Another Ancient Version of the Exodus Story, and Its Historical Implications

In the early 3rd century BCE, the Egyptian priest Manetho wrote a Greek-language history of his homeland, then ruled by Alexander the Great’s successors, as a counterweight to what could be found in Greek writings, which by this time had already been informed by biblical accounts. His Babylonian contemporary Berossus did something similar for his own country. In Clio’s “Other” Sons, John Dillery examines the writings of both, known to us only in fragments cited by other ancient authors. Richard Tada writes in his review:

In [Manetho’s version of the Exodus], the pharaoh decided to cleanse Egypt of lepers and other “unclean” people, confining these unfortunates first in quarries, then in an abandoned city called Avaris. The lepers chose as their leader a priest named Osarseph, who proceeded to reject Egyptian culture just as that country had rejected him.

Osarseph ordered his followers to stop worshiping the gods of Egypt, and also to feel free to dine on the sacred animals of the country. Not satisfied with that, he also arranged to have the country invaded by making alliance with the “shepherds”—a group of people formerly expelled from Egypt, now living in Jerusalem. The lepers/shepherds tag team ravaged Egypt for thirteen years before the pharaoh’s forces finally overcame them and they retreated to Syria [a geographic designation that then included Israel]. But before they left, Osarseph changed his name to “Moses.” . . .

The Osarseph story was recorded by Josephus, writing in the 1st century CE. As a Jew, Josephus was incensed by the tale. . . . Scholarly opinion is divided about the authenticity of the “Osarseph” passage. . . . In [the] skeptical view, the story likely stems from an ancient debate between Egyptians and Jews about whose civilization was older—and hence, more likely to have influenced the ruling Greek culture. As part of this dispute, anti-Jewish polemicists rewrote sections of poor Manetho’s work, rather as if it were an ancient Wikipedia entry on Zionism. Dillery, by contrast, makes a case that the disputed quotations are genuine.

Read more at Weekly Standard

More about: Ancient Near East, Egypt, Exodus, History & Ideas, Josephus, Moses

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society