Martin Luther's Controversial Views on Judaism

When the great reformer, Martin Luther, decided to

produce a translation of the Bible into German in the

16th century, he wanted to be sure that he got it right.

So he consulted the Talmud and was horrified by what

he found there. He could not bring himself simply to

reject the Jewish Bible altogether, so he

clung to the traditional Christian interpretations and

denounced the Jews in the strongest possible terms for their

hate-filled interpretations. In his book, The Jews and

Their Lies, Luther wrote, and I quote, "The sun never

did shine on a more bloodthirsty and revengeful people

than the Jews, who imagine themselves to be the people of

God and who believe that they should murder and crush the

Gentiles. Do not their Talmud and their rabbis

say that it is no sin if a Jew kills a Gentile, but it

is a sin if he kills a fellow Jew? It is no sin if

he does not keep his oath to a Gentile.

Therefore, to steal from a Gentile, as they do with their money

lending, is a divine service. And they are

the masters of the world, and we are their servants, indeed

their cattle." End quote.

Today, the leaders of the Lutheran Church, who are as much under the

influence of the Jews as the leaders of all the other

mainstream Christian churches, ignore the writings of their

founder on the subject of the Jews and react with embarrassment

when reminded of them. They pretend that Martin Luther didn't

really mean what he wrote about the Jews and Judaism.

That was nearly 500 years ago, and Luther was

merely reflecting the prejudice of his times, they say.

But in fact, the Talmud and the Torah today are exactly what

they were 500 years ago. The Talmud and Torah that

Joseph Lieberman studies today are the same Talmud and

Torah that horrified Martin Luther at the beginning of the

16th century.

The same Jewish teachings which Martin Luther preached against

500 years ago govern the lives of Orthodox

Jews in Israel today.