Old Testament Jews might have been that, but unfortunately, by the time of the Talmud, the Talmudic Jews clearly worship themselves over God or earthly kings. Heck, if anything, Bava Metzia 59b indicates that they can ignore God after Mt. Sinai, and that if anything God is their slave who can’t do anything without a majority vote by the Rabbinic council. As far as I’m concerned, thanks to that passage in particular, the Talmudic Jews are not much different than radical Communists who use the Jew card.
Sorry for sounding very cold regarding that, but when the chosen people explicitly backstab God the Father like that by making him weak and dumb, show him that kind of disrespect, that is a really special evil there, even moreso than anti-Semitism. Heck, if it were me in God’s position and the Jews did exactly that, I’d probably remove their chosen status and even eliminate them in anger for that, viewing them has flagrantly broken their covenant with me when they did that. That’s a kind of treachery that I simply cannot forgive.
You’re just as off base as the folks on the other side.
The reality is that most Jews will never pick up, open, or receive guidance from the Talmud. You can attend services regularly your whole life and never hear of it.
So any obsession with Talmud as an effort to characterize Jews in general is completely wrong-headed.
This self-worship phenomenon you observe is a) not at all specific to Jews; and b) the very element that makes them something other than Jewish.
Communists pretending to be Jews are no more authentic than Christians pretending to be Jews.