Halo, Halo! (2025)

The Halo Halo Column from the July 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Which, in the long term, is going to damage a child’s mind more – the Brothers Grimm fairy tales or the fairy tales implanted from the various so-called holy books of various religions? Ignatius Loyola, said, give me a child for the first seven years of their life and I’ll give you the adult. Why? – to imbue the nonsense that is religion into susceptible minds so that when children become adults they will continue to unquestionably mindlessly spout ‘religion good, atheism bad’.

The imposition upon young minds of the indoctrination from propaganda sources which use colourful pictures redolent of those used in their media by jehovah witlesses pales into insignificance when compared to the actual physical abuse forced upon the very young by some religions.

In May the Washington Jewish Week was outraged against Belgium that it should be apparently mounting a ‘vicious attack’ upon ‘religious freedom’. The report says that Belgium police raided two mohels. A mohel is an individual practised in the religious ‘art’ of cutting of a male infant’s foreskin at the age of eight days.

‘There is no benign interpretation of these events. Armed officers descending upon religious leaders’ homes under the pretence of legal inquiry is the stuff of authoritarian regimes, not democratic Europe. The confiscation of ritual instruments used for one of the oldest and most central commandments in Judaism — brit milah, the covenant of circumcision — is to desecrate more than property. It is to trample upon the millennia-old continuity of Jewish life and identity. The demand that mohels surrender the names of children they have circumcised is especially alarming. It represents not only a grotesque invasion of privacy but a potential threat to those families’ security. Why do the authorities need those names? What database will they enter? What precedent does this set for religious communities across Europe? When religious practice is policed under suspicion, it is not law enforcement — it is persecution.’

The article then moves on to attack Belgium for its stance on animal welfare. Belgium has banned kosher and halal slaughter because the methods used inflict unnecessary suffering.

More article shocked outrage voice: ‘Now, it has targeted brit milah — a core Jewish ritual dating back to Abraham. Such orchestrated anti-religion action by the state is wholly unacceptable’

One can hear them channelling GretaThunberg, how dare you!

In the UK two men, from the other religion that does this have been convicted of ‘serious crimes related to non-therapeutic male circumcision (NTMC) of children…NTMC is an irreversible surgical procedure, which is medically unnecessary by definition, believed to be performed on thousands of UK children annually.’

Let us not forget the thousands of girls who undergo FGM (Female Genital Mutilation).

Meanwhile In Pakistan the Council of Islamic Ideology is peeved because a federal territory passed a bill outlawing marriage to anyone under eighteen. The peevishness is demonstrated by the Council’s response which said that ‘the legislation’s provision to define underage marriage as rape and impose punishments contradicted Islamic teachings.’ and is ‘contrary to Sharia.’

DC

Soviet Jews and emigration (1977)

From the July 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Russian annexation of Polish territory in 1654 gave Russia its first large-scale Jewish communities in towns like Minsk, Polatsk, Kiev, Brest and Vilkh. Other towns containing large numbers of Jewish inhabitants also came under the rule of the Tsar. Some years earlier in 1648 the Cossack leader Bogdon Chmielmicki led a revolt against the Polish gentry. After the defeat of the Polish army, his followers turned against the Jews; over 100,000 Jews were killed between 1648 and 1651, and others tortured and ill-treated This was the first large-scale massacre by the Cossacks. However, as early as 1545 Jewish goods from Poland were burnt in public, and Jews forbidden to enter Moscow. In 1563 Tsar Ivan IV ordered that all Jews who refused Christian baptism should be drowned. They were debarred in 1823 from owning land in White Russia by Tsar Alexander, and from following certain trades, and subject to immediate deportation and repeated pogroms. The word pogrom is Russian for a violent attack carried out against a section of the community.

Under the laws of 1793, Jews were mainly confined to the Pale of Settlement—an area which stretched from the Black Sea in the south to the Baltic provinces in the north, to Kalisz and Warsaw in the west and Chennigoy in the east. Even within the Pale of Settlement certain towns would only admit Jews as a special privilege. By 1897 there were more than 5 million Jews in the Pale, and a further 322,000 living outside. Moscow had 9,000; St. Petersburg 21,000; Krarkov 14,000 (official figures 1897).

In the population census of 1970 (before the emigration campaign) the number of Jews living within the USSR, excluding Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, was 2,150,707—less than 1 per cent of the population and twelfth in size of the 104 USSR nationalities listed (Insight No. 7, “Soviet Jews,” Oct. 1975).

