Samsung Korea VP Visits Yeshiva to Help Koreans Learn Talmud South Koreans love the Talmud, a mandatory school course. A Korean language version is popular, and a Samsung official visited an Israeli yeshiva to grasp “the growing grounds” of the Jewish genius.

Charlie Park, Vice President of Samsung Korea, visited an Israeli Yeshiva at Shalavim last week, accompanied by a South Korean camera crew, and met with the program directors and with students to document how students study Talmud at the Yeshiva.

The South Koreans have developed a fascination with the study of Talmud. The country’s ambassador to Israel, Ma Young-Sam, has told the “Culture Today” TV show that Talmud study is now a mandatory part of the country’s school curriculum.

In addition, it is said, almost every home in South Korea boasts a Korean version of the Talmud, and mothers commonly teach it to their children, who call it the “Light of Knowledge.”

Young-Sam explained, “We were very curious about the high academic achievements of the Jews, who have a high percentage of Nobel laureates in all fields – literature, science and economics.

“This is a remarkable achievement. We tried to understand: What is the secret of the Jewish people? How are they, more than other people, able to reach those impressive accomplishments? Why are Jews so intelligent?

“The conclusion we arrived at is that one of your secrets is that you study the Talmud… We believe that if we teach our children Talmud, they will also become geniuses. This is what stands behind the rationale of introducing Talmud study to our school curriculum. I, for example, have two sets of the Talmud.”

While touring the Beit Midrash, the study hall, he said he now felt he understood “the growing grounds” of the Jewish genius.

Park was at the yeshiva to get a first-hand account of this wonder, but his trip also involved business. He was in Israel to review possible acquisitions of Israeli startup companies.

Korean TV Crew Visits Ponevezh Yeshiva

Jerusalem - A TV crew from South Korean paid a visit to Ponevezh (Ponovitch) yeshiva in Bnei Brak to film a special about Talmud study. Israel’s Channel 10 TV reported on the visit and followed the Korean crew as they filmed young students studying Gemara and other Jewish texts. “The reason why we came was to see the real Talmud. Jewish people are known for [a high percentage of] Nobel prizes. The Korean people are curious about how Jewish people started and why Jewish people are so smart,” the Korean journalist told Channel 10 TV. The TV crew also interviewed the yeshiva’s Rabbi Meir Volk. Ponevezh is a high level elite school for Talmud study located in Bnei Brak.

South Koreans Learning Talmud

Why South Koreans are in love with Judaism.

A child in Seoul studies a Jewish text

The South Korean ambassador to Israel, Ma Young-sam, raised eyebrows recently when he told reporters the Talmud was mandatory reading for Korean schoolchildren.
South Korea is a country with a deep Buddhist history, but one which has embraced with vigour the Christianity brought to its shores by missionaries in the late 1800s. Official statistics say some 30 per cent of South Koreans are church-going. In such a country, Jews are few and far between.
Yet, pop down to the local corner shop and along with a pot of instant rice or dried noodles, you can buy a copy of Stories from the Talmud. It is not rare, either, to come across book-vending machines stocked with classic works of Babylonian Judaism.
The Talmud is a bestseller in South Korea - even the government insists it is good for you, and has included it on the curriculum for primary school children.
Lee Chang-ro heads a literature research team at the Ministry for Education. He says: "The reasons why Korean children are taught Talmud are pretty obvious. Koreans and Jews both have a long history of oppression and surviving adversity with nothing but their own ingenuity to thank. There are no natural resources to speak of in Korea, so, like the Jews, all we can develop is our minds."
The fascination with Judaism does not end there. Media outlets regularly run newspapers columns on "Jewish education", weekly radio features, and television documentaries, all of them showing Jews in a glowing light.

The Talmud on display in a Korean bookshop

Although average Koreans can boast that their bookshelves hold at least one or two copies of the Talmud, to think of Korea as a hotbed of latent Judaism would be wrong. The motivation is less to do with religion and more to do with aspiration. Korean parents value schooling above all else. Parents send their children to after-school crammers until midnight and will spend their last penny on tutors and extra lessons. And, shy of good role models on the quest to securing academic success for their offspring, mothers almost unerringly turn to the Jews for inspiration.
Mother-of-two Lee San-sook explains that the way that Jewish children are brought up is universally viewed as positive in Korea.
"The stereotype of Jews here is that they are ultra-intelligent people. Jews have come out of nowhere to become business chiefs, media bosses, Nobel Prize winners - we want our children to do the same. If that means studying Talmud, Torah, whatever, so be it," she says.
Nonetheless, for a small number of Koreans, this love of Jewishness does translate into religious observance, even though, with no synagogues and no access to kosher food, they encounter almost insurmountable problems in leading a Jewish life.
One wannabe Jew, 38-year-old Park Yo-han, has handed in his notice at an investment bank to take the plunge into Judaism. He says he will go to New York, where he knows nobody, has no job prospects, just to follow his dream of Orthodox conversion.
"I've tried just about everything. Converting in Korea isn't difficult - it's impossible," he says.
Jewish observance in Seoul is almost entirely centred on Friday night services in the back of a Christian chapel on a US Army base. Every week, the tiny congregation of ex-pats and locals flip pews containing hymns books and New Testaments to face a pokey little ark for prayers. At the end of the night, everything gets put back in place for Friday night Mass. If there was not a small Ner Tamid hanging above the ark, you really would mistake it for a cupboard.
Most of the regular and long-serving members of the congregation are non-Jewish Koreans - civil servants, doctors and a politician from the ruling party, who is currently squeezing in his attendance between bouts of campaigning for local elections. They have no wish to convert but they take their interest in Judaism seriously. Most boast impressive collections of Judaica and read Hebrew fluently.
Among their number is a living legend of Korean Jewry, Abraham Cha. One of the few Koreans who have actually converted, he is a regular fixture at the US Army base services.
An old man now, he still cuts a memorable figure. He has a wild beard, payot, tzitzit protruding proudly, and maintains an unrivalled personal library of Jewish books from around the world, which he has painstakingly collected.
Cha says he had to give up everything to become an observant Jew in Korea.
"My family don't speak to me any more, I had to divorce my wife. I even had to stop working because they wouldn't give me the day off on Shabbat or on Jewish holidays. My bosses couldn't conceive what it meant to be Jewish."
Although precisely what it involves to be a Jew eludes most Koreans, anti-Jewish feeling is almost unthinkable in this part of the world.
Says Seoul resident Naomi Zaslow, "If you refuse a plate of pork ribs here, people will be dumbfounded. If you tell them it's because you're Jewish, they'll unfailingly look impressed and say: 'Oh, you must be very clever'."
This article originally appeared in the Jewish Chronicle

