CLAIM:
Bava Kamma 113a says Jews may cheat gentiles in court and evade taxes, proving Judaism permits fraud against non-Jews.
STATUS:
Misleading
KEY COUNTERPOINTS:
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R. Akiva uses Bava Kamma 113a to derive the prohibition on stealing from a gentile, not a permission. The rebuttals artifact from the Debate-Ready Rebuttals document puts this precisely: “R. Akiva, returning from Zephirin, derives from Leviticus 25:48-50: ‘From where do we know it is forbidden to steal from a gentile?’ — explicitly establishing the prohibition.” The sugya that is cited as proof Judaism permits fraud against gentiles is the very sugya R. Akiva uses to prove the opposite. Critics who read 113a as a license for fraud are cutting the argument off before R. Akiva finishes speaking.
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The tax-collector leniency is explicitly and narrowly limited to an unlawful collector operating without fixed amounts, not to lawful taxation. The Gemara raises the dina de-malkhuta dina problem internally: if the law of the kingdom is the law, how can evasion be permitted? Its own answer is that the mishnah refers to a collector who takes whatever he wants, with no legal basis, operating as a self-appointed extortionist. This is not a license to evade lawful taxes. It is a narrow ruling about a specific type of predatory collection outside legal authority. Mishneh Torah, Robbery and Lost Property 5:11 codifies exactly this limit.
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The next page destroys the claim. Bava Kamma 113b states explicitly that robbery of a gentile is prohibited. Anyone citing 113a as proof that Judaism permits defrauding gentiles is stopping mid-sugya and hiding what follows on the very next folio. The Soncino translators flagged this pattern directly in footnote 5 to Sanhedrin 57a: these dicta “were certainly never acted upon.” That editorial note from inside the standard English Talmud translation applies with equal force to the BK 113 cluster.
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The entire weight of codified Jewish law runs the opposite direction. Tosefta Bava Kamma 10:8 says theft from a gentile must be returned and describes it as more severe than stealing from a Jew because it causes desecration of God’s name. Rambam forbids robbing or withholding money from a gentile in Hilchot Geneivah 1:2 and Hilchot Gezeilah 1:1. Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 348:2 prohibits stealing from a gentile in identical terms to stealing from a Jew. Shulchan Aruch CM 359:1 prohibits robbery of even a tiny amount from Jew or gentile alike. These are the operative codes Jewish communities lived under. The claim that BK 113a licenses fraud against gentiles requires ignoring all of them simultaneously.
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The “Cuthean” substitution trick applies directly to this sugya. Soncino footnote 5 to Sanhedrin 57a establishes that the word “Cuthean” was substituted by Christian censors for the original term referring to specific historical enemies. The same censorship pattern runs through the BK 113 cluster. The original text refers to specific historical conditions, not a universal ruling about all gentiles at all times. Eisenmenger, Rohling, and Pranaitis built the fraud-permission reading from this substitution. Rohling withdrew his libel suit in 1885 before the Vienna court rather than face expert testimony from Nöldeke and Wünsche. Pranaitis was destroyed at the Beilis trial in 1913. Their reading of 113a did not survive scrutiny.
EVIDENCE:
• Bava Kamma 113a contains R. Akiva’s derivation from Leviticus 25:48-50 establishing that stealing from a gentile is forbidden. The same daf contains the tax-collector discussion, which the Gemara itself limits to collectors with no fixed amount operating outside legal authority.
• Bava Kamma 113b states explicitly: “The robbery of a gentile is prohibited.” This is on the next folio of the same sugya.
• Tosefta Bava Kamma 10:8 requires return of stolen property from a gentile and describes it as more severe than stealing from a Jew due to Chillul Hashem.
• Rambam codifies the prohibition on robbery from a gentile in Hilchot Gezeilah 1:1 and Hilchot Geneivah 1:2. Mishneh Torah, Robbery and Lost Property 5:11 limits the tax-collector leniency to unlawful, self-appointed collectors only.
• Shulchan Aruch CM 348:2 prohibits stealing from a gentile identically to stealing from a Jew. CM 359:1 prohibits robbery from either.
• Bokser, Talmudic Forgeries (1939), p. 17: the forgery against Shulchan Aruch Hoshen Mishpat 348 fabricated a “permission to seize all property of other nations” out of a passage whose actual text reads “it is all one whether one steals the property of a Jew or a Gentile.” The fraud-permission reading of BK 113a belongs to the same forgery pipeline.
• Rohling withdrew his libel suit against Rabbi Bloch in Vienna, November 1885, paid costs, and lost his academic chair. Pranaitis failed basic Talmud identification questions at the Beilis trial, Kiev 1913.
PRIMARY SOURCES:
Babylonian Talmud, Bava Kamma 113a-b
https://www.sefaria.org/Bava_Kamma.113a?lang=en
The primary text. Contains R. Akiva’s derivation of the prohibition on stealing from a gentile, the tax-collector discussion and its internal limitations, and on 113b the explicit statement that robbery of a gentile is prohibited. Must be read across both folios; citing 113a alone misrepresents the sugya.
“But is robbery from a gentile permitted? Isn’t it taught in a baraita: Rabbi Shimon said that Rabbi Akiva taught this matter when he came from Zephirin: From where is it derived that it is prohibited to rob a gentile? It is from the fact that the verse states with regard to a Jew who has been sold as a slave to a gentile: “After he is sold he may be redeemed” (Leviticus 25:48)”
↑↑↑ Best source!
Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Gezeilah ve-Aveidah 1:1-2 (Robbery and Lost Property)
https://www.sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah%2C_Robbery_and_Lost_Property.1.2?lang=en
Rambam codifies that robbing or withholding money from a gentile is forbidden. The same Rambam who codified asymmetric tort rules elsewhere produced an unambiguous prohibition on robbery from non-Jews in the same halakhic corpus.
“It is forbidden to rob even the slightest amount. It is forbidden even to rob or to withhold money from a gentile who worships idols. If one robs or withholds money from such a person, one must return it.”
↑↑↑ best source!
Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 348:2
https://www.sefaria.org/Shulchan_Arukh%2C_Choshen_Mishpat.348.2?lang=en
16th-century operative code. Prohibits stealing from a gentile in identical terms to stealing from a Jew.
“Anyone who steals even on par with a penny’s worth transgressed not stealing and he is obligated to pay, one that steals money of a Jew or who steals money of a non-Jew and one that steals from the great or from the small.”
↑↑↑ best source!
Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 359:1
https://www.sefaria.org/Shulchan_Arukh%2C_Choshen_Mishpat.359.1?lang=en
Robbery or extortion of even the smallest amount is forbidden whether from a Jew or a non-Jew. Direct codified rebuttal to the fraud-permission reading.
↑↑↑ best source!
Mishneh Torah, Robbery and Lost Property 5:11
https://www.sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah%2C_Robbery_and_Lost_Property.5.11?lang=en
Rambam codifies the tax-collector leniency as applying only to a gentile collector who is self-appointed, has no fixed amount, and operates as an extortionist. This is the operative scope limit that the antisemitic reading erases.
↑↑↑ best source!
Tosefta Bava Kamma 10:8
https://www.sefaria.org/Tosefta_Bava_Kamma.10.8?lang=en
Theft from a gentile must be returned; stealing from a gentile is described as more severe than stealing from a Jew because it causes Chillul Hashem.
↑↑↑ mid source
Ben Zion Bokser, Talmudic Forgeries: A Case Study in Anti-Jewish Propaganda (1939) TALMUDIC FORGERIES, A CASE STUDY IN ANTI-JEWISH PROPAGANDA.pdf
https://www.bjpa.org/content/upload/bjpa/2_ar/2_Articles_July-August_1939.pdf Documents the Eisenmenger-Rohling-Pranaitis forgery pipeline. Bokser quotes the actual text of Shulchan Aruch CM 348 against its forged version and identifies the fabrication explicitly. Rohling lost his chair; Pranaitis failed at Beilis.
“Perhaps the boldest of these falsifications was perpetrated against a statement by Joseph Caro in the Shulhan Aruk, Hoshen Mishpat, Paragraph 348. The entire section is devoted to a warning against theft…”
“It is all one whether one steals the property of a Jew or a Gentile, of an adult or a child. Out of thin air these falsifiers have fabricated something altogether different.” p. 17
↑↑↑ best source!
STRONGEST COUNTER ARGUMENTS WORTH KNOWING:
• A critic can fairly note that BK 113a does contain litigation language that favors a Jewish litigant where law permits, and that some tannaitic and amoraic framing is willing to extract advantage in adversarial conditions. That is real and the note does not pretend otherwise.
• A second fair point is that the tradition does not fully erase asymmetry in lost-property law: robbery is prohibited but passive benefit from a gentile’s calculation error is treated differently in some discussions, with a minority opinion permitting it absent Chillul Hashem concerns. Shulchan Aruch 348:2 preserves this carve-out alongside the theft prohibition.
• The overreach is the leap from those narrow categories to “Judaism permits fraud against gentiles” as a general doctrine. That reading requires ignoring R. Akiva’s derivation of the prohibition on the same folio, ignoring 113b’s explicit statement, ignoring the Tosefta, ignoring Rambam, and ignoring the Shulchan Aruch. No honest reading of the corpus supports the slogan.
NOTES:
The most efficient single move against this claim is to ask the opponent to read 113b. If they cited 113a as proof Judaism permits fraud, they cut the sugya in half. The explicit statement on 113b that robbery of a gentile is prohibited is on the very next page of the text they claim to be citing. That is not an obscure qualification buried in a footnote. It is the continuation of the same argument.
Second move: name the forgery pipeline. Eisenmenger to Rohling to Pranaitis. Rohling withdrew in Vienna in 1885 and lost his chair. Pranaitis could not identify Bava Batra as a tractate at the Beilis trial in 1913. If the opponent’s source traces to any of these, the scholarly credibility of their reading collapsed in a 19th-century Austrian courtroom.
The Chillul Hashem frame is the strongest positive argument. The Tosefta does not just prohibit stealing from gentiles as a technical rule. It says it is more severe because it desecrates God’s name. That is a positive ethical motivation inside the same tradition, not merely a legal restriction.
Do not concede the slogan in any form. Acknowledge the narrow carve-outs that exist, pin them to their actual scope, and push the opponent to name which specific ruling they are claiming constitutes a general permission. They cannot, because no such general permission exists in the codified law.
**See more:
Avodah Zarah 27b-28a, Three Tales of Gentile Healing.pdf
Different But Equal, The Paradox of Chosenness.pdf
Jews, Gentiles, and the Modern Egalitarian Ethos, Some Tentative Thoughts.pdf
Loving-Kindness towards Gentiles according to the Early Jewish Sages.pdf
TALMUDIC FORGERIES, A CASE STUDY IN ANTI-JEWISH PROPAGANDA.pdf
The Status of Non-Jews in Jewish Law and Lore Today.pdf
The Trial of the Talmud, Paris 1240.pdf
Babylonian Talmud, Soncino Translation (Complete).pdf
**Related claims:
Bava Metzia 24a
Bava Kamma 37b
The Talmud is a hateful or immoral book