to pay costs, and was fired from his academic post.
  • Herman Strack, a scholar in the early 20th century, reviewed the books with similar names and found the quote to be a total fabrication.

Details Worth Noting

  • Concrete instructions: No step-by-step instructions, purchases, or actions are given. The only practical guidance is to check whether a Talmud quote has a verifiable source before accepting it, as the speaker's example shows (the speaker traced "Lib David 37" to likely a mistaken "Div David" and checked the book titles).
  • The speaker says Jewish law forbids falsifying Torah, which he states is the word of Hashem; he cites Rabbi Shlomo Luria (Yam Shel Shlomo, Bava Kamma 49) as clarifying that Torah cannot be distorted even to say "life."
  • The Rohling claims were especially followed by Nazi Germany after the war, according to the speaker, and persist among neo-nazis.
  • The speaker says the claims remain popular today thanks to the internet, social media, and people who hate Israel or Jews.
  • The speaker plans future videos addressing both fabricated claims and real quotes taken out of context.

Bottom Line

Quotes attributed to the Talmud that seem to endorse deceiving non-Jews should be checked against the actual source, since the speaker argues this one is a documented forgery that its own exposure failed to stop.