Presence

The big news over the weekend was the Forward's story on R. Saadya Grama's book:

Leaders of the country's most prominent ultra-Orthodox yeshiva are scrambling to distance themselves from a book by one of their disciples, which argues that gentiles are "completely evil" and Jews constitute a separate, genetically superior species.

Written by Rabbi Saadya Grama — an alumnus of Beth Medrash Govoha, the renowned yeshiva in Lakewood, N.J. — the self-published book attempts to employ classical Jewish sources in defense of a race-based theory of Jewish supremacy. Grama's book, published in Hebrew under the title "Romemut Yisrael Ufarashat Hagalut," includes flowery endorsements from the most revered religious scholars at the renowned Lakewood yeshiva, including the institution's foremost religious leader, or rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Aryeh Malkiel Kotler.

Yet, in a statement issued Tuesday in response to queries from the Forward, Kotler rejected Grama's philosophy and said that he had not carefully reviewed the text prior to endorsing it.

Full Story

For completness' sake, the New Jersey Jewish News has an article that quotes the Agudah's statement that the Forward exaggerated and mistranslated Grama's statements regarding the genetic advantage of Jews, and an editorial in the Yated decrying, amongst other things, R. Lamm's classification of the work as, "a book by someone who has obviously taken leave of his senses.." (the Yated doesn't appear to be online, so I don't have a link to the full editorial).

The main issue here, to me anyways, is not the fact that this book was written. As much as I would like to believe that exposure to Torah for a significant portion of one's life would prevent one from uttering such nonsense, we've seen time and again that to not be the case. The real issue is the fact that R. Kotler gave his approbation to this book without reading it. What should be called into question here is not the opinions of R. Grama (which despite what anyone else might think about them, he is entitled to have), but the antiquated process of Haskomah for Torah books that is in place in the Orthodox world.

Most Orthodox Jews realize what a Haskomah represents: a simple testimony by a noted Torah personality of the author's moral credentials. Many haskamot openly state that the book was not reviewed in its entirety; many simply attest to the author's overabundance of "fear of Heaven" and don't give any information as to whether or not the book was even opened, skimmed, let alone read. But most outside the community take the haskomoh as an official stamp of approval, attesting to the text's value by the approving institution. Without R. Kotler's haskamoh, this whole story would have been nothing more than the ravings of the lunatic fringe. With the hastily stamped seal of Lakewood, it has become a major embaressment for America's largest Torah institution. Just as Yitro proposed an overhaul to Moshe for the Jewish legal system, a similar overhaul is needed for the haskomah system. It needn't be formal or elaborate, but it must be honest.

A final note: the author of the editorial in the Yated takes R. Lamm to task for his comments about the supposed views of Grama's book. Well, R. Lamm was simply provided with excerpts by the Forward, and asked to comment on their confluence with normative Jewish tradiation. In this, he gave his honest opinion, never representing to have examined the work in depth. R. Kotler, on the other hand, apparently signed off on the entire work as normative with nothing more than a cursory examination of the text. Which one is worse?