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==See also==
==See also==
*[[Christianity and violence]]
*[[Christianity and violence]]
*[[Religious Zionism]]
*[[Religious fanaticism#Judaism]]
*[[Religious fanaticism#Judaism]]
*[[Religious violence]]
*[[Religious violence]]

Revision as of 14:00, 31 August 2010

The love of peace and the pursuit of peace, as well as laws requiring the eradication of evil, sometimes using violent means, co-exist in the Jewish tradition.[1] Judaism and violence have been associated when Judaism's religious texts or precepts have been used to motivate, glorify, endorse, or justify violence, [2][3][4] as well as in opposition to such violence[5].

Jewish tradition permits committing violence as well as waging war in certain cases. However, the permissibility to wage war is limited and the requirement is that one always seek a just peace before waging war.[1]

Ancient violence

See also: Battle of Jericho

The Hebrew Bible contains several violent episodes that are related to religion,[6] such as the battle of Jericho (Joshua 6:1–27),[7] the story of Amalekites (1 Sam 15:1–6),[8] and the story of the Midianites (Numbers 31:1–18).[9] However, modern religious authorities repudiate the sort of warfare described in the Torah, or assert that the violent episodes were not historical events, or claim that the events were exaggerated or metaphorical. Actions of the Jews described in the Boom of Esther have been described by Elliott Horowitz as inciting violence.[10]

Modern violence

Violence against Palestinians

Massacres of civilians in 1948 war

Judaism's precepts justified and motivated many violent acts - including several alleged massacres such as the Deir Yassin massacre - during the 1948 war.[11] However, Judaism's religious texts overwhelmingly endorse compassion and peace, and the Hebrew Bible contains the well-known commandment to "love thy neighbor as thyself".[12]

Settler violence in the Occupied Territories

Violence in the West Bank has been directed at Palestinians by Jewish settlers in the West Bank and - while the motives are complex and varied - religious motivations have been documented.[13][14][15] The Violence by extremist settlers against Palestinians has been harshly condemned by some of the leading Jewish religious figures in the West Bank, including Rabbi Menachem Fruman of Tekoa, who said: "Targeting Palestinians and their property is a shocking thing, (...) It's an act of hurting humanity. (...) This builds a wall of fire between Jews and Arabs."[16]

Commentator Yaniv Reigh wrote "[T]here is a substantial number of ideological settlers, now numbering in the hundreds of thousands, for whom all of biblical Israel is given to the Jews by God. Some unknown proportion of that group are violent."[17]

Journalist Gershom Gorenbeg suggested that since both theft and destruction of fruit trees as a tactic of war are forbidden by Jewish law, a flier calling upon settlers to vandalize Palestinian olive trees was based on misleading interpretations of Judaism. "It was, in religious terms, akin to preaching the 'obligation" of adultery'."[18]


Cave of the Patriarchs massacre

Main article: Cave of the Patriarchs massacre

Critics claim that extremists sometimes use Judaism's religious doctrines to justify violence, for example citing Baruch Goldstien, who relied on precepts from the Kach movement to perpetrate the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.[19] Goldstein was denounced "with shocked horror" by Orthodox Judaism, [20] and most in Israel denounced Goldstein as insane. [21]

Critics also claimed that Gush Emunim and followers of Rabbi Kook advocate violence based on Judaism's religious precepts.[22] However, the number of extremists that subscribe to these interpretations of Judaism is a miniscule proportion of the total Jewish population.

Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

Main article: Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

Not all violence was directed at non-Jews - the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by Yigal Amir was motivated by Judaism's religious doctrines of din mosser (the duty to eliminate a Jew who intends to turn another Jew in to non-Jewish authorities) and din rodef (In traditional Jewish law, rodef is is one who is "pursuing" another to murder him or her. According to Jewish law, such a person must be killed by any bystander after being warned to stop and refusing).[23] According to Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Amir’s interpretation is a gross distortion of Jewish law and tradition.

