Introductory note from LifeSiteNews co-founder Steve Jalsevac: Jewish teachings most prominently come from the Torah and the Talmud, but the definitions of both can be very complicated, with many different interpretations from various Jewish scholars, rabbis, and sects.

That makes understanding the details and various forms of today’s Judaism quite difficult and requires this long but very interesting article to explain it. Most readers will be shocked by what they will learn from the article, as we have been from researching it.

The basic, original Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament, including the Ten Commandments) was given by God to Moses at Mount Sinai around 1312 BC. Christians also honour those commands as recorded in the Ten Commandments.

Israeli Zionists frequently contradict those commandments and are condemned for doing so by other, more authentic religious Jews and even non-religious Jews. We must all understand this, as emphatically noted in the LifeSiteNews-recorded video below of an excellent commentary by Rabbi Yisrol Dovid Weiss, a prominent public opponent of Zionism and the genocidal actions of Israel.

Rabbi Yaskov Shapiro is another one of many more prominent rabbis who condemn Zionism. See him give an excellent one-hour, 18-minute scholarly overview HERE.

At the end of this article, see additional information on the Torah, the Talmud, Israel, anti-Zionist Jews, and the Jewish and Christian heresy of Zionism.

LifeSiteNews has found that shockingly few Catholics and other Christians have even the most basic true understanding of Zionism, founded by many atheists, and how it has used Judaism to give itself false credibility. Before the Hamas invasion of October 7, few LifeSiteNews staff understood these issues.

Even fewer Christians have any concept of the significant role the much later written Talmud has played in legitimizing among certain Jews chronic lying, stealing property and land belonging to others, extreme immorality, and the deliberate killing and massacres of innocent non-Jews – from newborn babies to feeble elderly persons. As Rabbi Weiss emphasizes, Zionism, which incorporates many of the worst Talmudic teachings, is “satanic.”

Max Blumenthal, another anti-Zionist Jew, agrees: he has stated that Zionists are “members of a demonic cult, a satanic cult that hates humanity, that is completely comfortable with mass slaughter, which celebrates it if it doesn’t deny it outright.” 

(LifeSiteNews) — The significance of Jewish teachings – known severally as the Talmud, the Midrash, and the Torah – may not be immediately obvious. Yet, on closer examination, this Jewish tradition of learning has exerted a powerful anti-Christian influence in our modern world. From wars through war crimes and the subversion of Christianity to support its horrendous crimes, the hatred of Christ and Christian values has combined with the liberal-global tradition to produce much of the hell on earth we inhabit today.

In recent days, a video from 2023 has resurfaced in which the president of the European Commission explains the idea of the Europe she leads: “Europe is the values of the Talmud,” she says, claiming the central text of Rabbinic Judaism records the “Jewish sense of personal responsibility, of justice—and of solidarity.”

“Europe is the values of the Talmud” – Ursula von der Leyen https://t.co/hFvDnwuZnU

— Millennial Woes (@MillennialWoes) April 8, 2025

Ursula von der Leyen spoke in 2022 at Ben Gurion University in Israel. What was she talking about – and why does it matter?

What is the Talmud?

The Talmud – meaning “study” or “learning” – is the written oral tradition of Rabbinic Judaism, second only in its significance to the Old Testament in Jewish “religious” teaching.

The Talmud began around the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD and has been formalized into Jewish religious law—or halacha—“the laws of Jewish life” that “governs daily Jewish practice.”

Today, many in Israel, including in its government, call for this to be the law of the state of Israel. Yet its influence has shaped our world far beyond the undefined borders of the Zionist state.

Its teachings inform the political decision-making of Israeli, American, and now European leaders, legitimizing regime change wars abroad and sanctifying the persecution of Christians – such as the “ancient Jewish custom” of spitting on Catholic priests, Christians, and churches in the birthplace of Christianity.

So, what are the values of the Talmud, whose inspiration guides the “religious” and secular Zionists of today?

Sanctifying desecration

Von der Leyen accepted her honorary degree with praise for Yitzhak Rabin, the former prime minister of Israel. A religious Zionist assassinated him, and his life was threatened by current National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir – who attacked Rabin’s car weeks before he was murdered.

This is newly elected MK Itamar Ben Gvir, showing off the hood ornament he grabbed when he and a violent mob attacked PM Rabin’s car and bragging that “we got to his car, and we’ll get to him, too,” just weeks before Rabin’s assassination. #IsraElex4 pic.twitter.com/TSRriRqvnH

— Judah Ariel (@judahariel) March 23, 2021

Ben-Gvir is also the man who defended the routine spitting on Catholic monks and priests, committed by “religious” Jews.

