(Author: Hadassa Ben-Itto, Vol. 71, No. 1, Pesach 2016)
Editor’s Note: This is the second of a three-part feature reprinting (with slight editing) Chapter 10, as well as the relevant section of Chapter 12, of Hadassa Ben-Itto’s The Lie That Wouldn’t Die: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Vallentine Mitchell – London, 2005). A best-seller on its publication, the book was quickly recognized as being amongst the definitive studies on The Protocols. It includes a chapter on the famous Grahamstown libel trial of 1934, where the SA Jewish Board of Deputies lodged a case against prominent members of the SA National Party (Greyshirts) movement after they has forged a document with contents closely based on the antisemitic conspiracy theories of The Protocols and falsely intimated that Rev. Abraham Levy of Port Elizabeth was its author. The action was successful, making this one of the first cases where The Protocols was debunked in a court of law.
The first section, published in the Chanukah 2015 of Jewish Affairs, provided the background to the trial and concluded with the trial itself about to commence. This second section deals with the presentation of the plaintiff’s witnesses, including Rev Levy himself and the then World Zionist President Nahum Sokolow, an expert on The Protocols who providentially happened to be visiting the country at the time.
The Editor thanks Judge Ben-Itto for allowing Jewish Affairs to reprint this chapter, as well as part of a second chapter relating to the subsequent history of The Protocolsin South Africa. Elsewhere in this issue, David Scher reviews Rodney Mazinter’s recently published By a Mighty Hand, a novel whose central theme is the spread of The Protocols after World War I and how it impacts on the book’s fictional protagonists. In the course of researching the subject, Mazinter was in contact with Judge Ben-Itto, and was subsequently instrumental in arranging for Jewish Affairs to republish the relevant chapter from her book.
The Lie That Would Not Die is available through the publisher (frank.cass@vmbooks.com), from the distributor in the USA (wendy@isbs.com) and at Amazon.
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A trial in Grahamstown
10 July was a cool and cloudy day. It was the middle of winter in South Africa. The courtroom was packed from an early hour. Members of the Grey Shirts were in uniform, some in the courtroom and others outside, making loud derogatory remarks at passing Jews. A hostile and tense atmosphere prevailed. Reporters swarmed over the place, accompanied by photographers. The two robed judges took their seats and the court came to order.
On the witness stand, Reverend Abraham Levy carried himself with quiet dignity. The court attendant administered the oath, and his lawyer quickly led the Rabbi through the technical facts. He described his functions at the synagogue. He had never seen the document published by the defendants, he never used notes in his sermons and the only documents they sent out were notices of convening monthly meetings of committee, and annual reports. These were all printed, not typewritten. They did not even have a typewriter. The Hebrew words used in the document could not have been written by a Jew, even if he was illiterate.
Then came the first surprise, the journalists busily making notes. The Rabbi placed a folded newspaper on the judges’ bench, pointing out to the court that all the phrases in the document, purporting to have a Jewish meaning, were copied from one issue of the Jewish Chronicledated 9 March 1934, some of them misspelled even in English. The Jewish Chronicle was published in London in the English language.
It was time to introduce the ‘Protocols’, Reynolds decided.
‘Do you see any resemblance between this document and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?’ he asked the Rabbi. ‘Yes’, the Rabbi answered, adding in an excited voice that there was no ‘High Circle of the Jewish Citizens of Port Elizabeth’, there were no ‘Council Meetings of the Select’, there was no ‘Trustee and six members of the Council’. They had originally appointed two trustees who had no power to authorize anything, and anyway, both trustees had been away in England for 8-9 years. They had never been replaced by substitutes.
Getting down to specifics, Rabbi Levy stated that he had never heard that the Jews conspired with Luther and the Reformation. ‘This is a new doctrine’, he said with a smile, noticing that the judges were also smiling. This was a good sign, he thought.