In 1917 the Bolshevik revolution nominally removed many of the disadvantages suffered by the Jews, including the abolition of the Pale of Settlement. However, the pogroms re-commenced and continued until the outbreak of World War II. With the death of Stalin these were halted and the persecution of the Jews changed its violent character. It has instead become a political weapon in the present Russian government’s dealings with American capitalism and the US satellite in the east—the Jewish State of Israel, proclaimed as the Jewish national home.

The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 gave fresh impetus to the Zionist movement everywhere, including Russia, but significantly the wealthier Jews, British, American and Russian, are not in too great a hurry to take advantage of it. All Jews are not Zionists; on the contrary. Zionism has the appeal of a happy land far far away, an appeal which becomes stronger as the economic and social conditions of Zionists in other parts of the world become worse. Undoubtedly the Soviet government consistently refuses to advance Soviet Jewish culture. The teaching of Yiddish is not encouraged. In fact, only 25 per cent. of the Jewish population speak Yiddish; 44 per cent., mostly women, being over the age of 60 and 75 per cent. over the age 40. (Insight, No. 8, Oct. 1975). Religious ceremonies such as circumcision require special permits. There are no longer any exclusively Jewish schools and practically no Jewish newspapers. The Russian government openly discourages Jewish culture (although a large number of Jews are following the footsteps of their British and American counterparts, where religious practices are observed only by a small number of orthodox Jews).

Since 1970 when the agitation for Jews to emigrate to Israel commenced, until 1977, approximately 5 per cent of Jews (118,000) left the Soviet Union, and a further 55,000 were waiting for visas in 1976. (The Jews of Russia, Martin Gilbert.) The rate of permits granted was 14,200 a year (National Council for Soviet Jewry circular, Feb. 1977).

Of those who emigrated since 1970, many went elsewhere. Some actually returned to the Soviet Union. The campaign for emigration which is promoted both by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the National Council for Soviet Jewry, is a demand not for the right of Jews to emigrate to any country of their choice, but that they should emigrate to Israel. The promised land has lost much of its attraction for Soviet Jews. The Yom Kippur war, compulsory military service for men and women, inflation, low wages and rising prices, and all the familiar problems of capitalism, are present in Israel. In addition, constant threat of war with the Arab states has placed the Israeli economy on a regular war footing, and it is anything but a secure and permanent home. According to an article in The Times (12th May 1977), of the Jews who left Russia in 1974, 20 per cent. sought destinations other than Israel. The following year the proportion rose above 50 per cent., and in April 1977 it increased to 70 per cent.

One of the drawbacks which future emigrants will have to face is the prospect of being deprived of financial assistance by the international Jewish organizations if their final destination is not Israel. The view of the Chief Rabbi of Rumania, Dr. Moses Rosen, is that it is Judaism that is threatened, and that emigrants should only go to Israel where they can lead Jewish lives. They should emigrate for “spiritual” not economic reasons, otherwise they should not be helped by Jewish public funds (The Times, 12th May 1977.) This will obviously affect the poorer Jews. Even if a visa is granted the Soviet government charge 900 roubles (£1,000) for every member of the emigrating family. This is a severe financial burden, and goes some way to explaining why only 7½ per cent of Russian Jews attempt to emigrate. A well-qualified professional Soviet citizen receives 160 roubles a month, and this is considered to be a good salary. In fact a number of Russian Jews who have settled in Israel want to move on elsewhere.

A further complicating factor is that despite the freedom of movement of Soviet citizens proclaimed under the Soviet Constitution, Russian workers whether Jewish or not are not permitted to emigrate, and the Soviet government claims to be making a special concession in the case of the Jews. Like all capitalist governments it does not wish to see its skilled labour force seek higher wages and better working conditions abroad. In this they are following the pattern set by the British government in the anti-Combination Laws of 1799-1824, which forbade the emigration of skilled workers in addition to prohibiting the formation of trade unions. For all practical purposes the Russian equivalent of the Combination Laws is still in force. Fear of opening the door to mass emigration lies behind the reticence of the Soviet government to allow unrestricted emigration of Jews. Also it is against the interests of Russian capitalism to help to build up present Israeli capitalism and its USA parent by allowing highly skilled workers to emigrate to these countries. Russian Jewish workers are no exception to the general rule prevailing within wage labour and capital relations. Dominated by the need to get a living in the only way workers can, by selling their labour-power, they will seek the best terms and social conditions for employment. Migration is part of the history of the working class. Workers have come and gone to all corners of the world in their attempts to find work and peace. Some countries refuse them entry, others refuse them exits. The Jewish workers are looking for the philosopher’s stone if they are looking for ideal conditions abroad.

