Donating a Gemara to a Catholic College

Just because you have some frum yidden who go there most likely for things like OT, PT, Counseling, Education, etc., does not mean that there is a huge need for seforim in the library. I actually know many people who have gone there, and it is not as if there is any great Jewish life on campus. The article makes it clear that the intentions of this donation were to have the Gemara accessible to galuchim and members of the galach seminary on campus. Clifford Meth’s words make this very clear. If anyone from Oorah is reading this, I am curious to see what the heter is and what sources they relied on in permitting this. Sure, in Europe, there were efforts to have the Talmud translated and placed in goyishe universities, but this was only for the purpose of refuting anti-semitic attacks against the Talmud, a problem whioh doesn’t exist anymore, and making torah accessible to assimilated students at a University like the Sorbonne, where Reb Yisroel Salanter felt such a need existed. I do not think such a need can legitimately exist in a school that is thoroughly sectarian and affiliated with the RC archdiocese, has a galach seminary, etc.

What on earth Jewish-Christian Studies is I have no idea. Would we have to tear kriah upon finding out? Brill cannot be considered a serious source of anything having to do with Torah or Judaism. He misquotes Rashi and apparently does not have the ability to understand what is otherwise a very simple makor. (http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2005/07/what-did-rashi-say-re-dr-alan-brill.html). According to YU sources, he was denied tenure there due to loopholes in his “scholarship,” which is very academic, and as a natural result, dismissive and even derisive of what we fundamentally believe as frum yidden.

Nonetheless, the presence of such a professor does not make something halachically permissible. There are no classes offered at SHU in anything to do with Academic Talmud or anything of the sort. In addition, most of those students are Catholics; this is the audience SHU is catering to. Just because a liberal MO professor teaches at SHU does not justify something which is shrouded in very shady terms, as was noted in Clifford Meth’s priase of the Catholic academic enterprise.

An update- I took the advice of some posters here and contacted Oorah. I left a message for R’ Chaim Mintz, and the next day, I got a call from a gentleman who said that he has “no official affiliation with Oorah, is not a rabbi, but was asked to reply to my message.” This is in spite of the fact that I asked to speak with a posek and asked what were the mekoros they relied on in determining to make the decision they made. He then said that Seton Hall is “not a Catholic college, but a general college.” This is not true; it seems someone may have misled these poskim with the metzius. Seton Hall is under the Newark Archdiocese and has a Catholic Seminary on campus. The library the Shas is in has a statue of Yeshu and a picture of the pope on the wall, not too far from the shelf. There are churches on campus, tzelomim, monks in robes, etc. He then said that there are many Jews, including “misguided” ones on the campus. This is not the case; I am involved with the JSU on campus and there are maybe 3 or 4 yidden who show up. That’s it. I know hundreds of people on the campus, and there are maybe 60 Jewish students in total in the undergraduate and graduate programs (most of the yidden in the graduiate programs are either in a special MBA program with R’ Zucker’s yeshiva in Marine Park or are frum girls in PT/OT/Counselng programs.) The university asks students on applications to list their religion, and of those selecting Jewish, there are simply not hoards, as this fellow would want me to believe. Then he said that the Shas would benefit Jewish SHU Law School students, despite the fact that the law school is in downtown Newark and the university itself is in South Orange. All I was told is that poskim encouraged having a Shas there because it could benefit Jewish students. My inquiries about Clifford Meth;s statements, the galach saying a prayer over the Gemoras, the possibility of goyim learning areas not applicable to them, etc. all went unanswered. I left another message for Rav Mintz- we’ll see if I get anywhere this time.

Reb Moshe says that it is matir to teach a class if a goy happens to walk in; i.e. you don’t have to interrupt the class if a goy is present or walks in.

I am more concerned with the fact that the employee in question said in his own words that the Gemara is a “reference work for scholars and beginning students alike who are interested in Biblical history” and who is delighted about “Seton Hall, where the study of the Bible is so clearly emphasized.”

It is rather scary that someone believes that the study of the Christian Bible and the study of galuchim for the seminary warrants the Gemaras being there, and that he thinks that the Christian academic endeavor is something Jews ought to be proud of. That is what gets me very peturbed about this.

And just to let everyone know- I attend SHU right now for study, sometimes for many hours on end. I speak to the library staff, and they say that I am the only one who has ever opened them to date. (It makes my suitcase lighter).