The Jews had no ‘World Socialistic Movement’, the witness continued, and he had never heard that the Jews were behind the revolution in Russia. Jews who were communists, he said heatedly, were those who had abandoned their faith. The Bolsheviks had no regard for religion of any kind, he stated. They had no book called ‘the Talmud Tora’, these words mean an elementary school for children, not a book. No Jew would make such a mistake. The judges could not help but notice the amused looks of the Jews in the audience.
Examining the Inch document once again the Rabbi continued, saying that he had never organized anybody to go to a Greyshirt meeting and they never instructed anybody to ‘smash everything they could, carry pepper-pots, blackjacks, knuckle-dusters, revolvers, lead piping, sticks, stones, and boxing glove’. He had never heard such nonsense.
With his next question Reynolds knew he might be exercising the patience of the Judges, but decided to try and educate the court on some Jewish terms. How else would these gentile judges be made to realize the extent of absurdity in the allegations presented in the forged document?
They had discussed this at length. One cannot turn a courtroom into a seminar, his colleague argued, you will either alienate the judges or, what is worse, bore them. But Reynolds was an experienced lawyer. To win a trial, he used to say, it is not enough to prepare your witnesses well. This is not a solo game, you have an opponent, and you must be as familiar with his arguments as you are with your own. You cannot ignore even those that seem worthless. A judge might see them in a different light. Ignoring or underestimating an argument of your opponent is the most common cause of losing a case.
He had spent the last weeks studying the matter of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He had collected various versions of the book concentrating on the introductions, which varied from one edition to another. He soon realized that the Protocols were presented as a modern version of the so-called ‘Jewish Plot’, which was supposed to be as old as the history of the Jews. As proof they often quoted the Talmud, sometimes using fake quotations, which their audience was not equipped to check, and other times using accurate quotes, completely out of their original context. This tactic, he soon learned, was very effective, as it lent to the promoters of the Protocols an image of learned academics. Suspecting that the defendants would use the same technique, he decided to be prepared.
Impressed by Rabbi Levy’s vast knowledge on the subject, he was sure the judges would not be bored. But he also realized that they must find another expert witness, preferably non-Jewish. Unfortunately, the Rabbi had remarked at one of their meetings, a Jewish scholar, even the most prominent one, would automatically be suspected of bias. If the court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, the judges would immediately be accused of being in the pocket of the Jews. ‘Believe me’, the Rabbi had said with a sad smile, ‘this is no Jewish paranoia, this is the result of age-old experience.’
Keeping his fingers crossed and praying for the indulgence of the court, Reynolds now asked the Rabbi with obvious distaste: ‘They say in the document that the Gentiles will be forced to drink the piss and eat the dung of the Jews. And that there has been a conspiracy through the ages taught and founded on the Jewish books against Christianity.’
‘It is a lie,’ the Rabbi cried. Then, in a calmer voice he patiently explained that the Talmud was comprised of discussions of Rabbis on the text called the Mishna or Oral Law, extending over a period from 500 BC TO 500 AD. It was first transmitted from one generation to another orally and then reduced to writing. Various Rabbis commented on the text and that is the Gemara, popularly known as the Talmud. There are all sorts of contradictory statements there representing the views of the Rabbis in their debates. ‘It is silly to maintain that there exists some sort of conspiracy’, he stated.
The judges listened attentively as the witness gave a short summary of Jewish history, while Reynolds heaved a sigh of relief. Surprising even his lawyers, the witness stated that the texts from the Talmud used by the defendants had already been the subject of litigation in a German court. The courtroom was now very quiet as the Rabbi continued. Most of modern anti-Semitic feeling is based on the perversion of Jewish texts, he explained. The first one to try to extract from the Talmud texts to be used against the Jews was one Isenberger in his book Judaism Unmasked, published in the year 1700. At the end of the nineteenth century professor Rohle from Austria propagated these texts supposedly taken from the Talmud. A man called Block accused him of being a perjurer and sued him. By the court’s request The Oriental Society of Berlin and a Catholic professor of Prague nominated two scholars, Noldke and Wuenche, who presented a report on 400 texts, vindicating the Talmud completely. Rohle had to withdraw his defense and admit he was a perjurer.