Like any other workers, they cannot continue to live in the past, and must play their part in the removal of religious, nationalist and racial prejudice and the creation of a world in which there are no restrictions on people—freedom in the fullest sense of the word. Freedom from the domination of capital and wage labour; freedom from want, and freedom to extend the latent productive capacity which exists, and of course, freedom of movement. Socialism embraces all of these. Control of the world must be removed from the capitalists and the system abolished. This is the task of a class-conscious working class who are not divided amongst themselves on the basis of nationality, race, religion or sex.

Jim D'Arcy

Socialism and Religion. (1924)

From the July 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bishop Montgomery Brown, the retired Bishop of Arkansas, U.S.A., a divine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, has been expelled from the Church for heresy. He is the author of “Communism and Christianism,” and the wide sale of this book has made him known far beyond the little town of Galion, Ohio, where he resides.

The Bishop came to write the book through reading the pamphlet issued by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, entitled “Socialism and Religion.” Amidst all the sentimental and superstitious writings published on this question in America, our pamphlet stood out as a unique and scientific declaration and commanded wide attention. The interest was so great that the last order from the “Socialist Party of Michigan” was for 1,000 copies, and it was due to this latter body that the Bishop obtained the pamphlet.

* * *

The best part of the Bishop’s book is the series of quotations from our party pamphlet. Nearly all the religious section of “Communism and Christianism” is unscientific, sentimental and confusing. Take the following : “Socialism is for me the one comprehensive term which is a synonym at once of morality, religion and Christianity” (p. 26). Then he says that Christianism “is a system of parasitism” (p. 31). He claims the same faith as Jesus, of whom he says, “his loyalty was to the truth and to the proletarian” (p. 25). Throughout the Bishop puts far-fetched meanings into Jesus’ words and makes a Christianity peculiar to himself. This is a quite common method amongst the “Christian Socialists” whom he condemns. He claims that Jesus taught that “it was the mission of Himself and disciples to establish a new heaven, that is, to remodel the Church, and new earth, that is to remodel the state; both remodellings being with reference to the service of humanity by enlightening its darkness and alleviating its misery here and now, rather than teaching it to look for light and happiness elsewhere and elsewhen” (p. 23). This must be some other Jesus personally known to the Bishop. The Jesus of Christianity, the Jesus of the New Testament, certainly gives no teaching about remodelling the State and enlightening the darkness. Jesus gave no social teaching. “Take no thought for the morrow,” “Resist not evil,” “Blessed are ye poor,” “Love your enemies,” and similar anti-working class notions are not instructions to remodel the State. So far from seeking happiness here, Jesus starts out with the supernatural, and it runs right through the New Testament. “My Kingdom is not of this world,” and “I go to my Father in heaven” is the spirit of the Book; the Socialist finds no message for him in the gospel of Jesus, from the beginning to the end. The Bishop admits this later where he says the “Gospel of Jesus” is “exclusively concerned with a celestial world” (p. 32).

This “rebuilding” of Jesus by the Bishop is dangerous to the workers. It is calculated to keep the workers on the side of religion by the false picture of Jesus and his alleged “Socialist” character. It is quite easy to understand how Bishop Brown remained within the Church and’ fought against his expulsion. Although he is an associate of the Rationalist Press Association, and a professed Evolutionist and self-styled “Marxian,” he understands these matters so little that it was possible to reconcile them with a Bishop’s position in the Episcopal Church. His muddled attitude went further, for he defended his position at the trial by claiming that the clergy did not literally accept the Bible, and that they had given up many orthodox dogmas. To attempt to compare the “modernizing” of Christianity with the materialism he claimed to hold, is a joke. The “reconciling” of ordination vows of a Bishop with the scientific and revolutionary attitude of our pamphlet on Socialism and Religion is a farce.

We differ therefore from the Labour and Communist Press in America, whose papers are very bitter against the Church for its expulsion of Bishop Brown. We affirm that the materialist and revolutionary nature of Socialism involves opposition to the Church and to Christianity. One who accepts the Socialist position, and realises therefore, the implications of its scientific basis, has no place as a member of the “holy” Church of Christianity. The superstition and submission taught by religion is in direct opposition to the philosophy of Socialism.

