Talmud Scholars Look To Hate Groups For Passages They Didn't Know Existed (PreOccupied Territory)

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New York, June 14 - Experts in the body of Jewish law and lore called the Talmud voiced amazement and gratitude this week to antisemitic groups spreading passages from the work that the scholars, despite their collective expertise, had never encountered.

Professors of Talmud around the world expressed amazement at the passages the hate groups cite with some frequency to the effect that non-Jews are subhuman, that it is permissible to kill or steal from a gentile, that the Jewish goal is world domination, and many other dicta from the collection of teachings, compiled in the fifth and sixth centuries CE. To a man, observed the scholars, not a single one of them had previously been acquainted with those passages despite poring over and analyzing the Talmud for decades.

"I don't know how they managed to find those parts - I still don't know where they are supposed to fit in, but that is for later analysis, I suppose," gushed Hugh Gottabee-Kidden, a Professor of Talmud at Ryerson University. "It just goes to show that even the experts might not be able to find things that a layman can."

"I'm curious, and eager to examine those passages in the original Aramaic," admitted Dina de Garmi of the University of Bologna, Italy. "To date I have only seen the selections in translation posted by various white power groups and Islamist sympathizers. I do hope they soon release the original manuscripts containing these passages, so linguistic and other analyses may be performed on them. What a find!"

Representative of antisemitic organization demurred. "We never said anything about manuscripts," hesitated a spokesman for the Nation of Islam. "Maybe you ought to ask the David Duke or Stormfront people - I'm sure they know all about the original source."

A call to Stormfront yielded no further information. "Oh, everyone's known that stuff for centuries - we didn't discover it ourselves," insisted a man who identified himself as Mr. Black. "Those so-called scholars are just messing with everybody. It's part of a conspiracy to hide the truth. Now that we've been instrumental in not letting anyone hide the truth anymore, they're changing tacks - instead of dismissing us as crackpots, all of a sudden we're useful to them. Well, we're nobody's fool. They're the ones with the original Aramaic, not us. Go ask any yeshiva boy."

Rabbis and yeshiva students admitted confusion. "I'm not sure I follow," responded Rabbi Yirmiya Seinfeld of the Lakewood Yeshiva. "I'm supposed to find passages teaching me how to control the world and subjugate the goyim? Man, I was hoping just to make ends meet this month. You sure you're not from the International Jewish Conspiracy, with a generous payment to prove to me you folks actually exist? Please?"

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