Some of these same texts were re-used by the defendants, the Rabbi said, pointing at them. ‘It is a malicious lie that the Talmud says we are human beings and the nations of the world are beasts’, he cried, removing his spectacles and wiping them vigorously, ‘nowhere in the Talmud does it say that a Jew may rob a Goy!’
The audience was fidgeting as the witness went on to explain in detail Hebrew terms and Jewish customs, but not once did the judges interrupt.
Then it was time for cross-examination.
Cross-examination can be a traumatic experience in any court operating under the English adversary system. In the inquisitory system applied in all countries on the European continent, it was the judge who questioned witnesses, and he would never badger or insult them. Even defendants in criminal proceedings are questioned politely and courteously. Not so in the English system, where cross-examination often resembles a police third degree. A lawyer may raise his voice to witnesses, accuse them of lying, expose them to every kind of embarrassment with questions concerning their private lives. Skeletons in their closets are dragged out in an attempt to impeach them, sometimes harming their reputations irreparably. Yet, this is considered the best tool in the arsenal of a lawyer to try and get at the truth, and although some judges do their utmost to protect a witness, they are not supposed to deny an attorney his right to pressure a witness in an attempt to reveal facts beneficial to his client.
Rabbi Levy had never been in a court of law, and Reynolds had done his best to prepare him for what was to come. Yet, he gasped audibly when Inch rose arrogantly and shot at him his opening salvo:
Q: Can one be a Jew and an Englishman?
A: Certainly, if he is born in England.
Q: Can a Chinaman be a Britisher?
A: Certainly, if he is born in England.
Q: But that means that a goat can be a horse!
It took the witness a minute to control his anger and respond with dignity.
A: A Chinaman has a land of origin, he originates from China, but if he is born in England he is entitled to British protection, he is also an Englishman.
‘I want to prove that in South Africa a Jew can no more be a South African than a horse can be a donkey’, Inch stated, turning to the audience with a smirk. The judges sat stone-faced, but did not interfere.
Asked why he had ‘dragged them to court’, the Rabbi cried out: ‘I have suffered in my feelings, I have suffered anguish that such a statement should be fastened on me by the person who forged this document. I have suffered very grievously by having such a filthy, blasphemous and scurrilous statement fastened upon me.’
Trying hard to regain his composure, the Rabbi answered every specific question with as much restraint as he could muster: No, they had no occult movements; meetings of Jewish bodies in the Synagogue were open, nothing secret, they had no Higher Council, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were false, they never existed, there was no Jewish plot, either local or international.
Suddenly Inch raised his voice: ‘Why should we believe you’, he asked, ‘Did not Jacob use camouflage to get the birthright of Esau?’ The witness looked helplessly at the court, not trusting his voice.
Then it was the turn of Von Moltke, who read his questions from a prepared document, sometimes not even waiting for an answer: Are you a Son of the Covenant; Have you been circumcised; Are you an Ashkenazi Jew and are you aware of the fact that is the worst type of Jew you can get in the world; What is your religion; you know Jews have all sorts of religions as long as they can pervert Christianity; To whom are you subordinate ecclesiastically.
When court was recessed the Rabbi seemed on the verge of collapse. Why don’t judges protect a witness from insulting questions, he asked his lawyers on the way out. This is the system, they explained, the judges must look neutral. This is the English way of finding out the truth. The Rabbi shrugged. He knew by heart all the rules of the Jewish Halakha concerning the conduct of a trial. This is insane, he thought, the Jewish rules made much more sense. But he was too tired to give it much thought.