As Haaretz reported in 2023, a “prominent Jewish settler” said, “It’s a good time to mention that spitting near priests or churches is an ancient Jewish custom, and there’s even a special blessing in Jewish law that should be recited when you see a church.”

This custom comes from the Talmud. It was observed in Jerusalem in May 2023, where Christians were spat upon by a mob led by the deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Arieh King.

Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Aryeh King @arieh_king organized a protest against peace-seeking Christians who come to #Jerusalem to support /pray.US Embassy in Jerusalem largely owed to our Christian-Zionist friends in US@POTUS @SecBlinken @StateDept
pic.twitter.com/nXrSqgzUAT

— 🕊千𝕀ⓝ𝕕𝕖ⓡ 🦋📲 (@grandmom_i) May 28, 2023

He said, “It is the duty of every Jew to save all Jews from descending into the Christian cult … we came here to protest in front of them.”

King led protesters in “chanting insults, spitting on participants and smashing windows at the center” which hosted a prayer meeting, as Haaretz recorded, while “hundreds of Christians attended the event, including Evangelical supporters of Israel.”

On October 4, 2023, “religious” Jews were filmed spitting on Christians in Jerusalem during a parade for the Jewish festival of Sukkot.

In February 2024, the Catholic abbot of the Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem was filmed being spat on and attacked by “religious” Jews, who cursed “f****ing Jesus” as they did so.

שני בני נוער יהודים נעצרו בחשד שירקו וקיללו איש דת נוצרי סמוך לשער ציון בעיר העתיקה בירושלים. לאחר חקירתם נשלחו למעצר בית@VeredPelman pic.twitter.com/2KU4sXk9QK

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) February 4, 2024

Abbot Schnabel said in an interview following the attack that he is “spat on practically daily.”

The author of this custom, known as “The Maharil,” is described as “the foremost Talmudist of his generation” by the Jewish Virtual Library.

Yet spitting on Christians is not the only anti-Christian message it teaches.

The cursing and damnation of Christ

Just as the “religious” Jews cursed “f****ing Yeshua” when spitting on the abbot, the Talmud refers to Christ as Yeshu.

Why does it do so?

The three consonants j s (shin) v, with which the name Jeshu was written, are here explained as being the first letters of the three words: /=jimmach, sh = sh’mo, v = v’zichro, i.e., may be blotted out his name and his memory.

The very name of Christ is expressed as a curse in the Talmud, as the Lutheran Bernhard Pick explained in his 1910 essay, “The Personality of Jesus in the Talmud.”

Pick examines the traditional Talmud, which he says has been censored “by the Jews themselves” to remove the most damning passages about the Lord. “In our days, such accusations against the Talmud were impossible because all these offensive passages have been removed … by the Jews themselves.”

This, he says, is “a fact only very often overlooked by controversialists. In the Jewish year 5391 (i.e., A.D. 1631) a Jewish synod held at Petrikau, in Poland, issued a circular letter to the effect that all such passages in the Talmud which refer to Jesus, etc., should be omitted in the future.”

In brief, the Talmud says Jesus Christ was a bastard, His mother a whore, and He was a sorcerer in league with the devil who died the deserving death of a common criminal.

Organizations such as Los Angeles-based “Jews for Judaism” say the passages cursing Christ are misinterpreted or point to omissions from texts, which Pick reminds us were removed by “the Jews themselves” to appease Christians.

It is to be remembered that the Talmud also says it is just for Jews to deceive non-Jews and that legal disputes should always be framed to exonerate Jews of wrongdoing.

A 2009 book documenting the mention of Our Lord, titled “Jesus in the Talmud,” states:

The Talmudic stories make fun of Jesus’ birth from a virgin, fervently contest his claim to be the Messiah and Son of God and maintain that he was rightfully executed as a blasphemer and idolater.

They subvert the Christian idea of Jesus’ resurrection and insist he got the punishment he deserved in hell – and that a similar fate awaits his followers.

What punishment does the Talmud say Christ received in hell?

He is in the “Tzoah Rotachat” for eternity – “boiling in excrement.”

The Zionist mindset

The Talmud directly inspires the Zionist mindset of the government of Israel. Its finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, says the “Greater Israel” project to expand Israel’s borders through war – with the direct assistance of the United States – is prophesied in religious texts.

“It is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus,” he says.