* * *

Our pamphlet was a bombshell to the professional politicians of the Social Reform parties. John M. Work, the secretary of the “S. P. of America,” tried to minimise its influence by saying the pamphlet was an irresponsible statement. The “Socialist Labour Party,” in reply to questions, continually answered in the words of De Leon that Religion was a private matter, and that a Socialist could hold any opinion he liked about the matter. And the I.W.W. in their leaflets repudiated being “anti-religious,” and said “members of the I.W.W. differ as much in their political and religious views as do members of any other organisation” (“The Labour Defender,” Dec. 1, 1918). The publication of dozens of pamphlets and books after the style of “Why a Christian should be a Socialist” and Bouck White’s “Call of the Carpenter” made our pamphlet a necessary antidote to this rubbish. The issues of an American edition by the Socialist Educational Society of New York a few months ago is therefore very welcome, being made more necessary than ever by the distorted edition issued by an enterprising orator who used its covers to advertise his spiritualist writings.

* * *

Mr. John Spargo, who until 1916 was a highly-paid lecturer for the “S.P. of America,” devoted a good deal of attention to our pamphlet in his book “Marxian Socialism and Religion.” He tries to answer us by saying that Marx was a deeply spiritual man, and that the materialist conception of history was not intended by Marx to be applied as we have done. He quotes part of F. Engels’ letters to attempt to show there are spiritual driving forces in history, but the publication of the complete letters in “The Socialist Standard” showed that Mr. Spargo was relying upon the awful ignorance of his dupes and followers in the alleged Socialist Party of America. Spargo knew better than he wrote, as can be seen from the columns of “The Comrade” of New York, for the period in which he edited that paper. His statements of the conflict between Socialism and Religion have been quoted in all the American textbooks for anti-Socialist speakers.

In Great Britain to-day the Socialist Party of Great Britain is still the only party which declares the truth about Socialism and Religion. The parties which seek numbers at the expense of principle are busier than ever preaching all things to all men, and trying to repudiate the charge that Socialism is opposed to Religion. From the Protestant George Lansbury, M.P., to the Catholic, John Wheatley, M.P., the gospel of Jesus is used to swell the ranks of the so-called Labour Parties. The pandering to the ignorance of the masses in order to get votes can find no place in a party working for Socialism. Socialists must rid the workers’ minds of their superstitions, religious, economic and political, in order to develop that scientific and revolutionary outlook upon life without which Socialism is impossible. We are not disturbed, therefore, to see that the organ of the British Empire Union—the “Empire Record” (June, 1924)—devotes much space to our pamphlet as an exposure of Socialist hostility towards religion. We take our stand upon the scientific truths of Socialism, regardless of the opposition from fool or knave. The “Empire Record” says: “These Socialists scorn the view that any moral or spiritual reforms are first needed in man himself.” Spiritual reforms are then still required after 2000 years of Christianity ! His talk about moral reform by those who support a system which results in moral degradation is a joke. And moral reform talk by the Empire Builders who shouted in 1914 for “war to the knife” is not a joke. For the preachers of “hate” in 1914 it is evidently a personal question. No wonder the “Empire Record” heads the paragraph from which we quote, “The decalogue out of date.”

* * *

“Communist” politicians anxious to “get in” are careful to dodge the question of religion. At Kelvingrove Bye-Election, where Ferguson ran under Labour Party auspices, a complaint was made that some orator attacked religion. The Communist paper “The Worker” (June 7th, 1924), says: “We cannot say we heard of any Communist orator attacking religion as mentioned by the special correspondent.” It further states that “it is absurd to suggest that Communist speakers generally attacked religion.” The same dodging of the materialist nature of Socialism was made by the Catholic Francis Meynell when editor of the “Communist,” who answered an enquirer by stating that while the logical person must recognise the conflict between Socialism and Religion, logical people are as rare as white blackbirds. This is an evasion of the subject, and is typical of Jesuitical methods.

* * *

In Ireland, where asylum attendants have been on strike some time, the strikers have issued leaflets using the Pope’s “message” in their support. This message is a quotation from the Encyclical letter of Pope Leo XIII on “The Condition of the Working Classes” in 1891. The quotation opens thus:—

  “Religion teaches the wealthy owner and employer that their workpeople are not to be accounted their bondsmen,” and it goes on to exhort the rich to give the workpeople “a fair wage.” The strikers follow the quotation with the slogan, “Labour demands justice.” These good Catholic strikers fail to see that the same letter of the Pope can be quoted with greater force by the employers. For Pope Leo says : 

  “Thus religion teaches the labouring man and artisan to carry out honestly and fairly all equitable agreements freely entered into; never to injure the property nor to outrage the person of an employer, never to resort to violence in defending their own cause nor to engage in riot or disorder.”

