Shalom! Thank you for allowing my question here. I converted to Judaism the Conservative way about 20 years ago. I am in the German diplomatic service. My wife is Israeli and we have three kids. Shocked by the aftermath of Oct. 7th, I follow the rise, or better the increased visibility of antisemitism in Germany closely. 2 weeks ago the Jewish historian Prof. Dr. Michael Wolffsohn was holding a speech at the Berlin Parliament (not federal). It was an extensive speech and he mentioned Voltaire as a known anti-Semite. I was intrigued and researched a bit. Especially repulsing was the claim, that Jews practiced cannibalism. He based that loosely on Leviticus (Vayikra). I checked further and Voltaire seems to be referring to Lev. 27.29 and Ezekiel 39. I think the Ezekiel reference we can debunk rather quickly. In 39-17 it is clear, that not the Jews are eating their enemies, rather the called birds and wild animals. Correct? The Leviticus reference is more complicated. In 27.1-7 there seems to be some value for people given. It took me a while to find some interpretation. It seems to condemn those who vow their relatives in vain to god, to pay for those deeds. That gets clear in 27.8 since the settlement in a monetary solution seems to be a given. Is that a view you would support? 27.29 doesn’t make sense in this context though… Some commentary refers to the sworn enemies of the Jews in that regard, but I don’t see the connection. Ok – you can’t pay ransom for those sworn enemies. That I understand, but are they vowed to god? Why is there no word of it in the context of lev.27? Aside from my theological need of clarification I come to the conclusion that this Voltaire character was surely a pioneer in the age of enlightenment and that in itself brought some respite for the Jews in Europe in this time of nationalistic movements. Yet whatever excuses you find for his anti-Semitism, is just wrong. This cannibalism is only one of his rantings… He simply was an anti-Semite and not to point that out on every occasion, justifies and makes anti-Semitic public positions today socially acceptable. Very similar to Martin Luther btw. In Germany there was in 2017 the 500 year Anniversary of his achievements. Also then, most public speeches and displays completely skipped his late years of anti Semitic rantings… big mistake in my view. am yisrael chai! every jew has to fight for israel on his front. I try to do my part...

Interesting questions, which simply attest to Voltaire's creative imaginary skills! The verses in Yechezkel (Ezekiel 39) are clearly poetic & satiric, that instead of us sacrificing animals to God (which was the norm in that period, about 2,700 years ago in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem and in most religions of the period), as if it were He (God) "sacrifices" the arrogant enemies of Israel and ironically the birds and wild animals (as you correctly understood) shall eat their remains, doing to them what they wanted to do to Israel. Leviticus 27 at first refers to how much a person donates to the Temple when he swears to donate his worth (see verses 2 and 8). There is an entire Talmudic tractate called Masechet Erchin, on this topic. This was not an uncommon practice when a person wanted to implore God, say to save him from a certain danger, by "redeeming" his (or his loved one's, or even his house's) worth. You are correct that verse 28 says explicitly that it refers to a little different case where it's not a regular vow but a "cherem", i.e. designating the object itself (not its monetary worth) to the Temple or Kohanim (priests). Regarding the "person" mentioned there, it obviously refers to his Canaanite slave, for the chapter relates to one's possessions, which (as opposed to other cultures at the time who said that men owned their wives, children and all slaves) only applied to Canaanite slaves. In this said case, the person swore to give this Canaanite slave to the Kohanim to work for them. Verse 29 is a third case, relatively rare, where the nation, or her representatives in the government or religious court, declare that a regular person did an extremely offensive, treacherous or disloyal act, which deserves to be put to death. A regular death penalty was relatively rare even in ancient Israel (some say just once in 70 years!) for it had to pass exceedingly demanding, technical & vigorous conditions of premeditated proof, previous religious warning by extremely knowledgeable witnesses who coincidentally happened to be there, etc.. But should that person think that maybe he can "redeem" himself monetarily in order to get free, comes the Torah and answers, no, we cannot be deceived to fall for that "trick". Anyone who doesn't understand the poetic style of the prophets like Yechezkel, should stay away from them, so as not to embarrass himself by suggesting the absurd! Anyone with even a minimal knowledge of Judaism knows that we will throw away an egg which has even a drop of chicken's blood, so how can one be so ignorant as to laughably suggest that we eat humans or "use their blood for matzoh"?!! This just shows that you can't look for logic when it comes to anti-Semitism. Accordingly, in general it's a waste of time speaking to anti-Semites, but we do owe it to the objective and ignorant to explain what the Book of Books really meant, and why the People of the Book are generally respected by anyone objective. To a certain extent, it's anachronistic to assume that Voltaire studied Judaism properly, and even if intelligent, either he assumed the mistaken boorish misconceptions of his anti-Semitic surroundings as fact, or his creative imagination got the better of him! Today on the other hand, it's easy enough to "Google" such basic information about the Jews & Judaism, so anti-Semites today really have no excuse, but basically attest to their own lack of intellectual honesty and crude hate. Anyone siding with Hamas against Israel attests to his own immoral hatred, boorish lack of knowledge and even laziness for not bothering to check the readily available facts, especially those provided proudly by the Hamas themselves!