First of all, the law of the pursuer only applies to a spontaneous act, whereas Yigal Amir planned this assassination for two years. Secondly, the law of the pursuer is only intended to save a potential victim from imminent death. There is absolutely no proof that withdrawing from certain territories will directly lead to the death of any Jews. On the contrary, Prime Minister Rabin, over half the members of the Knesset, and over half the population of Israel believe exactly the opposite - that it will save Jewish lives. Lastly, this law does not refer to elected representatives, for if Yitzhak Rabin was really a pursuer, then so are all his followers and that would mean that Amir should have killed over half the population of Israel! In other words, even according to the law of the pursuer, this act was totally futile and senseless since the peace process will continue.[24]

Incitment

Ovadia Yosef

A former Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (who was also the founder and leader of Israel’s third largest political party, Shas), called for “extermination of the Arabs,” saying “it is forbidden to be merciful to them”;[25] and that on another occasion he compared Arabs to snakes, who should all be annihilated.[26] Yosef later said that his sermon was misquoted, and clarified that he was referring to annihilation of Arab terrorists and not to all Arab people. [27]. He called for improving the living conditions of Arabs in Israel, and said that he has deep respect for peace seeking Arabs.[28]

Military

Jewish tradition permits waging war and killing in certain cases. However, the permissibility to wage war is limited and the requirement is that one always seek a just peace before waging war.[1]

Activist Noam Chomsky claims that leaders of Judaism in Israel play a role in sanctioning military operations:

"[Israel's Supreme Rabbinical Council] gave their endorsement to the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, declaring that it conformed to the Halachi (religious) law and that participation in the war 'in all its aspects' is a religious duty. The military Rabbinate meanwhile distributed a document to soldiers containing a map of Lebanon with the names of cities replaced by alleged Hebrew names taken from the Bible.... A military Rabbi in Lebanon explained the biblical sources that justify 'our being here and our opening the war; we do our Jewish religious duty by being here.'"[29]

Some critics claim that Judaism's religious leaders have interpreted religious laws to support killing of innocent civilians during wartime in some circumstances, and that this interpretation was asserted several times: in 1974 following the Yom Kippur war, [30] in 2004, during conflicts in West Bank and Gaza,[31] and in the 2006 Lebanon War.[32] Critics cite a booklet published by an IDF military chaplain which stated "... insofar as the killing of civilians is performed against the background of war, one should not, according to religious law, trust a Gentile 'The best of the Gentiles you should kill'...".[33] The booklet was withdrawn by the military after criticism, but the military never repudiated the guidance.[34] However, the other religious leaders have condemned this interpretation, and the Israeli military subscribes to the Purity of arms doctrine, which seeks to minimize injuries to non-combatants; furthermore, the advice was only applicable to combat operations in wartime.

Rejection of Violence and Pursuit of Peace

The Jews are the mildest of men, passionately hostile to violence. That obstinate sweetness which they conserve in the midst of the most atrocious persecution, that sense of justice and of reason which they put up as their sole defense against a hostile, brutal, and unjust society, is perhaps the best part of the message they bring to us and the true mark of their greatness.

— Jean-Paul Sartre [35]

Judaism's religious texts overwhelmingly endorse compassion and peace, and the Hebrew Bible contains the well-known commandment to "love thy neighbor as thyself".[36] In fact, the love of peace and the pursuit of peace is one of the key principles in Jewish law. Jewish tradition permits waging war and killing in certain cases, however, the requirement is that one always seek a just peace before waging war.[1]

According to the 1947 Columbus Platform of Reform Judaism, "Judaism, from the days of the prophets, has proclaimed to mankind the ideal of universal peace, striving for spiritual and physical disarmament of all nations. Judaism rejects violence and relies upon moral education, love and sympathy."[5]

Violent tactics forbidden by Halakhah

Jewish law prohibits the use of outright vandalism in warfare.[37]

Jewish Halakhah forbids destruction of fruit trees as a tactic of war. It is also forbidden to break vessels, tear clothing, wreck that which is built up, stop fountains, or waste food in a destructive manner. Killing an animal needlessly or offering poisoned water to livestock are also forbidden.[37]

Those few cases in the Bible in which this norm was violated are special cases. One example was when King Hezekiah stopped all the fountains in Jerusalem in the war against Sennacherib, which Jewish scholars regards as a violation of the biblical commandment.[37]

