"I knew Israel Shahak, and I simply do not recognise him in many of the comments above. Shahak was certainly not an antisemite. As a liberal and a rationalist, he was critical of all religions; but he never  made the categorical error of confusing critique of the religion with hatred of or discrimination against its adherents or their descendants. As he write at the end of ""Jewish History, Jewish Religion"", ""Although the struggle against antisemitism (and all other forms of racism) should never cease, the struggle against Jewish chauvinism and exclusivism, which must include a critique of classical Judaism, is now of equal or greater importance"".  

 For those of us critically studying Israeli society in the  1970s and 1980s, Shahak was simply irreplaceable. His regular production of closely annotated collections of and translations from the Hebrew press were an invaluable resource.  

  above states that he had never previously heard of Shahak, and then accuses him of calling Jews ""Satan-worshippers"". Such an accusation can only result from distorting or misreading Shahak's own words, or from relying on a secondary source which distorts or misreads them. What Shahak actually argued was that the cabbalists interpreted Jewish practice to bear this meaning, and that Jews who held this belief worshipped together with Jews who rejected it (""Jewish History, Jewish Religion"", pp34-5). 

 Shahak was equally critical of fundamentalists of all religions. He wrote extensively against the practice of ""honour killing"" in Palestinian society, and held Islam and Christianity to the same ethical standards by which he assessed Judaism.  

 The argument that Shamir's appearance on David Duke's site proves his antisemitism is specious. After a quick check, I note that Shahak (75 mentions) is referred to much less frequently than Alan Dershowitz (103 mentions) and Ariel Sharon (345 mentions) , and about the same as David Ben-Gurion (74 mentions). Surely nobody is going to suggest that this proves the ""antisemitism£ of these figures? And the suggestion that an obituary in The Guardian somehow proves Shahak's antisemitism is simply laughable.   

  

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