The employers could quite easily quote the Encyclical letter of the recent Pope Benedict XV (1914) entitled “Ad Beatissimi,” an extract, from which is the following :—-

  “The second cause of the general unrest we declared to be the absence of respect for the authority of those who exercise ruling. Ever since the source of human powers has been sought apart from God the Creator and Ruler of the Universe, in the free will of men, the bonds of duty which should exist between superior and inferior have been so weakened as almost to have ceased to exist. The unrestricted striving after independence together with overweening pride has little by little found its way everywhere; it has not even spared the home although the natural origin of the ruling power is as clear as the noonday sun; nay, more deplorable still is has not stopped at the steps of the sanctuary. Hence comes contempt for laws, insubordination of the masses and wanton criticism of orders issued, hence innumerable cases of undermining authority. . . .

‘There is no power but from God and those that are, are ordained of God.’”

* * *

The increasing indifference of the workers to religion is shown by the speech of the Rev. E. W. Sara, Director of the Bishop of London’s Sunday School Council. The Times reports his speech to the Church of England's Men’s Society at Bradford

  “Mr. Sara described the present-day drift away from organised religion as ‘an appalling leakage.’ It constituted a grave challenge to the Church. While Churchmen continued to think chiefly of the respectable few in the front pews, the young people were being lost. In the London diocese alone 16,000 boys and girls had been lost from Bible classes since the war, 16,000 from the Church Lads’ Brigade, nearly 4,000 from the Girls’ Friendly Society, and 8,000 from the senior Bands of Hope. Those figures were typical of the whole country. There were 3,000,000 lapsed communicants, of whom the London Diocese alone counted 300,000.”

The decay of religion amongst workers of the Hebrew race has caused much uneasiness to the clergy. Professor C. G. Montefiore in his “Judiasm and Democracy” states that:

  “There is a considerable section of the Jewish proletariat. which is out of sympathy with the Jewish religion, or, indeed, with religion generally, and at all. This estrangement from religion is mainly true as regards one particular section of Jewish democracy, namely, the social democrats or socialists. . . . They are inclined to be opposed to everything which has been a comfort to, and has been held dear by, the upper class, the bourgeoisie.”

The Professor has to make this confession about religion :—

  “It has bidden people be obedient to their rulers and their kings, obedient and subservient. The book of proverbs, for instance, encourages submission to, and fear of, the constituted authority. A King is the Lord’s Anointed. Religion has devised a sort of hierarchy from the authority of fallible and visible men to the authority of an infallible and invisible God. It has entered, as I have said, into an understanding with the great ones of the earth. In return for their support and acknowledgment it has buttered and buttressed them up in their greatness and their privileges.”

This lecturer of the Jewish Religious Union justifies all we say of the function of religion in the class struggle. It is the agent of class domination.

W. Edgar

"Socialism and Religion."

The Socialist Educational Society of New York have, by permission of the S.P.G.B. reprinted the above pamphlet. The S.P.G.B. are the sole agents for the pamphlet in this country, and copies can be obtained from Head Office at 5d. each, postage 1d. extra, special terms for quantities.

Blogger's Note:

There's no mention of a W. Edgar in the membership records, and what with it being such an exhaustive and detailed article, it does make me think that it might be a regular writer writing under another pen-name. What with the reference to John Spargo and his journalistic work in New York, it does suggest that 'W. Edgar'  might have been Adolph Kohn. Kohn lived in the United States for a number of years during the First World War and its immediate aftermath, and had an in-depth knowledge of the American radical scene. It's also the case that Kohn was already over-represented in this issue of the Socialist Standard (he has at least three articles in this issue elsewhere), so it might have been the case that he employed yet another pen-name for this article, so it wouldn't be seen as a 'Adolph Kohn' issue.

Just a thought. 

The Middle East and Historic Rights (1978)

From the February 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is no question that individuals do influence society and that without an emphasis on the background and nature of outstanding individuals a complete picture of their times is not possible. The problem is, simply, that too much is made of their importance in the fashioning of history. As Karl Kautsky puts it in Foundations of Christianity:

. . . in terms of historical epochs, their influence is only transitory, merely the outer ornament which strikes the eye first in a building but says nothing about its foundations. But it is the foundations that determine the character of the structure and its permanence . . .

To put the proposition in another way: to understand the basic structure of a society is to grasp the underlying significance behind the actions of outstanding individuals. Take, for example, the apparent earth-shattering decision of Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat to parley with the Israelis for “peace” and the return of Arab lands to their former owners. Consider, too, the stiff-backed arguments of Israel’s Menachem Begin on the “historical right” of the Jewish people to return to Samaria and Judea (commonly referred to – but not by Begin – as the West Bank).

Were one to base one’s understanding on popular belief, the new development in Middle East politics is the brainchild of Anwar Sadat. Millions of words are churned out by the media on his and his lovely wife’s personal backgrounds, their devotion to Allah and to the pressing economic problems of the Egyptian masses. Sadat is widely termed “courageous” excepting, to be sure, in some parts of the Arab world where he is labelled “traitor.” Whatever the appellation, however, he is thought of as the instigator of Egypt’s current political moves.