In a documentary produced by Arte, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich says he wants a “Jewish state,” adding that, “It is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus.” pic.twitter.com/E2SBu1LJvD

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) October 10, 2024

Where is it written? The Greater Israel movement arose to claim Israel should retain all the territory it took in the 1967 Arab-Israel war – its goals in annexing the West Bank and Gaza promoted by Smotrich today.

In addition, it draws on interpretations of the Old Testament to say Israel has a right to annex parts of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. There are at least three versions of “Greater Israel” in the Bible, but Smotrich does not explain to which of these writings he refers.

Does the Bible give the state of Israel the right to destroy its neighbors to expand itself?

No. As Brother André Maria explains, completely contradicting Pete Hegseth below, Zionism is a heresy. Why? What is meant by “Israel” in the Bible is not the modern Zionist state but the faithful who follow God in His Church.

“Israel” means the Catholic Church and not a government of Zionist extremists.

The man is a Christian Zionist, and is very confused on what the true Israel is (the Catholic Church), doubtless thanks to the confusion spread abroad by the heretical Scofield Reference Bible.

Sadly, he may soon be in a position to attempt to bring about the bizarre… https://t.co/RxQb6Mwnv7

— Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M. (@Brother_Andre) November 14, 2024

Br. André explains the origins of this heresy in the fascinating, essential conversation below, showing how “Israel” appears on no map. He shows how the false belief that “the Jewish race” are believed by Zionists to be “the messiah” is at the root of the heretical belief that Zionism is biblically ordained.

Smotrich uses this heresy to justify his plan – currently underway – to violently annex the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and promote the extermination or expulsion of the entire population of Gaza.

The project of “Greater Israel” has been served by the “regime change” or “forever” wars urged by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United States Congress in 2002, and pursued on the Jewish traditional principle of “striking your enemy first” – the concept of “pre-emptive war.”

The “interpretations” of the Old Testament form the Midrash Raba, which, along with the Talmud, the Hebrew Old Testament, and the five books of Moses, comprise the traditions of Jewish teaching known as the Torah, but which by no means do all Jews interpret or accept in the same way, disregarding many of the worst, horrific Talmudic teachings.

The Midrash Raba has inspired the doctrine of pre-emptive war, pursued by Israel “since day one,” and injected into the national security strategy of the United States in 2002 – following the advice of Netanyahu.

A million historic Christians with their roots in the time of Christ have been killed as a result of this warmongering, inspired by the “religious” teachings which shape Israeli and U.S. policy.

How do these teachings justify these actions? The Talmud provides more insights.

“The best of Gentiles [non-jews] should all be killed”, it says in Soferim 15, “even if we are not in war.”

Further, the Talmud states, “God has permitted all the possessions of the Gentiles to the Jews” – meaning land and property of non-Jews can be seized under Halachic Law, which many in the Israeli government say should be the legal code of the state of Israel.

Netanyahu has made much use of the Hebrew name “Amalek” – a term meaning the enemies of Israel – who are, as former IDF Chief Yoav Gallant said of the Gazans, “human animals.”

The Talmud says that non-Jews are not human.

“Goyim [Gentiles] are considered beasts, and only Jews are human.” (Bava Metzia 114b). This explains how the state of Israel can justify its horrific crimes against the non-Jewish population, as well as those against the United States – such as in the USS Liberty attack or the theft of U.S. nuclear material and secrets.

The state of Israel is a haven for Jewish pedophiles fleeing prosecution for sex crimes against children. Why does it provide sanctuary for Jewish child rapists?

Sanhedrin 54b says, “There is no punishment for an adult man who penetrates a boy under nine years and one day old.” In fact, sodomizing girls or boys under nine is not a crime, according to the Halachic Law established in the Talmud.

“Therefore, just as one who engages in intercourse actively is not liable if he is less than nine years old, as the intercourse of such a child does not have the halakhic status of intercourse, so too, if a child who is less than nine years old engages in homosexual intercourse passively, the one who engages in intercourse with him is not liable.”

Ketubot 11b adds that it is permitted to have sex with girls under the age of three:

An adult man who engaged in intercourse with a minor girl less than three years old has done nothing, as intercourse with a girl less than three years old is tantamount to poking a finger into the eye. In the case of an eye, after a tear falls from it another tear forms to replace it. Similarly, the ruptured hymen of the girl younger than three is restored.

Killing non-Jews is no crime, either, as Sanhedrin 57a says, “If a Jew murders a Gentile there is no death penalty.”