Next morning Von Moltke started as soon as the Rabbi took the stand: Do the Jews keep two sets of Talmud, one to present to a Gentile court, and another one in a secret court; Are you acquainted with all occult movements or societies in South Africa; Is there no such thing as ‘Jews of the High Circle’ in South Africa in Jewish religion?Could you give us an explanation why the Jews are always persecuted in every country, by every nation?
He kept answering in a tired voice, sometimes in monosyllables. He was ashamed to have to answer such questions. He had never felt more degraded. But he could not believe his ears when Von Moltke approached the stand and asked ‘Why do you go out of your way to drag a few poor old Greyshirtsinto court?’
Not able to restrain himself, the Rabbi raised his voice: ‘You have been cutting the Jewish people for months, and there are young Jewish children born in this country who look upon themselves as good citizens, and they cannot hear these words of blasphemy used day after day.
’Inevitably the Protocols came up again:
Q: You say that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are a forgery?
A: Let me say definitely that there is absolutely no connection between the contents of these Protocols with any of the Jewry in any part of the world.
Q: Would you consider the man who forged, or compiled or wrote this book of Protocols, would you consider him a prophet?
A: Certainly not!
Q: Would you consider Mr. Henry Ford a prominent Gentile?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you know what Ford said about the Protocols?
A: Yes, and do you know what he said after he said what he had said about the Protocols?
Then it was the turn of Olivier, but his questions were mostly repetitious.
Suddenly it was over and the court stood in recess. Everybody in the courtroom was looking bored. Long hours, which ran into days, were wasted on boring testimony concerning the theft of the document. Inch had presented an affidavit describing the manner in which the document had come into his hands. Two young boys, one blond and one dark, had watched the synagogue and had brought to him two unsigned documents which included suspicious remarks about a Jewish anti-Christian plan. That is when he had decided to break into the synagogue, where he had found the document in issue. The two boys remained anonymous to the end of the trial, but his description of the synagogue and the manner of his entry did not fit the physical facts. So the court was compelled to listen for long hours to boring testimony of witnesses on technical matters. Even the journalists looked bored and almost left, but then an old man took the stand and the atmosphere suddenly changed.
Preparing for trial the lawyers were in a dilemma. They only had a few short weeks to create their list of witnesses. As soon as they decided to center their argument on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, rather than the locally forged document, they realized the tremendous responsibility they had undertaken. Unlike their colleagues in Bern, they did not have at their disposal witnesses who could testify directly to the forgery of the Protocols. They would therefore concentrate on testimony proving the absurdity of the allegations both in the Protocols and in the Inch document. They needed an outstanding witness, of international repute, but how do you get such a person to travel to South Africa on such short notice, they wondered.
But luck was with them. A few days before the trial they suddenly learned that Nahum Sokolov was expected on a short visit to South Africa.
Sokolov was at that time president of the World Zionist Organization, having been elected in 1931 to replace Chaim Weitzmann. He carried his 75 years well. Against the advice of his doctors he did not spare himself and traveled to Jewish communities to raise the necessary funds to keep the Zionist enterprise going. Hitler had risen to power in Germany and funds were urgently needed to help Jewish refugees settle in Palestine.
They knew what a burden he was carrying and hesitated to ask him to interrupt his mission and testify at the trial, but he readily volunteered. He was very familiar with the matter of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and would do anything to reveal the truth to the public, he declared. What better forum than a court of law. They warned him, describing the humiliating cross-examination of the Rabbi, but he said Jews were used to such ordeals.
He was one of the most important Jewish leaders of his generation. A kibbutz and streets in most towns in Israel carry his name. Few are aware of the fact that it was Sokolov who gave the title Tel-Aviv, to his Hebrew translation of Herzl’s book ‘Altneuland’, a name later adopted by the largest city in Israel.
A journalist and a writer of world repute, in full command of many languages, his writings published in many countries, Sokolov was received by heads of state and by the Pope, and had their ear and their respect. He had headed the Jewish delegation to the Paris Peace Conference after World War I, and the Committee representing Jews at the League of Nations. He was recognized as one of the best-educated persons on Jewish as well as on general matters. They could not have prayed for a better witness.