Extremist organizations

See also: Jewish religious terrorism

Some organizations that endorse or advocate violence based on religious principles include:

See also

References

  • Arab attitudes to Israel by Yehoshafat Harkabi, John Wiley and Sons, 1974
  • The Bible and Zionism by Nur Masalha, Zed Books, 2007
  • Palestine and Israel: a challenge to justice by John B. Quigley, Duke University Press, 1990
  • Under the Cover of War: The Zionist Expulsion of the Palestinians by Rosemarie M. Esber, Arabicus Books & Media, LLC, 2009
  • The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem revisited by Benny Morris, Cambridge University Press, 2004
  • Saleh Abdel Jawad (2007) "Zionist Massacres: the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem in the 1948 War" in Israel and the Palestinian refugees, Eyal Benvenistî, Chaim Gans, Sari Hanafi (Eds.), Springer, 2007
  • The ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe, Oneworld, 2007
  • World orders, old and new by Noam Chomsky, Columbia University Press, 1996
  • Sacred fury: understanding religious violence by Charles Selengut, Rowman & Littlefield, 2008
  • Jewish fundamentalism in Israel by Israël Shahak, Norton Mezvinsky, Pluto Press, 1999
  • The gun and the olive branch: the roots of violence in the Middle East by David Hirst, Nation Books, 2003
  • Terror in the mind of God: the global rise of religious violence by Mark Juergensmeyer, University of California Press, 2003
  • Reckless rites: Purim and the legacy of Jewish violence by Elliott S.Horowitz, Princeton University Press, 2006
  • Beyond violence: religious sources of social transformation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - James Heft (Ed.), Fordham Univ Press, 2004
  • For the land and the Lord: Jewish fundamentalism in Israel - Ian Lustick, Council on Foreign Relations, 1988

