Introduction by the Saker: I have always had a passion for theology in general and the studies of religions in general. Several years ago I discovered, quite by chance, a book written by Michael A. Hoffman II entitled Judaism’s Strange Gods which I found most interesting and thought provoking. Reading that book, I felt that I wanted to find out much more and I ended up ordering and reading Michael A. Hoffman II’s magnum opus Judaism Discovered: A Study of the Anti-Biblical Religion of Racism, Self-Worship, Superstition and Deceit which absolutely amazed me: over 1000 pages packed with information, sources and most interesting analyses. Needless to say, the book was also very controversial and elicited all sorts of negative reactions from various reviewers. Here I need to immediately begin by a disclaimer: while the topic of “Rabbinical Phariseism” (modern “Judaism” should be called something like “Rabbinical Phariseism” since all modern Judaic denomination are descendants of the sect of the Pharisees; furthermore, this religion is dramatically different from the religion of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: it is the religion of Maimonides, Karo, Luria and others) has always fascinated me and while I do have a graduate degree in theology, I am absolutely not qualified to endorse or refute the views of Hoffman. What I can say is that his books are very well written, well researched, fully sourced and that I see no contradictions between what he wrote and the little I personally know about this topic. As for his critique of the religion of the Rabbinical Pharisees (from which all form of modern “Orthodox Judaism” stem from), it is not “racist” in any way: unlike ethnicity, a religion is a personal choice and thus a legitimate target for scrutiny and criticism and Hoffman’s condemnation of Rabbinical Phariseism is in no way harsher than the writings of Church Fathers like Saint Justin Martyr, Saint John Chrysostome, Saint Cyprian of Carthage or Saint Ephrem the Syrian.
Hoffman recently published another amazing book, the 700 pages long “The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome” which I began reading (I am about 1/3rd through) with, again, rapt interest. Yet again, here was a very well researched and beautifully controversial book which gave me as strong desire to speak with the author and, luckily for me, Michael A. Hoffman II has kindly agree to replies to my questions to him on his life and research. The following is the full unedited Q&A with I had with him.
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The Saker: I am absolutely amazed at the width and depth of your research – could you please introduce yourself and then tell us how and where you acquired such a deep knowledge of topics which are almost never discussed nowadays and which the general public is almost totally unaware of? Do you have formal degrees in theology or history, or are you self-taught? What made you decide to spend so much time and effort deeply delving into topics which are often considered obscure, arcane if not completely irrelevant by most of our contemporaries?
Hoffman: My maternal grandfather Joseph Palace, with whom I had many discussions in my youth, was an amateur revisionist historian. He had been a successful businessman and seemed to have inside information about national events. He somehow knew in November 1960 that Joe Kennedy had bought the Chicago-area votes that helped swing the presidential election to his son Jack. He introduced me to other anomalies of history.
I attended college in my native New York in the early 1970s when the country was being torn apart by the Vietnam War and the change-of-era time. Because I majored in political science and history, I was often at odds with many of my liberal professors—not due to their Leftism, but their tunnel vision and abhorrence of dissenting ideas, in spite of posing as dissenters. I was fortunate to find a few professors who were honest academics, particularly Francis J.M. O’Laughlin at Hobart College, and my Palestinian professor at the State University of New York at Oswego, Faiz Abu-Jaber. The latter repeatedly urged me to research the history of Freemasonry in upstate New York, where America’s great anti-masonic revolt was ignited after Masons murdered William Morgan in 1826. The result was my 1978 pamphlet, Masonic Assassination.
I left the university and drifted around the country doing manual labor on farms and as a longshoreman. Further into the 1970s I was writing for obscure publications like Fortean Times, where I became a columnist, and working as a reporter at radio stations, including one station that was an ABC News affiliate. I also began writing for the wire service of the NY bureau of the Associated Press (AP). Eventually I was hired by Willis Carto to write a column for his paleo-conservative Spotlight newspaper, which in 1979 had nearly 400,000 readers. As a Spotlight reporter I covered the spectacular “Holocaust” show trial of German-Canadian activist Ernst Zündel in 1985 in Toronto, Canada and wrote a book about it, which was published by the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) in California, where I became assistant director. The trial took nine weeks and in the course of it I became acquainted with Zündel’s defense team and witnesses, among them revisionist historians like Robert Faurisson and David Irving, and German veterans of Word War II, from a grunt who drove a tank in Rommel’s Afrika Corps, to General Otto Ernst Remer, the commander of Berlin when the attempt was made on Hitler’s life.
In the 1990s some of my books started to take off in term of sales, including They Were White and They Were Slaves: The Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America, and in 2001, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare. I have been privileged ever since to lead the precarious life of an unaffiliated professional historian, while sometimes moonlighting as a copy editor for mainstream publications in the U.S.