These are some of the values of the Talmud and of allied Jewish traditions which comprise its religious and moral teachings.

It is true that Europe – and America – have pursued policies and practices which promote these “values,” inspired by a tradition founded on the hatred of Christ and the cursing of His holy name. That our nations are guided by “solidarity” with these so-called values explains much of the evil of the modern world, so many of whose leaders are proud to stand with the heresy of “Israel.”

Bernhard Pick’s 1910 monograph concludes with a passage whose relevance has only grown over the intervening decades of “Judeo-Christian” propaganda:

The Talmudic Jesus-tradition has no value for the history of Christianity, it shows the attitude of Judaism as represented by its leaders, towards Jesus.

He is the deceiver, the sorcerer, the apostate, the “Sinner of Israel”; his birth Jewish contempt blackened into a disgrace, and his death is dismissed as the mere execution of a pernicious criminal.

And thus it is to this day. To understand Jesus and his religion Judaism must divest itself of Rabbinism. Not the Talmud, but the New Testament is the real source for the history of Christ.

To this, we should add that the Israel which God blesses is not that of the Zionist state but the Catholic Church, the bride of Christ.

You can read the Talmud yourself here at Sefaria.org. Brother André Marie explains the “Warmongering Heresy of Christian Zionism” in this highly recommended, helpful video.

Editor’s note: The following is a continuation of introductory notes on the Torah and Talmud by Steve Jalsevac:

Rabbis Weiss, Shapiro, and other rabbis and Jewish scholars tend to refer to the extreme Zionists now having a “satanic” influence on Israel as being Talmudic Jews. The Talmud contains many atrocious, violent sayings regarding Jesus Christ, Mary, Christians in general, and all non-Jews, as noted in the article above.

Over time, these later Talmud writings were considered part of the Torah. However, over a million anti-Zionist Jews, such as Weiss, Shapiro, and very many others, have not exhibited extreme hatred of non-Jews nor approved of the perversities advocated in the Talmud.

This can get very complicated to write about. To save time, I asked Grok 3 AI: “When was the Talmud written and the Torah written?” The concise summary below is certainly helpful, but I do not claim that it is entirely valid:

The Talmud is a central text of Rabbinic Judaism, consisting of two main components: the Mishnah and the Gemara. Its writing spanned several centuries.

The Mishnah, the earlier part, was compiled and redacted by Rabbi Judah the Prince (Yehudah HaNasi) around 200 CE [after Christ, i.e., AD] in the land of Israel. It’s a written collection of oral laws and traditions that had been passed down through generations of Jewish scholars.

The Gemara, which is a commentary and expansion on the Mishnah, was developed over the next few centuries. There are two versions of the Gemara: the Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi), completed around 400 CE in the land of Israel, and the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli), completed around 500 CE in Babylonia. The Babylonian Talmud is the more extensive and widely studied of the two.

So, in short, the Talmud wasn’t “written” at a single point but evolved between roughly 200 CE and 500 CE, with the Babylonian Talmud being finalized around 500 CE.

The Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), doesn’t have a single, definitive “writing” date. Its origins are complex, rooted in both tradition and historical scholarship.

According to Jewish tradition, the Torah was given by God to Moses at Mount Sinai around 1312 BCE [The time before Christ, i.e., B.C.] (based on biblical chronology tied to the Exodus). Moses is said to have written it down during the Israelites’ 40 years in the wilderness, making it a divine revelation transcribed roughly 3,300 years ago.

Scholars, however, approach it differently through the lens of the Documentary Hypothesis and other theories. They suggest the Torah was compiled over centuries from multiple sources:

• The earliest traditions (like the “J” source, named for its use of “Yahweh”) might date back to around 1200–1000 BCE, possibly reflecting oral traditions from the time of the Judges or early monarchy in Israel.
• Other parts (like the “P” or Priestly source) are dated to around 600–500 BCE, during or after the Babylonian Exile.
• The final compilation into the form we know today likely occurred around 450–400 BCE, under figures like Ezra the Scribe, after the return from exile.

Archaeological evidence, like the Ketef Hinnom scrolls (containing Torah verses from around 600 BCE), supports the existence of Torah-like texts by that time, but doesn’t pinpoint an exact composition date.

So, traditionally, it’s dated to around 1312 BCE; historically, it’s a process spanning roughly 1200 BCE to 400 BCE, with the “finished” version likely set by 400 BCE.

Catholic Answers provides much more detailed information on the Talmud and the Torah.

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