Now, it is not necessary to construct a theory based upon conspiracy to understand that the business class of Egypt and of Israel have orchestrated the present politics of “peace” in their immediate orbits. The symphony does not have to sound, upon original completion, as a finished work and is subject to refinement. Even the master composers of the classics were known to change their scores from the originals. And so it is with the bourgeoisies of Israel and Egypt. There is a constant urge, a need, in capitalist society for trade and capital investment that transcends historical prejudices. That such activity leads, inevitably, to further ruptures and war is but a contradiction of capitalism and beside the point. Business must go on, somehow, but it is not easy-to whatever extent it is possible — for nations to carry on profitable relations with one another when in a legal state of war.

As a matter of fact, the bourgeoisie, as a whole, is never really pleased with a perpetual need to build armaments and wage war with one another. It is costly and the experiences of the West German and Japanese capitalist class since their defeat in World War II prove how much more profitable it is when huge military establishments do not have to be maintained.

The point is that, whatever the outcome of current negotiations, one should learn more by examining Israeli and Egyptian business needs than by studying the personal characteristics of their heads of state.

Now, what of that “historical right” of the Jewish people to settle in Samaria and Judea (the West Bank)? There are, of course, two main opposing points of view: the area, in biblical times, was Jewish and is thus part of the traditional Jewish homeland; Arab occupancy for a couple of thousand years – more or less – makes it Arab territory. Upon analysis, both views are unsound and unfounded. In the first place, there is no real essence behind the premise that those who espouse Judaism (willingly or not) in our times are descendants of those early Jewish inhabitants of Samaria and Judea. Aside from the intermarriage and general miscegenation between Jews and non-Jews in mediaeval and modem times Judaism, in very early times, was a proselytising religion, particularly so in the early years of Rome’s imperial greatness. As Kautsky puts it:

  Among the many religions that came together in the Roman world empire the Jewish was the one best suited to the thoughts and needs of the time. It was not superior to the philosophy of the ‘heathen’ but to their religions — no wonder that the Jews felt far superior to the Gentiles and that the number of their supporters grew rapidly. ‘Judaism wins over all men,’ says the Alexandrian Jew Philo, ‘and exhorts them to virtue; barbarians, Hellenes, men of the mainland and men of the islands, the nations of the East like those of the West, Europeans, Asiatics, the peoples of the world.’ We expected Judaism to become the religion of the world. This was the time of Christ. (Foundations of Christianity).

And Kautsky goes on to say in his next paragraph:

. . . as early as 139 B.C. in Rome itself Jews were expelled for making Italian proselytes. It was reported from Antioch that the larger part of the Jewish community there consisted of converted Jews (rather than born Jews). It must have been so in many other cities as well . . .

Is it not preposterous, then, to relate present world Jewry to the historical inhabitants of Samaria and Judea or of Palestine, generally?

On the other hand, neither Jews nor Arabs, for the most part, could lay claim to meaningful ownership of the land on which they lived in biblical times any more than they can today. Throughout the period of recorded history the land in any part of civilization has been, mainly, the property of a small minority of any national population. The lesson is still to be learned: “Our land” so far as the vast majority is concerned is ours only in philosophy, poetry, and song — not in actuality. And the only historic right enjoyed by working people anywhere in the civilized world is the right to be exploited (when they can be “used”) by, and subject to, a ruling class and its state.

Harry Morrison

WSP (US), Boston.

YHWH* (1961)

Book Review from the September 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Religion of Israel, by Yehezekel Kaufmann (translated by Moshe Greenberg.) Allen & Unwin, 42s.

This is an excellent book: not only the translation—which alone can make or mar any work, but also the abridgement of seven volumes.†  Despite this and the obvious drawbacks Dr. Greenberg has given us an eminently readable book. A must for biblical scholars and a mine of information for Socialists. Professor Kaufmann took the best part of thirty years to produce these seven volumes and in so doing has amassed a wealth of facts regarding the origins and the nature of Israelite religion—Judaism. Many of these facts are incorporated in this abridgement, which makes fascinating reading and one wonders at what was left out. This is the first time that any part of Professor Kaufmann’s major work on Judaism has been published in any other language but Hebrew.

For those concerned with Judaism as the first monotheistic religion from which sprang Christianity and Islam and the connecting links between Paganism, Pantheism, Polytheism, and Primitive Magic, there is a good argument in this book and much to cogitate over.

