The Evil Romans Interfered With Our Slaves
A lot of time is spent in Jewish history looking down on the Romans and Greeks.
The Romans outlawed the forced circumcision of slaves. We claim the slaves wanted this and it was their own volition, but this is exceptionally dubious. We forcibly circumcised our slaves, in accordance with Jewish law, and the Romans made us stop, as they themselves outlawed castrating slaves, and all forms of genital mutilation of slaves.
So my question is, how angry at the Romans should we be? Wasn’t this oppression of the Jewish people? Jewish law was correct, and the Romans were wrong, right?
Right?
11 comments
there is so much wrong here.
1. this isn’t a case of the “fundimentalists” deciding something this is straight out of the torah given by G-d. so are u saying he was wrong?
2. no “slave” was ever treated better a jewish SERVANT.
what are u trying to say????
Danny,
1) I am allowing for the fact that perhaps parts of the Torah were man made. I am an apikorus. Clearly if I accepted that kol Hatorah Culo was written by God, I would not be espousing this.
2) I am talking about a gentile slave, not a Jewish slave. While the rules for owning a non-Jewish slave were better than the rules in general society in ancient times, perhaps we have moved forward since then. Alternatively, if that isn’t the case, then shouldn’t Israel allow slavery of gentiles and Jews today?
well that explains it….at least ur willing to admit to the heresay of saying that not all of the torah came from g-d
heresy! You did capitalize you English rendering of two letters and a dash representing GOD!
This is as if all the books of the Torah were thrown to the ground and march upon by Jews in the synagouges around the world!
One man’s religion is another’s heresy.
DK, what’s up with the random posts lately? To answer your question, one can usually assume the Romans were wrong and the jews were right - call me a bigot.
If the Romans did in fact ban all types of brit milah for all the people of Rome, it is still known that the Romans wanted to strip the jews of anything sacred to them. Most aggresors through Jewish history outlawed bris milah because they knew how deeply jews (exclusing yourself) cherish it.
Your poetic license is a bit scewed, methinks.
“If the Romans did in fact ban all types of brit milah for all the people of Rome…”
They did not. Just for circumcising slaves.
“Most aggresors through Jewish history outlawed bris milah because they knew how deeply jews (exclusing yourself) cherish it.”
That is at least somewhat true, but it is also not entirely true. Regimes that banned circumcision were sometimes also hostile to genital mutilation generally. Remember, you are arguing exactly as proponents of FGM argue against Western hegemony defend FGM as well. Their culture, their ways, etc.
sorry, DK, I’m just not buying it….
Then demand your right to circumcise your slaves. Don’t let the anti-Semites hold you back — they’re your property!
Wow you REALLY cant take it when someone disagrees with you, can u?
I think the halacha as codified by Rambam is that circumcision was to be offered to slaves for 12 months and if they did not accept it during that time, they were to be resold to Gentiles.
Avakesh,
And what was the halacha prior to the Rambam, when we actually had slaves?
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