Are Gentiles Human?

Marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew. 

"Whether a marriage ceremony was conducted or not, it is not considered a legal marriage, and any child born of the union is regarded as having been born parthenogenetically, that is, he is always classified according to his mother's origins. If the mother is Jewish he is regarded as a Jew; if she is not, then he too is not Jewish. "  The Essential Talmud, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, p. 136

Jewish Telegraph Agency Sephardi leader Yosef: Non-Jews exist to serve Jews
By Marcy Oster October 18, 2010 10:40 pm

“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world; only to serve the People of Israel,” he said during a public discussion of what kind of work non-Jews are allowed to perform on Shabbat... 

The American Jewish Committee condemned the rabbi’s remarks in a statement issued Monday. 

"Rabbi Yosef’s remarks — suggesting outrageously that Jewish scripture asserts non-Jews exist to serve Jews — are abhorrent and an offense to human dignity and human equality,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris. "Judaism first taught the world that all individuals are created in the divine image, which helped form the basis of our moral code. A rabbi should be the first, not the last, to reflect that bedrock teaching of our tradition." 

Israel and Anti-Gentile Traditions

"[Israel] Shahak, a Holocaust survivor who died in 2001, was for many years a professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He also led the Israeli Civil Rights League from the mid-1970s until 1990. In Israel, he was a controversial figure, but he was revered by the international left as a tireless advocate for human rights. 

Are Jewish Lives Worth More?

In Jewish History, Jewish Religion Shahak brings numerous texts and legal rulings to demonstrate Jewish antipathy to non-Jews. He mentions a passage from the Talmud that says that Jesus will be punished in hell by being immersed in boiling excrement. He relates that Jewish tradition teaches pious Jews to burn copies of the New Testament and curse the mothers of the dead when passing non-Jewish cemeteries. Shahak highlights the famous passage from Leviticus commanding Jews to "love thy neighbor as thyself" and mentions that, according to rabbinic interpretation, "thy neighbor" refers only to Jews.

Shahak further suggests that the Jewish tradition values Jewish life more than Gentile life. He cites Maimonides’ assertion that whereas one who murders a Jew is subject to the death penalty, one who murders a non-Jew is not (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Murder 2:11). According to another leading commentator, indirectly causing the death of a non-Jew is no sin at all (Rabbi Yoel Sirkis, Bayit Hadash, commentary on Bet Yosef, Yoreh Deah 158).

Shahak reiterates the well-known Jewish teaching that the duty to save a life supersedes all other obligations and notes that the rabbis interpreted this to apply to Jews only. According to the Talmud, "Gentiles are neither to be lifted [out of a well] nor hauled down [into it]" (Tractate Avodah Zarah, 26b). Maimonides writes: "As for Gentiles with whom we are not at war…their death must not be caused, but it is forbidden to save them if they are at the point of death; if, for example, one of them is seen falling into the sea, he should not be rescued, for it is written: ‘neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy fellow’–but [a Gentile] is not thy fellow" (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Murder 4:11).
Indeed, Maimonides is the focus of much of Shahak’s analysis. Shahak believes that the 12th-century philosopher and talmudist was a Gentile-hater and racist. He quotes Maimonides’ statement that, "their [the Turks and the blacks] nature is like the nature of mute animals, and according to my opinion they are not on the level of human beings" (Guide For the Perplexed, Book III, Chapter 51). 

Practical Ramifications

Shahak recognizes that many of these traditions are not followed in practice, but he believes that, in general, they have been covered up, instead of confronted. In support of this claim, he refers to another a violent passage from Maimonides that is not translated in the bilingual addition of the Guide published in Jerusalem in 1962. He sees this as a deliberate deception on the part of the editors to soften classical Jewish militancy. His own English translation of the passage, which discusses the command to kill Jewish infidels reads: "It is a duty to exterminate them with one’s own hands. Such as Jesus of Nazareth and his pupils, and Tzadoq and Baitos [the founders of the Sadducees] and their pupils, may the name of the wicked rot."