Socialists will value this book in much the same way as they do Fraser's Golden Bough, and Darwin's Origin of Species, as an explanation of mankind's activities and of his earlier inability to understand natural phenomena, such as the rising and setting of the Sun, the waxing and waning of the Moon, storms, floods, and so on. Primitive Magic was early man's way of endeavouring to deal with the things he did not understand, and as he became more sophisticated his superstitions hardened into religion. Pantheistic and polytheistic to start with and then Monotheistic, today we have variants all along the line, enough of them in fact to make the soup firms' varieties look sick. In the bargain, organised religion in the early days of propertied society— somewhere in the Middle East—gave rise to science, which is today busy burying religion beneath a mountain of facts.

All of this has been brought about by man endeavouring to come to grips with the problems that confronted him. Homo Sapiens has solved most of his problems, and we are confident that he will continue to do so. This volume is good ammunition for debunking the God idea. Not that Professor Kaufmann wrote his volumes with that intention—he is a devout Jew—but then neither did Darwin!

Jon Keys

* GOD.

† An eighth volume has been written, but is not dealt with in this book.

Who Wrote The Bible? (1994)

From the January 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Bible dates from 700 BC but many Genesis stories are based on ancient Mesopotamian myths. The Garden of Eden was Mesopotamia’s fertile flood plain, the "Edhen". This dried up when the Persian Gulf withdrew 200 miles southwest causing the people to believe that they had offended the gods. Hence the "Fall of Man” myth.

John G. Jackson in his work the Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth comments:

  "There are liberal Christian apologists who no longer subscribe to the literal belief in the Fall of Man. But if there is no Fall, there is no need of an atonement, and no Redeemer is required"

Amorite people from Mesopotamia — known as the Habiru or Hebrews — entered Northern Canaan about 1500 BC and some were possibly taken as hostages when the Egyptians reconquered Canaan in 1468 BC. In about 1400 BC. the monotheistic Cult of Aten first appeared in Egypt only to be destroyed soon after Tutankhamun’s death c. 1300 BC. Pears Cyclopedia states: "From the historical point of view an important influence on Judaism may have been the monotheism of Akhen-aten".

The Exodus refugees may have been expelled Aten cultists. Professor Richard Friedman, states in Who Wrote the Bible?:

    "Some have concluded that only a small proportion of the ancient Israelites were in Egypt. The names, Moses, Hopni and Phineas are all Egyptian, not Hebrew. The group that was in Egypt and then in Sinai worshipped with god Yahweh. In Israel they met Israelite tribes who worshipped the god El. The two groups accepted the belief that Yahweh and El were same god."

The people of south Canaan eventually became known as the "Yahudi" and the land "Yahuda" or Judah. The name is possibly derived from "Yahweh” or its variant "Yah" (as in "Halleluyah”). The people of north Canaan — including the Hebrews — worshipped the Canaanite god "El", which may explain the name "Ysrael" - Israel.

Some historians now believe that the kingdom of "all Israel” never existed and that Israel and Judah emerged separately. In 722 BC Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians and its sacred writings to El were subsequently combined with similar Judean scriptures to Yahweh. These were further combined in about 622 BC with Deuteronomy when this long lost Book of Moses was supposedly "rediscovered" in the Temple. The German scholar, De Wette, described the "rediscovery" as a "pious fraud".

In 586 BC Judah was conquered by the Babylonians who in turn fifty years later were conquered by the Persians who made Palestine a province in 458 BC. This, therefore, marks the real beginnings of Judaism a combination of the declining Yahweh cult and Persia’s official religion. Zoroastrianism.

Zoroastrianism introduced to the Jews the concept of a god of love whose good would triumph over the Devil’s evil. Heaven was for the righteous and Hell for the wicked. Zoroastrianism also introduced the concepts of angelology, the soul, a Messiah, Resurrection and a Judgement Day. "Paradise" is derived from the Persian for an "idyllic afterlife” - “Pairidaeza".

The archaeologist, John Romer, in his work Testament, writes:

    "The influence of ideas that once filled the mysterious faith of ancient Persia runs through the Old Testament and continues well into the pages of the New Testament; an influence that leaves a trace even in the words of Jesus. "

In 332 BC, Palestine was conquered by Alexander the Great and a Greek influenced Jewish priesthood eventually emerged, the Sadducees. In 152 BC the Jewish Maccabean uprising occurred, out of which emerged the Pharisees whose apocalyptic ideas stemmed from the Book of Daniel. E.E. Kellett in his History of Religion states that "it was, as is now fully acknowledged, from the Pharisees that Christianity drew much of its inspiration.”