Duly sworn by the court attendant, Sokolov described his credentials. As instructed by the lawyers, he then patiently waited for Reynolds’ questions.
Q: Is there any truth whatsoever in the suggestion that there is a Jewish plot to overcome the other nations of the world or anything of that kind?
A: No, I don’t believe that.
Pointing to a locally published copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and to the forged Inch document, Reynolds continued:
Q: Is there any suggestion of truth whatsoever in any of the statements in these documents, is there any truth in what they say about the objects of the Jewish race?
A: No, every word is a lie.
They needed this witness not only to deny the existence of a Jewish conspiracy. They needed his first-hand information to confront the specific allegation that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were an authentic record of secret meetings held behind the scenes at the first Zionist congress in Basel in 1897.
Questioned about Zionism in general, Sokolov now explained that the Zionist movement had nothing to do with Jewish Ecclesiastical Law; it was an attempt to re-establish the Jews as a territorial nation.
‘I attended personally the Basel Congress in 1897 and took considerable part in its organization and the drawing up of its agenda’, he stated, ‘there is not one word of truth in the allegation that the Protocolsof the Elders of Zion were promulgated by Dr. Herzl at the Zionist Congress.’
‘In 1920’, the witness continued, ‘I heard for the first time the claim that a document like that existed. It was hearsay. In 1897 this slanderous document was never even heard of.’ They had made a special effort for the proceedings of the Congress to be public, he said, everything was conducted in the most open fashion.
Sokolov then explained how in 1920, on a visit to Paris, he had learned that such a slanderous pamphlet was being circulated in London, having been brought there by some adventurer who came from Russia. It worried him, so he traveled to London to see for himself.
Turning to the judges he stated in his authoritative voice: ‘I can tell you that every word in the Protocols was a mischievous lie, it was clear to me it was written in order to excite the Gentiles against the Jews, as they always do!’
He then went on to describe how he had later met Philip Graves, how he had read his articles published in the Times, how he had gone to the British Museum, which he frequented for his own reading and research, and how he had seen there the book of Maurice Joly. He had personally compared the Dialogue written by Joly with the Protocols, realizing how cleverly the forgers had substituted the Jews for Napoleon III.
Hearing this story for the first time, the judges were so intrigued that, uncharacteristically, they interfered: ‘Did you actually see the original yourself?’ they asked. ‘I saw the original in London’, Sokolov answered, and explained how the articles in the Times had been published in the form of a pamphlet that can be presented to the court. ‘I compared the original by Maurice Joly with this document’, the witness repeated, ‘and we were very much amused at that sort of rot that the man should have taken out the whole text with the only difference that instead of Napoleon III there was Herzl, and instead of the French people of the Napoleon supporters there were substituted the Jews.’
It was Reynolds’ turn to be surprised, realizing how attentively the judges were listening to Sokolov’s testimony. They now asked him: ‘Were you also acquainted with this incident concerning the Austrian professor Rohle?
’‘Yes’, came the ready answer, ‘I know the controversy between Dr. Bloch and Rohle. I knew Dr. Bloch personally, he was a friend of mine in Vienna, and he controverted with Rohle, who was a Professor in Prague and who was known as a very aggressive anti-Semite. Rohle used to write against Jewish religion much more than against the Jewish people and he wrote a number of articles about the Talmud. Let me say that I consider this literature as no literature at all, it is rubbish, it is full of ignorance. Rohle was an ignorant man, he could not read the Talmud, not even the Bible, in the original. You have to devote years to understand the language of the Talmud. Rohle was disproved by a number of very great Christians of great repute like Noldke and Professor Wuensche, who was a Protestant who translated a considerable part of the Talmud into German. He was recognized as an authority by the whole world. Rohle got his texts not from the originals but from some pamphlets. These scholars mentioned some 500 quotations of Rohle to be false! He quoted from anti-Semitic writings of the 17th Century which were disproved a hundred times!’