The Saker: Clearly, when you began writing your books you must have been acutely aware that this would get you all sorts of ugly personal attacks and accusations – yet you went ahead and, far from being silenced, you continued to publish book after book and now, after having taken on Rabbinical Phariseeism, your latest book reveals an amazing level of depravity and heresy in the Latin Church (another misnomer since the “Roman Catholic” Church is neither “Roman” nor “Catholic” in the sense of “universal) since at least the Italian Quattrocento (15th century), many centuries before the First or Second Vatican Councils. In this latest book you are even committing a sort of “thoughtcrime of thoughtcrimes” and denouncing the very strong collusion between Judaic black magic (especially in the form of its kabbalistic teachings) and the top Latin theologians and clergymen. What is your motivation in unearthing all these most interesting, but also long-forgotten, events and what gives you the courage to take on such powerful institution as organized Jewry and the Vatican? What are you trying to achieve, whom are you writing for, what gives you such courage and energy?
Hoffman: My family heritage is one of asking questions about everything. This for me is a normal state of mind — siding with the underdog, questioning authority. If you couple that with a burning curiosity, a desire to learn everything and to gain forbidden knowledge, then when one encounters a hint that white people in British America might have been chattel slaves on 17th century sugar and tobacco plantations, one experiences an insatiable hunger for knowledge in that realm, and if the information has been mostly suppressed, then the hunt becomes all the more compelling. Some Orthodox Judaic people have a derogatory phrase they employ concerning those who abandon Judaism. They say that those who leave are “chozrim b’she’ela” which denotes, “returning to questioning.” In my view this is a left-handed compliment since it is the mission of the independent, ennobled human mind to always return to questioning.
You mentioned “organized Jewry.” I don’t see myself as taking on “Jewry” per se. Orthodox Judaism, yes. Israeli Zionism, yes. But since both of those institutions are at their core fundamentally anti-Judaic, I view my work as an expression of love for Judaic people and as a conduit for their liberation.
A prime source of Jew hate is Talmudism itself, which oppressively tyrannizes and micromanages the lives of Judaics born through no fault of their own, into its psychic prison, while Israeli Zionism imprisons Judaics in a permanent war footing with the indigenous people of the Middle East. To free Judaic persons from these two prisons is an act of compassion and charity. We should never forget that our work is pro-Judaic. It is the Talmudic and Kabbalistic rabbis and Zionists who are putting Judaic people on the road to ruin.
The Saker: Now, turning to your books on Rabbinical Phariseism, could you please summarize the main theses of your books on this topic? What is, in your opinion, the true nature of Rabbinical Phariseism, what are its core tenets/beliefs? What would you say to an average person are the myths and realities about what is referred to as “Judaism” in our society?
Hoffman: Orthodox Judaism, which is the scion of the religion of the ancient Pharisees, is above all, self-worship, and pride is the paramount destroyer. In the occult scheme of things, the ideology closest to it was Hitler’s National Socialism, in that it shares this predominant characteristic of pathological narcissism. Christians and many other goyim (gentiles) have been deluded into imagining that Judaism, while being somewhat flawed due to rejecting Jesus, nonetheless manages to be an ethical religion reflective of the prophets of the Old Testament. Hillel, the first century A.D. Pharisee who is believed to have been a contemporary of Jesus, and Moses Maimonides (“Rambam”), the medieval philosopher and theologian, are most often held up as exemplars of this supposed ethical Judaism.
The myth of the benevolence of these two can only be sustained by ignorance. The problem is, that when a scholar begins to unearth facts that undermine pious media legends about men like Hillel and Maimonides, they enter “anti-Semitism” territory: if they dare to retail the truth, their ability to earn a living and keep their good name and reputation will be damaged, sometimes irreparably by the myth-makers who have the power to permanently stigmatize them as “haters and anti-Semites.”
I’m beyond those fears, so I can venture to say that Hillel offered theological grounds for the molestation of children and invented a “prozbul” escape clause for evading the Biblical command that no loan shall be in force more than seven years. Maimonides detested Jesus Christ with a volcanic hatred that led him in his writings to urge the murder of Christians when it is possible to do so without being detected. These facts are documented in my books Judaism Discovered and Judaism’s Strange Gods.
Meanwhile, if you google “Hillel” or “Maimonides,” or you consult Wikipedia, you’ll find them described in terms of saccharine sainthood and humanitarian benevolence.
Orthodox Judaism, I regret to say, is a religion of lying and deceit. Duplicity and mendacity are formally inculcated. They are not incidental. There isn’t even a great deal of trust among Talmudists themselves. Witness what Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, one time head of the reconstituted Sanhedrin in Tiberias, and premier translator of the Babylonian Talmud, has pronounced on this matter: “Rabbis are liable to alter their words, and the accuracy of their statements is not to be relied upon.” (The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition [Random House], Vol. II, pp. 48-49). In BT Yevamot 65b permission is given to lie “in the interests of peace,” a category so broad it is capable of serving as an alibi for countless situations in which scoundrels wish to conjure excuses for their falsehoods. There is also the general permission to lie to a gentile (BT Baba Kamma 113a).