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b c d Fighting the War and the Peace: Battlefield Ethics, Peace Talks, Treaties, and Pacifism in the Jewish Tradition. Michael J. Broyde, 1998, p. 1
  2. ^ Carl. S. Ehrlich (1999) "Joshua, Judaism, and Genocide", in Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Judit Targarona Borrás, Ángel Sáenz-Badillos (Eds). 1999, Brill.
  3. ^ Horowitz, Elliott S. (2006). Reckless rites: Purim and the legacy of Jewish violence. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691124914.
  4. ^ Stern, Jessica (2004). Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill, Jessica Stern. HarperCollins. ISBN 0060505338.
  5. ^ a b The Columbus Platform: The Guiding Principles of Reform Judaism, 1937
  6. ^
    • Salaita, Steven George (2006). The Holy Land in transit: colonialism and the quest for Canaan. Syracuse University Press. p. 54. ISBN 081563109X.
    • Lustick, Ian (1988). For the land and the Lord: Jewish fundamentalism in Israel. Council on Foreign Relations. pp. 131–132. ISBN 0876090366.
    • Armstrong, Karen (2007). The Bible: a biography. Atlantic Monthly Press. pp. 211–216. ISBN 0871139693.
  7. ^ Carl. S. Ehrlich (1999) "Joshua, Judaism, and Genocide", in Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Judit Targarona Borrás, Ángel Sáenz-Badillos (Eds). 1999, Brill. p 117-124.
  8. ^ A. G. Hunter "Denominating Amalek: Racist stereotyping in the Bible and the Justification of Discrimination", in Sanctified aggression: legacies of biblical and post biblical vocabularies of violence, Jonneke Bekkenkamp, Yvonne Sherwood (Eds.). 2003, Continuum Internatio Publishing Group, pp 92-108
  9. ^ Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God delusion. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 245. ISBN 0618680004.
  10. ^ Horowitz, Elliott S. (2006). Reckless rites: Purim and the legacy of Jewish violence. Princeton University Press. pp. 2–3, 107–146, 187–212, 213–247. ISBN 0691124914.
  11. ^
    • Saleh Abdel Jawad (2007) "Zionist Massacres: the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem in the 1948 War" in Israel and the Palestinian refugees, Eyal Benvenistî, Chaim Gans, Sari Hanafi (Eds.), Springer, p. 78:
    ".. the Zionist movement, which claims to be secular, found it necessary to embrace the idea of 'the promised land' of Old Testament prophecy, to justify the confiscation of land and the expulsion of the Palestinians. For example, the speeches and letter of Chaim Weizman, the secular Zionist leader, are filled with references to the biblical origins of the Jewish claim to Palestine, which he often mixes liberally with more pragmatic and nationalistic claims. By the use of this premise, embraced in 1937, Zionists alleged that the Palestinians were usurpers in the Promised Land, and therefore their expulsion and death was justified. The Jewish-American writer Dan Kurzman, in his book Genesis 1948 … describes the view of one of the Deir Yassin's killers: 'The Sternists followed the instructions of the Bible more rigidly than others. They honored the passage (Exodus 22:2): 'If a thief be found …' This meant, of course, that killing a thief was not really muder. And were not the enemies of Zionism thieves, who wanted to steal from the Jews what God had granted them?'
    • Carl. S. Ehrlich (1999) "Joshua, Judaism, and Genocide", in Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Judit Targarona Borrás, Ángel Sáenz-Badillos (Eds). 1999, Brill. p 117-124.
  12. ^
    • Reuven Firestone (2004), "Judaism on Violence and Reconciliation: An examination of key sources" in Beyond violence: religious sources of social transformation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Fordham Univ Press, 2004, pp 77, 81.
    • Goldsmith (Ed.), Emanuel S. (1991). Dynamic Judaism: the essential writings of Mordecai M. Kaplan. Fordham Univ Press. p. 181. ISBN 0823213102.
    • Spero, Shubert (1983). Morality, halakha, and the Jewish tradition. KTAV Publishing House, Inc. pp. 137–318. ISBN 0870687271.
  13. ^ Weisburd, Jewish Settler Violence, Penn State Press, 1985, pp 20-52
  14. ^ Lustick, Ian, "Israel's Dangerous Fundamentalists", Foreign Policy, 68 (Fall 1987), pp 118-139
  15. ^ Tessler, Mark, "Religion and Politics in the Jewish State of Israel", in ‪Religious resurgence and politics in the contemporary world‬, (Emile Sahliyeh, Ed). SUNY Press, 1990 pp 263-296.
  16. ^ [1]
  17. ^ Reich, Yaniv, "The scourge of Jewish terrorism", [2]
  18. ^ Gorenberg, Gershom, Yaakov Teitel and the Allure of Lawlessness", in The American Prospect, [3]
  19. ^
  20. ^ The ethics of war in Asian civilizations: a comparative perspective By Torkel Brekke, Routledge, 2006, p.44
  21. ^ 1 Wilson, Rodney. 2007. Review Article: Islam and Terrorism. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 34(2):203-213. [4]. (accessed 29 August 2010).
  22. ^
