Vienna’s Historical Warning to New York on Mamdani
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I recently stumbled on an anti-Semitic website and they had a whole list of Talmud sayings that sound very non-PC. One example was: "It is permitted to marry a 3-year-old girl," which they said means that Judaism condones sexual abuse of a young child. Another example was: "The best of the Gentiles, kill." Does the Talmud really say this stuff?
Misquoting Talmudic texts or taking them out of context is an age-old method used to incite anti-Semitism.
In the example that you cite, that a Jew may marry a 3-year-old girl, it simply means that under the age of 3, a "marriage" contract has no validity. The Talmud is discussing a technical legal point, not condoning abhorrent sexual activities.
As for: "The best of the gentiles, kill," the context here is very crucial. The question was raised, how could there be any horses chasing after the Jews with chariots (in Exodus 14:7), when they were all killed in the plague of hail (Exodus 9:19). The Midrash (Tanchuma – Beshalach 8) answers that the horses were owned by those who heeded God's warnings and locked his animals indoors (Exodus 9:20).
The Midrash concludes that these God-fearing Egyptians -- the best Egyptians – turned out to be the ones that gave their horses to chase the Jewish people. In other words, in this particular instance, even the best Egyptians also turned out to be oppressors. So even they – "the best of the gentiles" – were deserving of death.
The Torah states unequivocally that ALL men were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). In fact, the Talmud emphasizes that Adam was created from the dust of all four corners of the earth (so to speak), so that no one nation could claim superiority. And of course, it is forbidden for a Jew to kill a Gentile. (source: Talmud Sanhedrin 57a; "Taz" Y.D. 158:1).
So you see, one can change the meaning of anything by taking it out of context. And better not to waste time refuting these points one by one. God's Torah is morally perfect, and if something ever sounds otherwise, it is because it is not understood properly.
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ok but why is there even talk of marrying a 3 year old in the first place?
Do you not know of betrothal? Commitment to marry as a child to another child? This is illegal before the age of 3. And is not considered sexual in any way.
The Talmud is replete with discussions of theoretical topics, clarifying legal fine points, with very little regard for practical application. The many hypothetical cases it envisions should not be taken to mean the Sages considered such behavior (which very rarely relates to marriage) normal. To take one example out of thousands, the Talmud (Sukkah 23a) discusses if one can use a living animal as a wall of his Sukkah (and it may depend on if he ties it down or not). Here as well, the Talmud is most certainly not condoning such bizarre behavior and cruel mistreatment of animals, but is focused entirely on clarifying halachic principles. Anyone even remotely familiar with the actual Talmud is quite familiar with this.
This is absolute nonsense. “Context matters!” Imagine a Christian text with such disgusting rhetoric — it would not exist.
You think pulling out a single sentence out of hundreds of thousands of books written on Jewish thought is an accurate way of determining an ideology? You realize that by this metric anything can be made to look ridiculous. I can make Harry Potter look like the bloodiest work of fantasy every written.
And yes, Christianity is riddled with absolutely horrific statements and quotes.
Did the Talmud misquote G-d's written Torah? G-d said, do not cause pain and anguish to the mother goat by boiling it in the mother's milk. G-d's presence at Abraham serving milk and meat to the three strangers at his tent as He watched this event and did not speak to it. Was Hashem misquoted?
This is actually a contradiction in the Torah itself. You can see a few answers here:
https://aish.com/avraham-serving-the-angels/
Re how the Sages knew the law of meat and milk is not literally limited to cooking a kid in its mother's milk, see here:
https://aish.com/kid-in-mothers-milk-not-taken-literally/