These facts are not published in major media such as the New York Times. Yet the Times does not shy from insinuating that Shiite Islam is a religion of liars: “…there is a precedent for lying to protect the Shiite community…part of a Shiite historical concept called taqiyya, or religious dissembling.” (New York Times, April 14, 2012, p. A4).
Another defining theological aspect of Orthodox Judaism is its dogma that non-Jews are less than human. This is how the goyim are viewed in the Talmud and its sacred successor texts. In certain branches of Kabbalistic Judaism, such as the politically powerful and prominent Chabad-Lubavitch sect, their founder, Rabbi Shneur Zalman, formally promulgated the doctrine that goyim are not just less than human, they are non-human trash — “supernal refuse” — which is a reference to their Kabbalistic status as kelipot who possess “no redeeming qualities whatsoever.”
The Saker: My personal research has brought me to the conclusion ever since the recognition by Christ as the Messiah promised by the prophets of the Old Testament by one part of the first century Jews and the rejection of Him by the other part, the latter group began by developing an “anti-Christian scriptural toolkit” which included, of course, the forgery of the so-called Masoretic text, the development of the Talmud and the various commentaries, interpretations and codification of these texts. The goal was to develop a “polemical arsenal” so to speak. At the same time, the first kabbalistic concepts were developed for the internal use inside the anti-Christian communities. Would you agree with this (admittedly summarized) description and would you then agree with my personal conclusion that Rabbinical Phariseeism is at its core simply a religion of “anti-Christianity”?
Hoffman: I think you’re correct up to the Renaissance, which is the point at which members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy including many popes, were secretly initiated into Kabbalistic mysticism. The belt of that transmission is chronicled in detail in The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome. Rabbinic Phariseeism is more than a religion opposed to Jesus for this reason: in its beginnings in the time before Christ, it had existence as a creed founded upon esoteric oral teachings that nullify the Bible itself.
Orthodox Judaism is an anti-Biblical religion. Yes, it has a “Moses” and a “Noah” as its patrons and it names other patriarchs too, but these are not the Moses and Noah of the Bible. These are radically falsified figures who bear those names. Pharisac Judaism is contemptuous of the Biblical Noah about whom, in the Midrash, it makes scurrilous claims. There is even contempt for Moses. About Isaiah, who said that Israel has filthy lips, the Talmud teaches that Isaiah was justly killed by having his mouth sawed in half for “blaspheming Israel.”
In both Left-wing New Age and Right-wing neo-Nazi circles, the heresy of Marcion is alive and well and the Old Testament is execrated. It is equated with the Talmud (most famously on the Right by Douglas Reed in The Controversy of Zion). The problem with that tack is that the Old Testament is absolutely not a book of self-worship of the Jews. It is radically different from the Babylonian Talmud. The Bible is an antidote to self-worship. The Old Testament excoriates Israelites in the strongest possible terms.
One notable instance of the Bible’s ego-deflation pertains directly to Jews (Judeans) in the person of the eponymous patriarch Judah. In Genesis chapter 38, Judah’s daughter-in-law Tamar disguises herself as a temple prostitute. Not knowing it is her, and thinking she is a votary of the Canaanite fertility goddess Astarte, Judah has sexual relations with her. This was a horrendous transgression because in having sex with a cult prostitute one is having relations with a prostitute who seeks to channel the goddess by being possessed by her spirit. In this sexual act Judah would have been risking demonic possession himself.
Later in Genesis 38, when Judah seeks for the woman so as to pay her for her services, he asks the local people, “Where is the temple prostitute (the qedesha)?” Orthodox Judaism concocts fabrications to protect Judah’s reputation. Many Christian Bible translations influenced by rabbinic exegesis do something deceptively similar when they mistranslates Judah’s question as, “Where is the (common) prostitute (the zona)”? That’s not the word Judah used in the Hebrew text. He didn’t ask after a simple zona. He asked of the whereabouts of a qedeshah. The Word of God in this scripture is teaching Israel, and specifically the tribe of Judah, not to become conceited regarding their lineage and genealogy because none other than their illustrious forefather and namesake, Judah, committed a perverted transgression. Near the end of Genesis 38, Judah admits his hypocrisy and repents. Here the book of Genesis is imparting a very Christ-like Old Testament lesson about sinners, repentance and humility— which the Pharisaic rabbis in their arrogance, reject. In their Midrash on Genesis 38, they have the chutzpah to blame God for Judah having sex with a woman he believed to be a temple prostitute. They write, “Thus it is taught, ‘Judah would have never sinned with Tamar, but God sent the ‘angel of lust’ to tempt him to do so.” Nothing in the Bible supports this exculpatory allegation which blames God and renders Judah innocent of sin, since he was supposedly only doing God’s will.