Seeing that the judges had finished, Reynolds resumed his questioning:
Q: Are you familiar with what is going on in Russia?
A: I have never been in Soviet Russia but I know what is going on there. The Soviet is against religion, against nationalities in every respect in any race, it does not matter, Jew or Christian, we suffer very much from their persecutions and we have quite a number of Zionists who have been thrown in prison and made to suffer violently; some of them have been deported to Siberia and they ask for our help.
The testimony in chief of the witness ended with his firm statement: ‘I say most definitely that there is no politics in any synagogue in the world. A congregation is a religious unit and the synagogue is a place of worship and also used for benevolent purposes of the congregation.’
It was time for lunch, and the old man on the stand descended with dignity, not revealing his great fatigue.
I am a Jew, of the Jewish race, born in Poland, a naturalized British citizen, my real native national language is Hebrew’, the witness stated after lunch in answer to Inch.
Q: Why have you asked to give evidence at this trial?
A: Mainly because of this foolish mention of the Protocols of the Elders of Zionthat never existed. As the president of the Zionist organization I know this document has never existed and had never been mentioned at the Zionist congress in Basle.
Q: Are you here to clear the name of world Jewry?
A: I am interested in disputing foolish inventions against Zionism and to refute the existence of the so-called ‘Elders of Zion’. I am not defending the Jewish race, as you put it, I am contradicting a blatant lie! I did not come especially for the trial, I happened to be here and I heard of this foolishness about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and I offered to testify. I volunteered to give evidence.
Q: You are considered to be a very important Jew in your race…
A: My modesty does not allow me to accept that.
Q: You say that the Protocols are completely false?
A: Yes.
Q: But will you admit that nothing can be false that turns out to be right?
A: This will never turn out to be right.
Q: The counsel for the plaintiff said there was no world organization of Jewry. Do you agree?
A: Yes. .
Q: Do you admit that practically all the film agencies, cinemas, and so on, are controlled by the Jews?
A: I am not prepared to answer this question, I don’t know the film business. I have never made any statistics as to how many Jews are in films!
Q: Do you agree with the barrage of filth that is usually shown in our bioscopes, or to be more open in this point, do you agree that they should put half-naked females on the posters for our children to see when they advertise a film, our womenfolk half naked, in a suggestive manner?
A: I am not a great admirer of nakedness, I do not agree.
No, he answered to another question, the Jews definitely did not control all the big newspapers in the world. Asked for examples he mentioned the Times, and the Daily Herald in London, the Le Temps in Paris and others. He admitted he had not personally checked the ownership of every newspaper in the world.
When Inch asked whether the Jews practically monopolized the white slave traffic, even the court was outraged. Judge Gutsche interfered saying that this was a most improper statement.
Q: You say everything quoted against the Jewish race is entirely false. Why, through the thousands of years has Jewry been persecuted, and no other race has ever been persecuted in a similar manner?
A: Please ask the persecutors!
‘It is unfortunate to be a permanent minority in the world’, the witness added.
There followed numerous questions to show that Jews control everything under the sun and the witness answered them all with one word: rubbish. It was not true that the Rothschilds controlled all the gold in the world, ‘your country does’, he retorted to one of the questions.
He was becoming very angry. He was not here to defend Jews to this ignorant rude man. He came to testify about the falsity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. So, not waiting for another question, he declared: ‘My conception of this book is that the author maintains that there has been since 1897 at the Zionist congress under the leadership of one of the noblest men who lived on God’s earth, Dr. Herzl, and with the cooperation of your humble servant, such Elders of Zionwho decided to conquer the world. That is the point that interests me. I do not make any declaration about Oppenheimer’s diamonds, or Samuels’ silver or about Rothschild’s gold. I declare to you that that book is slanderous!’
Inch: The Protocols are true because what they say has come true!
Sokolov: It is a lie.
