(Who was Pranaitis and what did he do?)
WHO WAS "REVEREND" PRANAITIS AND WHAT DID HE DO?
The Reverend I.B. Pranaitis was a turn-of-the-century Russian anti-Semite who was "Master of Theology and Professor of the Hebrew Language at the Imperial Ecclesiastical Academy of the Roman Catholic Church" in Old St.Petersburg, Russia. He also had a criminal record. In 1892, with the support of his Archbishop, he published an anti-Semitic tract in Latin called "Christianus in Talmude Iudaeorum" or as it became known in English, "The Talmud Unmasked, The Secret Rabbinical Teachings Concerning Christians" which was translated into English by American anti-Semites around 1939.
Pranaitis is revered by anti-Semites as a "Talmud Scholar". For example at a hate-site on the Web,
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/factindx.htm#Facts are Facts we find "The Rev. Pranaitis was the greatest of the students of the Talmud. His complete command of the Hebrew language qualified him to analyze the Talmud as few men in history". (Interestingly, a vast majority of the Talmud is not even written in Hebrew, but this minor problem will be ignored for the moment.) The reality concerning this "scholar" is very different as was even proven in an anti-Semitic court.
This occurred in the infamous "blood libel" case of Mendel Beiliss in Russia in 1912 where Beiliss was accused of murdering a Christian child to take his blood for alleged Jewish rituals and to put in Passover Matzah (unleavened bread). (Incidentally, the first known "blood libel" case occurred in Norwich, England in 1144.)
Pranaitis was called as a prosecution witness to testify to the allegedly horrible things said about Christians in the Talmud. His credibility, however, was quickly destroyed by the defence who asked him a few basic questions which anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the Talmud would be expected to know:
The particular questions that Panaitis was asked under cross-examination that completely destroyed his credibility were as follows:
Q: What is the meaning of the word Hullin?
A: I don't know.
("Hullin" means "ordinary produce" in Hebrew as opposed to "sanctified produce".)
Q: What is the meaning of the word Erubin?
A: I don't know.
("Erubin" means "domains which have been set up to allow Jews to carry outside their homes on the Sabbath".)
Q: What is the meaning of the word Yevamot?
A: I don't know.
("Yevamot" means "brothers in law in reference to Leverite marriage - a certain type of marriage relating to the command to marry one's dead brother's wife if he died without children".)
Q: When did Baba Bathra live and what was her activity?
A: I don't know.
(Baba Bathra was not a person but it is a Talmudic Tractate.)
Ref: "Blood Accusation: The Strange History of the Beiliss Case" by Maurice Samuel. Quote supplied by Joseph Hertzlinger (jhertzli@ix.netcom.com)
Other books concerning this "trial" are:
"The Russian Jew under the Tsars and Soviets" by Salo W. Baron
"History of the Jews in Russia and Poland", S. M. Dubnow
"The Decay of Czarism: The Beilis Trial" by Alexander B. Tager.
"The Beilis Transcripts: The Anti-Semitic Trial that Shook the World", E. Leikin, Aronson, New Jersey, 1993, ISBN 0-87668-179-8
So much for Pranaitis' credibility. Nevertheless, his quotes keep getting circulated and most recently were even taught in the class room of school teacher Mr James Keegstra in Eckville, Alberta, Canada. He was dissmised from his post in 1982. (See
http://www1.ca.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/k/keegstra.jim/supreme.court/facts)
The majority of the Talmud "quotes" in this document are derived from Pranaitis' book.
Pranaitis in the Beiliss "Blood Libel" trial.
This is an extract of "Scapegoat on Trial: The Story of Mendel Beiliss – The Autobiography of Mendel Beiliss" Shari Schwarz, editor. [Note the variant spelling of Pranaitis.]
The star witness for the prosecution was the Catholic priest Pronaitis. He was not a reputable Russian Orthodox priest; indeed, one could not be found to do such "dirty work" at the bidding of the authorities. They were lucky to have found someone like Pronaitis at all. He was presumably well versed in both the Talmud and Kabbalah. In short, he presented himself as a great Hebraist and was introduced to the court as such. But when this "expert" began to speak, it was obvious to all that he was nothing short of an ignoramus, his only talent being the ability to talk a good game. However, since the authorities needed his long-winded verbiage to carry some weight, they feigned to respect him as a holy man of great stature.
He began his lecture by stating matter-of-factly that the Jews offered human sacrifices and the Jewish religion commanded its adherents to murder gentiles. He even "interpreted" a sentence from the Talmud that supposedly said, "Murder the best of the gentiles." In the same vein, after finishing with the Talmud, he went on to the Kabbalah.
However, in spite of all this, when the procurator asked him if he had any direct knowledge of Jews using Christian blood, he said he did not. His expert opinion had made an impression on no one. In fact, many in the audience occasionally laughed out loud when he clearly became confused and couldn't even intelligibly answer some of the questions asked by my lawyer.
A minor sensation was produced when the testimony dealt with the number thirteen, a number which was supposed to have great significance when used in a Jewish context. The prosecution insisted that the thirteen wounds which Professor Sikorsky had discovered on Andriusha's body proved that they had been inflicted in accordance with "Jewish ritual." When it was discovered afterwards that there were actually fourteen wounds, the ritual murder charge lost even more credibility.
Furthermore, all the perverse and ridiculous lies that Pronaitis had postulated were completely refuted by the brilliant, decisive testimony given by the well-known and universally respected Rabbi of Moscow, Rabbi Mazeh. He delivered a long, detailed speech quoting passages from the Torah, the Talmud and many other books to conclusively reveal both the absurdity and the stupidity inherent in the testimony of such "experts" as Pronaitis. Any intelligent person could see that the priest had no knowledge whatsoever of the Talmud and could hardly even read a passage in Hebrew.
==End of quote.==
David S. Maddison maddison@connexus.net.au
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