Wherever there is the spirit of fanatical race pride, there is the spirit of the oral gnosis from which the Talmud, Midrash and similar authoritative rabbinic texts are derived.
To give another example, look at the language employed in Ezekiel 16:23-25. God says to Israel: “To crown your wickedness…declares the Lord Yahweh…At the entry of every alley…you opened your legs to all comers in countless acts of fornication. You have also fornicated with your big-membered neighbors, the Egyptians…you do not act like a proper prostitute because you disdain to take a fee…you bribe them to fornicate with you.”
A divine statement of such power, which mocks the Israelites for their immorality, is anathema to the Talmudic mentality, which is why the Talmud teaches that Yahweh is subservient to the rabbis, and they have the right to modify His divine law by means of situation ethics.
The Saker: I am often told that Zionism is secular and that its leaders were all secular, primarily, socialist, intellectuals and that there is no continuity between the small shtetls controlled by rabbis in eastern Europe and modern Israel because Zionism is essentially a Jewish version of 19th century European secular nationalism and, far from having its roots in Yiddish speaking religious communities, Zionism represents a secular emancipation from this self-enclosed and religion-centered world. What do you think, is there are continuity between modern “secular” Zionism (from Ahad Ha’am and Hertzl to modern Likudniks) and Pharisaic Judaism or not? And, if yes, could you please describe it?
Hoffman: The bridge between not only Talmudic Judaism and Zionism, but Bolshevism as well, is personified by Moses Hess, who Karl Marx termed, “My Communist rabbi.” Hess was not a rabbi in a formal sense, but he was enamored of the Talmud, as well as Communist and Zionist ideology. Hess recognized that what unites all three, their common bond, is Judaic self-worship. The controversies and rivalries arise in the debate over which vehicle is best for the supremacy of the Judaic people over humanity: Judaism, Bolshevism or Zionism? Hess argued that depending on the zeitgeist, any one of the three would prove suitable.
Yes indeed, the founders of the Israeli state were secularists and Socialists who had little regard for the Talmud as a way of ordering the life of a modern nation. They viewed its code of conduct as a relic from a superstitious past. They were modern and “progressive.” Moreover, the pioneering Zionists had violated a fundamental tenet of Orthodox Judaism, which held that only the Messiah himself could initiate the founding of a reborn Israeli nation. Until the appearance of the Messiah, the Jews could not engage in armed struggle to achieve that end. That was the view of the majority of Talmudic rabbis in 1948. Seventy years later it is the view of only a minority, mostly among certain Hasidic sects, such as the Satmar. Voila, in seven decades Orthodox Judaism has become a pillar of the Israeli state. The fanatical Israeli “settlers” are comprised of “religious Zionists.” The Talmud is their inspiration for using violence to steal what is left of Palestine in order to build “Eretz Israel.” How did this transformation occur?
Orthodox Judaism is a religion of situation ethics. There are few beliefs that are not negotiable. What is non-negotiable is the supremacy of the Judaic people and whatever aids that supremacy. Nothing else counts. Look at Gershom Scholem, the German-Israeli scholar who helped to bring the Kabbalah into respectability and prominence in the Israeli state. Scholem and Judaic-American intellectual Hannah Arendt, the one-time girlfriend of German philosopher Martin Heidegger, had been friends in Paris before World War II. Arendt published a fair-minded book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, which infuriated Scholem. But not because she erred in her facts. He was incensed at her allegedly “heartless, downright malicious tone” regarding the Nazis’ mass murders of Judaics, and he cast aspersions on her in the pages of Encounter magazine. Arendt had transgressed, according to Scholem, because she had failed to write in deference to the supreme criterion that must be the idol of every Judaic person: “ahavath Israel” (“love for the Jews”). The truths that Arendt had written were utterly beside the point.
If it turns out that Zionism is the best vehicle in our time for advancing Judaic supremacy, then most of the gedolei (rabbinic elite) of Orthodox Judaism will continue to cooperate with it. In his novel Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens portrayed the Judaic arch-criminal Fagin donning innumerable costumes and disguises. Talmudism, Bolshevism and Zionism are the garments that Judaic megalomania dons and discards as it marches through the corridors of time.
The Saker: In a recent article for the Unz Review entitled “A Crash Course on the True Causes of “Anti-Semitism” I posted a video of Bar-Hayim is an “Israeli Orthodox rabbi who heads the Shilo Institute (Machon Shilo), a Jerusalem-based rabbinical court and institute of Jewish education dedicated to the Torah of Israel”. Not a lightweight by any means who declared, among other things that: video time stamps indicated; see full video here:
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