Inch: Do you agree that Bolshevism is essentially Jewish in origin and practice?
No, the witness answers with a resigned gesture.
Von Moltke was much better prepared, and now it was his turn.
‘Do you admit that Great Britain, which was the Premier World State at that time, succumbed and humbly bent the knee to a handful of international Jews?’
Sokolov: ‘I deny that most emphatically!’
For hours on end the witness had to stand and deny that the Jews and the Zionists were manipulating every prominent leader in politics, in the economy, in finance and in press.
Most of Von Moltke’s questions were more like statements – a scurrilous excursion into Jewish history. The witness, tired of what he considered to be beyond his dignity, answered in monosyllables.
Olivier returned to the Talmud, they realized, when he compelled the witness to explain yet again that this was an old book and it did not refer to Christians but to Pagans.
Everybody in the courtroom was beginning to look bored when Olivier shocked them all with his next question. Would it not be advisable for all the governments in the world to act in conjunction with the Jews and burn the Talmud and start a new one? he suggested with a straight face. Not believing his ears, Sokolov exclaimed: ‘Would you like to return to the middle ages when they burned books, and they even burned people?’
They were all mesmerized and listened in stunned silence to Olivier’s next words. Looking straight at the witness, he declared, emphasizing every word: ‘If it is necessary at the present moment I would not mind that the Jews should be burned and their Bible burned!’
The questions did not end there, but Sokolov answered as if in a haze, not remembering later what he had said. Is this what is going to happen, he asked himself, not even daring to share the terrible thought with his friends.
He never learned the horrible answer. He died two years later, at the age of 77.
Unfortunately, they all thought that these were the words of a lunatic. Who could foresee that they were actually materializing into a plan of action, I think, almost 60 years later, reading again and again the printed words of the court record.
It had not been necessary to bring from abroad a non-Jewish expert. There was one obvious choice, right there, in their neighborhood: George Frank Dingemans, a professor of Dutch at the Rhodes University College in Grahamstown, a Hebrew scholar, a Christian philologist and historian.
After presenting his credentials to the court, the professor came right to the point. He had examined the Inch document and could state unequivocally that this was not a secret document drawn up by an educated Jew. He based his view on the defective Hebrew script and the ludicrous incongruity between the Hebrew words and the purpose of the alleged ‘lectures’.
He followed this statement with a detailed and learned explanation, to which the judges listened attentively. The content of the document was utter nonsense, reflecting the lack of intelligence of the writer, he stated.
After the witness had torn the document apart, limb by limb, both in language and in content, Reynolds sat down, turning the professor over for cross examination. He hoped they would not abuse this man, who had courageously offered to testify.
Inch came first:
Q: What is your nationality?
A: I am a Dutchman of British nationality, born in Holland.
Q: Will you explain why you are so sympathetic towards Jewry?
A: I am sympathetic to all nations. And I am sympathetic to the Jews because my Lord and my Savior was a Jew and he said ‘Salvation is of the Jew’…I am not prejudiced in favor of the Jews.
Q: Did the Jews crucify Jesus Christ?
A: Yes!
Q: Have you any Jewish blood in your family?
A: No.
Q: If Jesus was a Jew, why didn’t he have a crooked nose?
There followed a long inquiry into Communism and Marxism and a very long argument about the meaning of Christianity. With real anguish in his voice the witness whispered, as if speaking to himself: ‘The history of the Christian Church shows that we who constitute the Churches are very often but poor specimens of what we ought to be. We show so little of the spirit of Christ, and that is true of individuals, and I am afraid it is also true of Churches. The factor which has contributed to that fact is that the Bible has so often ceased to be the real law book of the Churches. There are Churches in which the Bible is almost an unknown book.’
Then came the Protocols of the Elders of Zion
He was an expert on the subject and was particularly upset by the use made of this document by vicious and ignorant men. ‘I wish to inform you and the court’, he said, looking at Inch, ‘that this book, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, has been exposed over and over again as a forgery.’ Turning to the Judges, he continued: ‘If I am an enemy of any particular race I can easily write stuff to vilify that race and attempt to create the impression that the statement which I made emanated from the people whom I wish to vilify. That is an easy thing to do.’