Tal-Mu-Duh, the real story; inside of the Korean Talmud looks like; "Solomon's Judgment".

YNET: Talmud Study in South Korea

The following fascinating article was translated by The Muqata from YNET.

Update: After receiving a personal thank you letter from the South Korean Embassy in Israel for this blog post, I have made a few minor updates to the article below at the Embassy's request, to better reflect Talmud (탈무드) Study in Korea YNET has repostedan updated version as well.

Close to 50 million people live in South Korea, and almost everyone is taught the Talmud at home by their parents. "We tried to understand why the Jews are geniuses, and we came to the conclusion that we think it is because they study Talmud," said the Korean ambassador to Israel, Mr. Young Sam Ma. And this is how "Rav Papa" became a more well known scholar in Korea than in Israel.

It is doubtful if the Amoraic scholars, Abbaye and Rava imagined their discussions of Jewish law in the Beit Midrash in Babylon would be taught hundreds of years later in East Asia. Yet it turns out that the laws of an "egg born on a holiday" ("ביצה שנולדה ביום טוב") is actually very interesting to the South Koreans who have required that Talmud study be part of their compulsory school curriculum. [Note from Jameel: The Korean Embassy in Israel probably received alot of complaints about Talmud being part of the compulsory school curriculum, and requested that the statement read: “Yet, it turns out that… is actually very interesting to the South Koreans who encourage Talmud learning at home”.]

Almost every home in South Korea now contains a Korean-translated Talmud. But unlike in Israel, the Korean mothers teach the Talmud to their children. In a country of close to 49 million people who believe in Buddhism and Christianity, there are more people who read the Talmud - or at least own their own copy at home - more than in the Jewish state. Much more.

"So we too will become geniuses"

"We were very curious about the high academic achievements of the Jewish people”, explains Korean Ambassador to Israel, Mr. Young Sam Ma, who was hosted on the channel 1 TV programme “Culture Today”."

"Jews have a high percentage of Nobel laureates in all fields: literature, science and economics. This is a remarkable achievement. We tried to understand what is the secret of the Jewish people? How they - more than other people - are able to reach those impressive accomplishments? Why are Jews so intelligent? In our opinion, one of your secrets is that you study the Talmud”.

"Jews study the Talmud at a young age, and it helps them, in our opinion, to develop mental capabilities. This understanding led us to teach our children as well. We believe that if we teach our children Talmud, they will also become geniuses. This is what stands behind the rationale of introducing Talmud Study to our school curriculum." Jameel adds: Again, The Muqata was requested to remove the school curriculum comment, and replace it with, "This is the rational to make Talmud a part of home education in Korea”

Ambassador Ma says the he himself studied the Talmud at a very young age: "It is considered very significant study," he emphasized. The result is that more Koreans have Talmud sets in their homes than Jews in Israel.

“I, for example, have two editions of Talmud: one my wife bought and the other I got from my mother in law”. [Jameel adds: Almost like the Jewish tradition of the parents of the bride buying a set of Talmud for their future son-in-law...]

Groupies of Jews

Koreans don't only like the Talmud because they see it as promoting genius, but because they found values that are ​​close to their hearts.

"In the Jewish tradition, family values ​​are important," explains the South Korean Ambassador.

"You see it even today, your practice of the Friday evening family meal. In my country we also focus on family values. The respect for adults, respect and appreciation for the elderly parallels the high esteem in my country for the elderly."

Another very significant issue is the respect for education. In the Jewish tradition parents have a duty to teach their children, and they devote to it lots of attention. For Korean parents, their children's education is a top priority. (YNET)


The photo above of a Talmud translated into Korean,
is courtesy of the South Korean Embassy to Israel.

Korea--a Jewish Study Center

One of the newest and biggest centers of Talmud study is neither in Hasidic Brooklyn nor in Israel--it's the nation of South Korea.

The Talmud, the ancient collection of Jewish wisdom, stories, and laws, occupies nearly 3,000 pages in the original Aramaic. But today, a single-volume edition of the Talmud, translated into Korean, is available in virtually every bookstore in the country. Parts of the Talmud are even required reading at schools, according to Young Sam Mah, South Korea's ambassador to Israel.

The reason for this? "Jews have a high percentage of Nobel laureates," says Young Sam Mah, who recently appeared on the Israeli television program Culture Today. "We tried to understand, what is the secret of the Jewish people? The conclusion we arrived at is that you study the Talmud."

The ambassador cited many cultural parallels between Jews and South Koreans--the emphasis on family time on weekends, respect for the elderly, and the emphasis placed on education and study. As a result, says the Israeli news site YNet, "Rav Papabecame a more well-known scholar in South Korea than in Israel."