According to Shahak, Jewish "traditions of contempt" infiltrated Zionism and have affected Israeli policy towards its Arab citizens and the Palestinians. He cites three main areas where he believes this has occurred: residency rights, employment rights, and equality before the law....

...Shahak was an ardent secularist and anti-Zionist, but he wrote his book as a challenge to Jews to engage the chauvinist, dehumanizing elements of Jewish tradition and to help create a self-critical and sensitive modern Judaism. It’s true that he combed the rabbinic tradition in search of hateful passages, often–though by no means always–misinterpreting them and taking them out of context, but this may be beside the point.

Jewish texts exist that can be–and are–understood to be vehemently xenophobic. These texts must be openly and honestly grappled with, explained, and if necessary, repudiated."

The Rabbinical Assembly for the Conservative Movement.

"The Torah teaches the equality of all human beings created in the image of God and is positive toward non-Israelites. Rabbinic literature similarly contains numerous positive statements about Gentiles. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that there are passages in rabbinic literature, kabbalah and medieval philosophical works that depict Gentiles in negative terms, as inferior to Jews and sometimes even as less than human. Many of these negative statements and depictions can be explained as normal reactions to the exceedingly cruel treatment of Jews by non-Jews, be it the Roman Empire, the Church or others. Some, however, go far beyond that, positing an exclusivist theology. 

Dealing with discriminatory laws and negative texts when teaching our tradition to youth and adults can be problematic, to say nothing of how we deal with them when interacting with Gentiles. This has become particularly acute in the Diaspora today where Jews are in constant contact with Gentiles and enjoy equal rights and equal status.  At a time when other religious groups, such as the Catholic Church, are re-examining their attitudes towards Jews and making changes in their dogmas to eliminate negative doctrines, we can hardly do less.

Unfortunately in Israel an extremely serious situation has arisen in recent times because of the publication of radical books such as Baruch HaGever and Torat HaMelekh, books lauded by a small number of well-known extremist rabbis in which non-Jews are depicted as being of a lesser species than Jews and in which slaying Arabs, including young children, is deemed permissible and even commanded. The so-called Halakhic positions of these rabbis have influenced fanatical groups of extremists and have led to acts of destruction, injury and death. In addition, as such studies as the recent Pew survey have shown, a large proportion of the Israel public holds negative opinions in regards to the Arab population, opinions that are voiced by some governmental figures as well.

For the first time in thousands of years, a Jewish State governs the lives of non-Jews. Jews constitute the majority and must deal with the status of the non-Jewish minority. Even though Jewish Law is not the civil law of Israel, it is influential and has been used by State appointed rabbis to make determinations about the rights of non-Jews that are discriminatory such as forbidding renting of rooms to Arab students. Even the Chief Sephardi Rabbi has made public statements questioning the right of Gentiles to live in the Land of Israel. Such negative teachings have led to halakhic decisions condoning violence....

... If we are not to descend to the level of simple apologetics, it will be necessary to deal honestly with the sources, to admit that different attitudes existed over the course of the development of Judaism and to candidly criticize and reject certain parts of the tradition while embracing others as representing the Judaism we wish to promulgate and which we believe represent the true core of Jewish belief beginning with the Torah itself."

Jews, Gentiles, and the Modern Egalitarian Ethos

"All people, we are told, have a soul formed from the husks (qelippah), but the Jewish soul is from qelippat nogah, which contains good.  The gentile soul, on the other hand, is from the other three qelippot, “which contain no good at all” (she-ein bahem tov kelal).  In addition, Jews have a divine soul (nefesh elokit), “a part of God above,” which is entirely absent in gentiles."  (cf. Tanya 1:1, end.  See Adin Steinsaltz, Be’ur Tanya, vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 1989), pp. 62-64.)

Pebbles of Wisdom taken from Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

"The definition of a Jew is beyond biology
It may be pertinent to point out a few important basic Jewish concepts that have become obscured as a result of the long controversy with Christianity and the defensive measures that had to be taken. 

