Anti-Black racism in the Talmud

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The Talmud is very complicated, not every statement is a law, sometimes it is a commentary or the opinion of a certain Rabbi, sometimes a stipulation or refutation, however the quotes below should give you a good idea about Talmudic reasoning on certain issues.

While Jews are not a race or ethnicity, their religion could be racist against dark skinned people. Almost everyone raised in the Christian and Muslim world is familiar with the “Curse of Ham”, the presumed to be biblical curse placed upon Noah’s son Ham whereby not only were his descendants to be the slaves of the earth, but that these cursed people were marked with black skin as a sign of their hexed lineage.  Yet, one becomes perplexed when they turn to the actual account of Ham’s curse in the book of Genesis. We never find any description that the curse involves turning their skin black.

In Chapter 9 versus 20-27 we read that Ham finds his father Noah drunk and naked. Ham tells his brothers Shem and Japheth who cover Noah with a sheet while turning their eyes away so they do not see their father’s nakedness.  When Noah wakes up from his drunkenness, he curses Ham’s descendants though Ham’s son Canaan to become the slaves of both Shem and Japheth (Genesis 9:20-27).   

So where did this racist myth come from?  The idea that black skin is a curse comes from the Jewish Talmud.  In the Talmud book of Sanhedrin 108b, we learn that there were three who had sex while on the ark; a dog, a raven and Noah’s son Ham.  All three were punished and Ham’s punishment was in his skin; it is said he was “smitten in his skin” and the footnote claims that this curse produced black skinned “negros”; “negros” are classified with diseased people and called “creatures” in the Talmudic folio of Berakoth 58b. Notice this curse has nothing to do with the later curse of hereditary slavery placed upon Ham’s son Canaan by Noah (the Talmud suggests that Ham actually sodomized/castrated Noah in Sanhedrin 70a). Thus, later Christians and Muslims conflated one curse with the other and presumed that the “Curse of Ham” stemmed from the bible, but it doesn’t, it is purely Talmudic racism.   The “Curse of Ham” myth shows to what extent non-Jewish societies have been impacted by Judaism and the Talmud.

HAM AND HIS DESCENDANTS ARE CURSED WITH BLACK SKIN BECAUSE HAM HAD SEX WHILE IN THE ARK 

Our Rabbis taught: Three copulated in the ark, and they were all punished — the dog, the raven, and Ham. The dog was doomed to be tied, the raven expectorates [his seed into his mate's mouth]. and Ham was smitten in his skin. [34] (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 108b)

FOOTNOTE 34:  I.e., from him descended Cush (the negro) who is black-skinned.

“NEGROS” ARE LUMPED IN WITH DISEASED PERSONS AND CALLED “CREATURES”

R. Joshua b. Levi said: On seeing pock-marked persons one says: Blessed be He who makes strange creatures. An objection was raised: If one sees a negro, a very red or very white person, a hunchback, a dwarf or a dropsical person, he says: Blessed be He who makes strange creatures. (Babylonian Talmud, Berakoth 58b)

IN THE TALMUD, HAM IS ACCUSED OF BOTH CASTRATING AND SODOMIZING HIS FATHER

Ubar the Galilean gave the following exposition: The letter waw [and]  occurs thirteen times in the passage dealing with wine: And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father, and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.  [With respect to the last verse] Rab and Samuel [differ,] one maintaining that he castrated him, whilst the other says that he sexually abused him. He who maintains that he castrated him, [reasons thus;] Since he cursed him by his fourth son,  he must have injured him with respect to a fourth son. But he who says that he sexually abused him, draws an analogy between ‘and he saw’ written twice. Here it is written, And Ham the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father; whilst elsewhere it is written, And when Shechem the son of Hamor saw her [he took her and lay with her and defiled her].Now, on the view that he emasculated him, it is right that he cursed him by his fourth son; but on the view that he abused him, why did he curse his fourth son; he should have cursed him himself? — Both indignities were perpetrated.[45]   (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 70a)

FOOTNOTE 45:  He both castrated and abused his father.