Von der Leyen: ‘Europe is the values of the Talmud’

Von der Leyen: ‘Europe is the values of the Talmud’

Be'er Sheva, June 14, 2022. It was in that setting that the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, delivered a speech containing a phrase that still circulates: ‘Europe is the values of the Talmud, the Jewish sense of personal responsibility, justice and solidarity.’ She had previously said that ‘there is no Europe without European Jews’ and that ‘the history of Europe is the history of the Jewish people.’ What was on paper a tribute has since turned into an uncomfortable question: which Talmud is she referring to, and what is being blessed under that name.

What the Talmud is and which one is cited in the speech

There is not one Talmud but two major compilations: the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmud. The phrase does not make clear which one it means, and that gap is what fuels the debate. The most repeated objection is that it is not a sacred book in the usual sense but a compilation of commentary and rules later than the Torah. Some put it bluntly; others recall that the very nature of the text makes it very difficult to speak of ‘its values’ as a whole.

Historically, these books were banned on several occasions. In 553, the emperor Justinian ordered their dissemination banned throughout the Roman Empire. In the 13th century, Popes Gregory IX and Innocent IV condemned them and ordered them burned. That record is used in the analysis to gauge the real weight of the phrase ‘values of the Talmud’ when uttered by a European institution.

Usury, banking and the historical origin of the persecutions

Here the matter moves squarely into economic territory. One thesis in circulation holds that usury was not a practice exclusive to any one group, though its historical association with certain communities — through lending at interest and tax collection, activities viewed with suspicion by the population as a whole — was at the origin of many persecutions. The conclusion some draw is that hostility is not born on one side alone but from a recurring division of roles: whoever lends money ends up viewed badly. It is a contested reading, and it explains why a message about the Talmud ends up drifting into a debate about financial power.

The political reading: the EU as a conveyor belt for others’ interests

The leap into politics is immediate. Some argue that the European Union is merely the visible face of oligarchies and international banking, and that phrases like von der Leyen’s prove whom Brussels serves. Others go into detail: institutional and personal links are cited to argue that a network of interests transcends parliaments. There is no evidence in the documentation to support coordination of that kind; what does exist is a pattern of distrust toward the official story of European integration.

There are even those who recall the Yugoslav war and argue that certain ‘EU values’ were made clear on the ground there. Irony runs through much of the response: some note that now it is clear why there is such hostility to anything that sounds Christian; others ask whether Spain shares the same ‘Talmud’ values that the president attributes to the whole of Europe. And several ask whether someone who cites another faith’s sacred text as their own banner has even read it.

The clash between state and society beneath it all

Behind the noise is an older argument about what power may impose. One intervention puts it bluntly: there is no real difference between a totalitarian state of one stripe, another or a third, because the state always works the same way and tries to order the lives of millions of people by law. From that perspective, anyone who defends a state that legislates on customs is defending, whether they like it or not, that the same state could legislate in the opposite direction. The fight over the values of the Talmud would ultimately be a fight over who has the authority to impose them.

Why does a 2022 speech still keep the debate going?

Because it strikes three nerves at once: the dispute over European identity, suspicion about who really calls the shots in Brussels, and the old question of banking and money. The documentary trail feeding this analysis includes transcripts of the speech, references to papal decrees, lists of figures identified as Jewish and even the detail of what is considered ‘sacred’ in the text. Anyone who wants to trinc the full breakdown, with dates and names, has a starting point there.

In the end, the disconcerting detail is not the phrase but its journey. Banned from circulation in the 6th century, condemned to the flames in the 13th, the word Talmud is now returning to European institutions through its president.