This report explores a prevalent antisemitic trope online, where the Talmud (a body of work central to Judaism, containing discussions and interpretations of Jewish law, ethics and customs) is used to “justify” antisemitism. Proponents of this trope either lie, misconstrue or misunderstand the contents and history of the Talmud in a way that “justifies” antisemitic positions or beliefs.
“The Talmud Permits…”
One version of this trope is the claim that the Talmud allows or endorses practices such as paedophilia. The idea that Jews find such practices acceptable demonises and dehumanises Jews and Judaism. The most common version is the idea that the Talmud sees Goyim (non-Jews) as “lesser” than Jews, and permits (or compels) Jews to treat them as inhuman – stealing, harming, murdering, raping, and lying to them. This narrative implies (or occasionally explicitly states) that because Jews treat non-Jews as subhuman, non-Jews should return this treatment.
The following Reddit comment lists a series of claims about what the Talmud supposedly permits, accompanied by supposed citations as to where in the Talmud these can be found. Examples include “Murdering Goyim is like killing wild animals”, “Sexual intercourse with a little girl is permitted if she is three years of age” (i.e. alleging that Jews are paedophiles) and “Even the best of Goyim should be killed” (claiming that murder of ALL non-Jews is not just permitted but required). All of these statements are false; none of these actions are permitted or endorsed either by the Talmud or by modern Judaism.
For example, the claim that “Murdering Goyim is like killing wild animals” is cited from Sanhedrin 59a. Reading a highly accepted Jewish source of this text reveals that no such claim is made here. Instead, this section discusses whether Gentiles (non-Jews) are permitted to study Jewish holy texts, and then discusses the ethics of eating meat from living animals. A single rabbi says “A gentile who engages in Torah study is liable to receive the death penalty”. Presumably, this overlaps with the discussion of killing animals to form the claim that “Murdering Goyim is like killing wild animals”. Firstly, this reading of the passage incorrectly assumes that just because two topics are next to each other they must be related, when in fact the Talmud frequently moves between unrelated topics. More importantly, this claim ignores the context of the passage – ultimately the Talmud rejects this rabbi’s opinion and rules that non-Jews are permitted to study Jewish holy texts and should be highly respected if they do.
Similar misunderstandings (or misconstructions) of the Talmud are responsible for many of the false claims in this comment and other uses of this trope. Other false claims are simply lies. For example, Szaaloth-Utszabot, The Book of Jore Dia (the ‘source’ of “A Jew should and must make a false oath when the Goyim asks if our books contain anything against them”) is not even a real book, let alone a book in the Talmud.
This X/Twitter post shares a frequently circulated image with similar (and some overlapping) claims about what the Talmud permits, although with a focus on the treatment of non-Jews. Claims are made that the Talmud says Jews can steal from non-Jews (“What a Jew steals from a ‘goy’ he may keep”), that non-Jews are treated as inhuman (“All children of the ‘goyim’ are animals”) and many more. Based on these claims the poster concludes that Jews are a threat to non-Jews – “your wives and children will suffer the same fate of the Palestinians” (presumably implying that Jews will kill them) and “the Zionist overlords” will make you a “slave”. The poster proposes a response; taking action (unclear what action) against Jews (“the time to rise up is now”). This is an example of how this trope is not just misinformation but rather helps justify antisemitism, discrimination, and perhaps even violence towards Jews.
Note that in this example, this narrative is intertwined with criticism of Israel and Zionism – yet another case of the overlap between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
This post on Instagram is another commonly circulated image of “quotes” from the Talmud. This image was found on several accounts on Instagram, Gab, TikTok and Telegram.
Here a commenter on Gab responds to a discussion about the war in Gaza. The claim that Jews consider Palestinians “no better than Cattle”, while not explicitly based in “Talmud” rhetoric by this commenter, seems linked to claims that the Talmud calls non-Jews “cattle” and “beasts” as seen in the above examples (particularly the first example). Yet again this narrative is intertwined with anti-Israel criticism in an explicitly antisemitic way, where “the Jews” are held responsible for the actions of Israel. The commenter finishes with the antisemitic claim that “Jews are a Cruel, Sadistic and Bloodthirsty Race”.
Not Real Judaism
Another common version of this trope is the idea that the Talmud (which modern Jews follow alongside the Torah) is “not real Judaism”. This is a version of denying Jews their Judaism, an antisemitic narrative explored in another briefing. Denying Jews their Judaism is antisemitic in itself, and is often used in conjunction with denying Jews a right to self-determination.
The following TikTok comment says “The talmud is the satanic Torah of Khazars ashkenaz”. This references the Khazar Theory, which suggests all Ashkenazi Jews are descendants of the Khazars, a semi-nomadic Turkic group from the Caucasus region that supposedly converted to Judaism around the 9th century. It thus claims these Jews are not “real Jews”. In addition to denying the legitimacy of Ashkenazi Jews, stripping them of their identity, this commenter demonises them by calling “their” Talmud “satanic”.
The following Linkedin post claims the Talmud contains “perverted teachings” that “replaced” the teachings of the Torah. As in the example above, this both dehumanises Judaism (calling its teaching “perverted”) and denies Judaism its links to the Torah (the holiest book in Judaism), falsely claiming the Talmud “replaced” teachings of the Torah. Similar to earlier examples, this post then conflates this antisemitic dehumanisation with criticism of Israel and Zionists, claiming this “explains a lot of how Israeli Zionists act and think”.
This narrative is commonly used by some extremist Christians to justify their hate for Jews, and in particular to explain why it is ok for them to hate a people who share much of their own holy book (as the Old Testament mostly overlaps with Jewish Holy texts). In this Gab post a user claims the Talmud is the “work of the Devil” and modern Judaism is “Ba’al Worship” (Ba’al is a biblical idol synonymous with betrayal of God’s word), clearly demonising Judaism. They further claim that, motivated by the Talmud, Jews have excluded many sections of the ‘original’ Hebrew Bible which is the Old Testament. This is false on two counts. Firstly, many of the books of the Old Testament that do not appear in the Torah (five books of Moses) do appear in the Hebrew Bible – called the Tanakh. For example, this user claims the Book of Daniel is excluded from modern Judaism because it clashes with the Talmud, but the Book of Daniel is contained in the Tanakh. While there are some books of the Catholic and Orthodox Old Testament that are not included in the Tanakh (these books are also excluded by the Protestant Church), there is no evidence that including these books gives a more ‘accurate’ or ‘true’ version of the Bible, or that its exclusion was part of a Talmudic plot to ignore inconvenient Hebrew scripture.
This next example combines the “Not real Judaism” and “The Talmud Permits” versions of this trope. A Threads user shares a video explaining that “Israelis and Zionists are not Jewish” because of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. The video and the caption suggest that anyone who “actually follows any Abrahamic faith agrees killing children is wrong”, implying that Jewish Israelis and Zionists don’t actually follow an Abrahamic faith and thus they must not be real Jews. The user states “The Torah says love thy neighbour but the Talmud says kill for they’re cattle slave (Goy) [sic]”. This repeats the trope that the Talmud endorses murder of non-Jews because they are equal to cattle, and denies the Talmud is legitimate Judaism. These two combined are used to attack Zionists and Israelis.
