Ezra Schwartz and His Talmud

Ezra Schwartz tweeted to me and Einat Wilf:

it is tragic that Israel would remove Arab national rights, even while retaining individual rights.

And added:

As the talmud says:“Is it possible that there is anything at all which is permitted to a Jew, yet nonetheless is prohibited to a non-Jew?”TB Chulin 33a

And then further made it clear writing:

The point is, I believe it was wrong for non-Jews to refuse Jewish national rights, and I believe it is wrong for the Jews to refuse national rights to its non-Jewish minority.

Schwartz made Aliyah from Toronto in 2017, defines himself as Bnei Akiva Liberal and is studying towards his M.A. in Political Science at Hebrew University. In an article published in October 2017, he notes that we Jews are not permited "to ignore existing non-Jewish communities and act as if their land was our own."

He added

During the long centuries of exile, Jews desired an end to being treated as second-class citizens. Now that we have a country for ourselves, can we possibly treat the Palestinians in the same way? In the words of the Talmud: “Is it possible that there is anything permitted to a Jew, yet nonetheless prohibited to a non-Jew?”

Of course that is nonsense.  Jews never demanded national rights but equality as citizens.  Do Jews of, say, Brooklyn, have a right to declare the borough Zion, even if they would - as they were - a near majority of the population?

That Talmudic quote above appears here as well.  Is there a connection to the matter under discussion?

What is discussed there in Chulin?

What is discussed there is a situation when an animal is incorrectly slaughtered, so:

R. Aha b. Jacob said: One may conclude from the ruling of R. Simeon b. Lakish that an Israelite may be invited to partake of the intestines, but not a gentile. Why is this? — Because to an Israelite everything depends upon the slaughtering; therefore, since here the animal has been properly slaughtered he may partake of the intestines. To the gentile, however, everything depends upon the death of the animal4 [and not upon the slaughtering], for even stabbing would be sufficient; therefore the intestines [of an animal slaughtered by an Israelite] would be regarded as a limb [cut off] from a living animal.

Rav Papa raises a doubt:

‘As I was Sitting before R. Aha b. Jacob I thought of putting the question to him: Is there anything which is permitted to an Israelite and forbidden to a gentile? But I did not ask him this, for I said to myself: "He has himself suggested the reason for it"’.

In other words, first of all, we're talking pears and apples.  One matter is do Arabs in Israel deserve national rights in addition to personal political and civic rights and other liberties within a framework of equal citizenship. The other is whether a non-Jew may be denied eating a wrongly slaughtered beast simply because it is prohibited to a Jew, if my understanding of the discussion is correct.

Secondly, the "principle" Ezra quotes is rejected by Rav Papa as there is a rational reason for it. And see here.

Does not Ezra perceive that he not only has falsified a source but that the dictum he wishes to apply to a totally different concern is itself not applied by a Talmudic sage?


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