Torah...for the Nations? part 3

The issue of whether or not we should be teaching Torah to our non-Jewish neighbors was a moot point in Medieval Europe. Jews were frequently murdered en masse. The worst perpetrators of all were the English. It was they who started the blood libel; the calumny that Jews use Christian blood in our religious ceremonies, especially on Passover, and Jews are born blind, until Christian blood was poured in their eyes. Entire communities were wiped out as a result. Often, the Jews were herded into the synagogue, which was set on fire, or thrown off a cliff. The Jews of England suffered great massacres in 1190, with the final annihilation of English Jewry in 1290. Jews were only readmitted to England three and a half centuries later. The blood libel spread rapidly through Europe, and still crops up from time to time, even in the Unites States. To this day, German Jews are careful to have at least one cup of white wine among the four cups at the Passover Seder, in order to demonstrate that we are not drinking blood. The Crusades saw massacres of Jews all over Europe and the Middle East, as enthusiastic Christian soldiers "practiced" on Jews, while on their way to kill Muslims. Fully one-third of the Jewish people was killed, proportionally identical to the Holocaust. One would think that the way to deal with the hate was to talk. But a series of disputations between Jewish and Christian clergy from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries proved not only fruitless, but actually disastrous. In most of these cases, an apostate Jew would level charges against Judaism with the civil authorities, often the King himself. A public debate would take place. Usually, the rules stated that the Jews could defend Judaism, but not criticize Christianity. Nearly always, the Jews won these debates, which generally brought about further persecution and expulsion. In the few cases where the Jews lost, they were often forcibly Baptized afterward. Perhaps the most famous of these disputations was that at Barcelona, in 1263, between RAMBAN and the apostate, Pablo Chistiani. Unlike other such debates, King James of Aragon gave RAMBAN full permission to make counter-arguments against Christianity. The debate was what we would today call a "knockout". (One can find a dramatization of this debate on YouTube, under the title "The Disputation"). However, RAMBAN was, despite royal assurances, forced to flee Spain because of his "blasphemy". Historians believe that these debates lead directly to the Inquisition. Yes, talking to the outside world about Torah, brought death and destruction upon our people. It was seen as far better to keep quiet...and even to maintain secrecy. In fact, I worry about all the ubiquitous rhetoric of online rabbis against Christianity. The arguments have changed little since the thirteenth century. I fear that these videos will bring an antisemitic backlash. In my opinion, a better approach is to teach Judaism, rather than attack others. In the mid Twentieth century, there appeared to be a glimmer of hope on the horizon for true dialogue, with the Jewish people free to tell our story to the world. But it lasted less than a decade. Next time.