ABSTRACT
In rabbinic literature the black appears for the first time in Jewish cultural history as not only other and different, but as a consequence, inferior too, and in this light the Bible texts about the black were expounded. For generations, these commentaries determined the image of the black in Jewish thought. The rabbinic viewpoint did not originate in Scripture, which, as we have shown, was generally neutral, sometimes amazed and in extreme cases ambiguous and enigmatic, but never totally negative.