Pointing to the Inch document, the witness added: ‘this document also pretends to be what it is not. It pretends to be stolen from a synagogue, it pretends to be written by a learned Jew, and I maintain that if it ever came from the Synagogue it was put there by the person who wrote it, and he was not a learned Jew, nor was he a learned Gentile.’ Turning his attention to Rabbi Levy in the audience, he continued: ‘A Rabbi is the highest intellectual title it is possible for a Jew to achieve. A Rabbi or a college of Rabbis are what you may call the Ecclesiastical Supreme Court of Jewry…..Such a man is always a scholar.”
Q: Could an uneducated Communist Jew have compiled that document?
A: No, because I do not think that a Jew would ever sink so far.’
But the longest answer was delivered by the witness when asked about the Talmud. Although his answer was turning into a speech, nobody interfered.
The Talmud is a vast work covering a period of more than a thousand years, the professor explained, from before the birth of Jesus Christ until roughly 1000-1100 A.D. It contains the opinions of a vast number of men living in various countries, and the opinions expressed are often contradictory and conflicting. It is ‘the ocean of Judaic learning’. It may be compared with, say, the whole of the medieval literature in England, Holland and France….A well known Rabbi says that the first few years of a child’s education should be spent on the study of the written law, and then afterwards he should devote himself to the talmudic law.
It is said that there are remarks against the Christians or Christianity – well, is that peculiar to the Talmud? No. There is such a thing as historic sense. A famous writer of about 1800 once and for all formulated the principles which ought to underlie all attempts at historic appreciation, and that principle is that men should be judged by the standards of their age. Now, some of my ancestors, for all I know, may have taken pleasure in burning witches or in capturing slaves and selling them, but it would be somewhat strange if I, living in the twentieth century, were to be charged with being in sympathy with witchcraft or with the measures which were in the past adopted against witches. Such a charge would be perfectly absurd, because it violates every principle of historic criticism. There was a time when religious dissent was regarded as a political crime punishable by death. Subsequently in many countries, for instance in Protestant countries, religious dissent from the national church, though not punishable by death any more, they imposed severe and grievous disabilities. What would any reasonable man say today if he was charged with the beliefs and practices practiced by his ancestors two or three or even more centuries ago? In the Talmud you will occasionally find bitter expressions about Christians, but it should be borne in mind that in the earlier parts of the Talmud the world was largely pagan still, and that the Jewish sages of the time often refer to idolaters and heathens. Subsequently, when, at least in the west, Christianity spread, then you will find sometimes references to the Christians, and no doubt, I feel quite sure, that one could find somewhere in the Talmud bitter expressions about Christianity, and when one thinks of the barbarous persecutions which are matters of common knowledge to all students of history, when one thinks of the persecution to which the Jews in the past ages were submitted, if one thinks of the constant ignominy to which they were exposed, then one can hardly blame here and there a certain Rabbi for indulging in strong language about the Christians. If they had not done so I submit they would have been more than human.
In medieval literature you will find reference in Christian literature full of hatred against the Jews, and I submit that the men who still take that attitude towards the Jews are responsible for the bitter feelings which Jews sometimes entertain for so-called Christians whose conduct towards Jews seems to me to violate every principle of Christianity.
‘Tolerance’, the witness added after a pause, ‘is of slow growth but unfortunately hatred is of rapid growth, and those knowing it make use of the fact. It takes a wise man to sow sympathy between men but it often only takes a fool, inspired by hatred and possessing the gift of the gab, to sow hatred.’
You could hear a pin drop in the courtroom, when the witness stepped off the stand and Reynolds announced that he was through with him, apologizing that he had taken up so much of the court’s time.
It was time for the defendants to present their witnesses.