Perverted temple

A third group also emerged — the Essenes — who introduced the concept of a holy community temporarily replacing the "perverted" Temple worship of the Sadducees.

Kellett describes the apocalyptic philosophy’s development:

  "The idea of a 'new heaven and a new Earth' had hitherto been materialistic. A gradual transformation of this view look place in the last century before Christ, and prepared the way for his ideas. Apocalyptic ideas asserted a catastrophic end of the world. It is needless to prove that this conception, also, was taken over by early Christianity."

The first Christians were probably Essenes living in Jerusalem called Naasenes or Nazarenes. The Essene Dead Sea Scrolls describe a schism between the followers of the Essene leader, the "Righteous One", who strictly adhered to the Law of Moses and a breakaway group led by the "Wicked Priest" who wanted faith to replace Jewish Law.

This parallels the New Testament schism between the Jewish Christians of James the Just and the Greek Gentile Christians of Paul. The New Testament refers to Jesus as the "Righteous One” and is the only non-Essenian literature to use their term for the Devil "Belial". Jesus, James the Just's brother, clearly says: "Do not suppose that I have come to abolish the Law. I did not come to abolish but to complete." (Matt. 5:17 20). But Paul claims: "Christ bought us freedom from the curse of the law"! (Gal. 3:8-18)!

Similarly, the conflicting genealogies of Jesus attempt to show that Jesus was virgin born and descended from the Jewish "House of David". Jesus confirmed his Judaistic cause in Matthew (15:24 26): "I was sent to the lost sheep of Israel and to them alone".

Christians claim that Jesus's so-called "Doctrine of Love" is unique, but Zoroastrianism's god was a god of love and the Old Testament Book of Leviticus says "Love they neighbour as thyself". (Levi. 19:18). Rabbi Hillel, the Liberal Pharisee who died in AD 9 preached "Love thine enemies". Jesus later hijacked the phrase, falsely claiming the Old Testament said "Love your neighbour, hate your enemy". This is curious given Jesus’s own statements: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, he cannot be a disciple of mine" (Matt. 5:43-44). In fact, some disciples of Jesus were Zealot insurrectionists. At Gethsemane, some disciples were armed with swords and one attacked the High Priest's servant.

The accounts of Jesus’s life are all riddled with numerous contradictions. For example, Matthew claims that Jesus was born before Herod’s death in 4 BC but Luke says the birth occurred when Cyrenius governed from AD 6.

Given the many contradictions it's no surprise that there is not one genuine contemporary account of Jesus's life. As Gibbon says in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:

    "During the age of Christ the lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, demons were expelled but the sages of Greece and Rome appeared unconscious of any alteration in the moral or physical government of the world."

Christianity’s real founder was Paul. His writings which make up 44 percent of New Testament were written many years before the Gospels.

In AD70. the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, its Temple and dispersed the Jews. Four years later they overran the Fortress of Masada and 960 Zealots committed suicide.

This final destruction of the Jewish Messianic movement meant that their doctrines were totally reversed. The Gentile Christians made their Holy Community, as symbolized by Jesus, a permanent Temple replacement. Jesus promised salvation in the next world and Mosaic Law was replaced by faith in Jesus as the central doctrine.

Christianity survived by accommodating Rome’s influence on its teachings. Hence the whitewashing of Pilate’s role in Jesus’s death. In AD 325 the Council of Nicae fixed the Canon of the New Testament. The Emperor Constantine arbitrarily decided the location of Jesus’s birth, death and ascension, and built a church on each site.

Professors Eisenman and Wise in their work The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered state that some Essenes were known as "The Children of Salvation". The Hebrew for "salvation" is "yesha" - and the noun "yeshuato" means "his salvation" ("his" = “Righteous One") — and "Yeshua" is Hebrew for Jesus. Eisenman and Wise further state: "The personification of this concept in the Gospel can be considered a most revolutionary development and one that has not ceased exercising its influence on mankind even now."

The Dead Sea Scrolls referred to were suppressed for 40 years because, as Eisenman and Wise state, it is impossible to distinguish them from the doctrines of the Jewish Christians. Christianity’s origins in the violent xenophobic Jewish Messianic movement contrast vividly with the demure picture painted by today’s Christians. Today’s Christians may equate "Loving your neighbour" with the so-called socialism of the Labour Party, but as has been shown such sentiments did not even originate with Christianity. As Socialist and Materialists we reject the notion that our destiny is ultimately determined by something outside the material world. The ideas that the existence of a complex universe presupposes the existence of an even more complex creator/designer/god — whose own existence does not — answers nothing.

Richard Layton