In ancient times, the scholar of the Torah was not just an ordinary person with a gift for intellectual matters. He was considered a sort of repository of holiness. 

The implication of such an idea was that the Torah scholar, the talmid chakbam, is like a temple or an altar to which one offers gifts. To support and sustain him is a religious duty. 

The idea that the Patriarchs are the Chariot implies that they unite, almost physically, with the essence of the Divine so that holiness passes through them biologically, strange as this may seem. This means that the Divine spark is transferred to their descendants, irrespective of other facts. 

A Jew, therefore, was one who had this holiness in him; and if he decided to convert out of Judaism, it was a sign that he wasn't really a Jew in essence, even though he may have been born of Jewish parents. 

Similarly, a Gentile who became a proselyte was really a Jew in essence, even though he may not have been born of Jewish parents. 

The definition of who is a Jew is thus clearly beyond biology; it is simply one who has the holy spark. And, according to the Baal Ha-Tanya, the confirmation of this definition resides in the fact that in the last resort, when faced with some ultimate decision such as martyrdom, the Jew will offer himself to God.  

NOTE: In a section called "A 'Holy Nation' Includes Everybody" from We Jews, Rabbi Steinsaltz writes, "The existence of a 'holy nation' means that this role of world priesthood is not the role of a particular people within the nation, but of the entire Jewish people, with all its members great and small" (p. 147). "

Haaretz: Mad 'Max'? The Paradox of the Murdered Brooklyn Hasid
Debra Nussbaum Cohen    Jan 07, 2014 11:12 AM

What you do to the goyim is not the same as what you do to Jews,” said Samuel Heilman, an expert on Hasidic communities like Satmar. Heilman, author of “Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry” and a distinguished professor of sociology at Queens College, is currently at work on a book about succession battles in Hasidic courts.
That attitude stems from days when Jews were actively persecuted, he said. “Part of the collective mind-set in the crucible of history when this part of Jewry was formed, the outside world was filled with anti-Semitism and persecutors. The whole understanding of that was that you need to keep a distance from them, that they are a different level of human being,” Heilman told Haaretz.
According to Samuel Katz, who was brought up as a Satmar but later became secular, boys in the community are taught that non-Jews aren’t quite human. Speaking from Berlin, where he is doing biomedical research on a Fulbright fellowship, Katz explained that growing up in such a community, “you don’t see commonality with people who aren’t Jewish. There is a completely different taxonomy of people. There are Jews and then there are non-Jews, who don’t have souls.”
When the messiah comes, “every boy is taught that the bad goyim will be killed and the good gentiles will have the privilege of serving us, of being our slaves," he told Haaretz. "The way Stark dealt with tenants is part of that world view… It’s not taking advantage of them, [rather] that is the world order you’re taught to expect.” 

Chabad Theology – The nature of the Soul
Posted on June 28, 2009 

The following is from the book "Kabbalah and Meditations for the Nations" by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh .

To use the language of Chassidut, the Divine spark (or soul) of a Jew is considered an inner light (or pnimi), meaning that it is directly experienced and makes for part of his or her psychological makeup. The righteous gentile’s non Jew’s spark of Divinity is described as a “closely surrounding light” (or makif karov), meaning that it is psychologically experienced only indirectly. The Divine spark of non-Jews who are not considered righteous gentiles is akin to a “distantly surrounding light” (or makif rachok), meaning that it plays no conscious role in that person’s experience as a human being.

Even in this third case, due to the refinement of character that results from life’s trials and tribulations, and due to the Divinely ordained meetings between non-Jews and Jews which introduce the beauty of the Torah to the non-Jew, the “distant” spark may grow “closer” and the “close” spark may even desire to convert to Judaism. It is because of this latent potential innate in every non-Jew that we speak of all non-Jews as possessing a Divine spark. Indeed all of God’s creations are continuously brought into being by means of a Divine spark, but, only a human being, even if born a non-Jew, is able to convert in his present lifetime and become a Jew.