    • Weisburd, David (1985). Jewish Settler Violence. Penn State Press. p. 65. ISBN 0271026731.
    • Bruce, Steve (2008). Fundamentalism. Polity. p. 4. ISBN 0745640753.
    • Ehud Sprinzak, "From Messianic Pioneering to Vigilante Terrorism: The Case of the Gush Emunim Underground", in Inside terrorist organizations David C. Rappoport (Ed.), Routledge, 2001. p. 194-214.
  23. ^ Stern, Jessica (2004). Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill, Jessica Stern. HarperCollins. p. 91. ISBN 0060505338,. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  24. ^ Rabbinic response: Jewish Law on the Killing of Yitzhak Rabin, By Rabbi Arthur Waskow, The Shalom Center, 11/14/2005
  25. ^ BBC News "Rabbi denounced as'war criminal", April 11, 2001
  26. ^ Yiftachel, Oren. Ethnocracy: land and identity politics in Israel/Palestine. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. ISBN 081223927X. {{cite book}}: Text "page 180" ignored (help)
  27. ^ [5] (in Hebrew)
  28. ^ [6] (In Hebrew)
  29. ^ Chomsky, Noam (1999). Fateful triangle: the United States, Israel, and the Palestinians (2nd Ed, revised). South End Press. pp. 153–154. ISBN 0896086011.
  30. ^
    • Rabbi Shim'on Weiser, "Purity of weapons - an exchange of letters" in Niv" Hammidrashiyyah Yearbook of Midrashiyyat No'am, 1974, pp.29-31.
    quoted in Masalha, Nur (2007). The Bible and Zionism: invented traditions, archaeology and post-colonialism in Palestine-Israel. Zed Books. p. 158. ISBN 1842777610.. This book quotes Amnon Rubinstein, From Herzl to Gush Emunim and Back (1980), p. 124.
  31. ^ "ADL Strongly Condemns Declaration of Rabbis" - ADL press release, dated Sept 9, 2004; http://www.adl.org/PresRele/IslME_62/4561_62.htm
  32. ^ Rebecca Spence " Rabbis: Israel Too Worried Over Civilian Deaths", in The Jewish Daily Forward, issue of August 25, 2006. http://www.forward.com/articles/1438/
  33. ^
    • Abraham Avidan (Zamel), After the War: Chapters of Meditation, Rule, and Research, as quoted by Steven Schwarzschild, "The Question of Jewish Ethics Today" (Dec, 24, 1976) in journal Sh'ma (vol. 7, no. 124) - http://www.clal.org/e14.html. Schwarzschild article reprinted in The pursuit of the ideal: Jewish writings of Steven Schwarzschild, chapter 7, pp 117-136, SUNY Press, 1990 (ISBN 0791402193). Latter book quotes the booklet on page 125. Schwarzschild writes that Avidan was the "military rabbi" of the Central Command Headquarters.
    • Schwarzschild article includes a bracketed comment as follows: "... insofar as the killing of civilians is performed against the background of war, one should not, according to religious law, trust a Gentile [and justifies this claim, citing the utterance from the Codes:] 'The best of the Gentiles you should kill"...'". Schwartzschild indicates that the phrase "[t]he best of the Gentiles you should kill" is from the Mekhilta 14:7 ("tov shebagoyim harog"), citing Nathan Suesskind, "Tov Sheba-Goyim" C.C.A.R. Journal, Spring 1976, pp. 28f. and n. 2.
    • Schwarzschild article states that the booklet was discussed contemporaneously in the Mapam newspaper. Other sources cite contemporaneous discussions by Haolam Hazeh, 5 January 1974; by David Shaham, 'A chapter of meditation', Hotam, 28 March 1974; and by Amnon Rubinstein, 'Who falsifies the Halakhah?' Maariv, 13 October 1975.
    • Masalha, Nur (2007). The Bible and Zionism: invented traditions, archaeology and post-colonialism in Palestine-Israel. Zed Books. p. 158. ISBN 1842777610.. This book also cites the chaplain's booklet.
    • See also a discussion of "Religious Zionist military rabbinate" in George Wilkes (2003) "Judaism and Justice in War", in Just war in comparative perspective, Paul F. Robinson (Ed.), Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., p. 22.
  34. ^
    • Schwarzschild, Stephen (1990). The pursuit of the ideal: Jewish writings of Steven Schwarzschild. SUNY Press. pp. 125–126. ISBN 0791402193.
  35. ^ Jean-Paul Sartre, 1946, Reflexions sur la question juive
  36. ^
    • Reuven Firestone (2004), "Judaism on Violence and Reconciliation: An examination of key sources" in Beyond violence: religious sources of social transformation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Fordham Univ Press, 2004, pp 77, 81.
    • Goldsmith (Ed.), Emanuel S. (1991). Dynamic Judaism: the essential writings of Mordecai M. Kaplan. Fordham Univ Press. p. 181. ISBN 0823213102.
    • Spero, Shubert (1983). Morality, halakha, and the Jewish tradition. KTAV Publishing House, Inc. pp. 137–318. ISBN 0870687271.
  37. ^ a b c [7]
  38. ^ U.S. Dept. of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2004. April 2005
  39. ^ U.S. Appeals Court Affirms Designation of Kahane Chai, Kach as Terrorist Groups Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
  40. ^ Kach, Kahane Chai (Israel, extremists) Council for Foreign Relations, 20 March 2008
  41. ^ Lustick For The Land and The Lord: The Evolution of Gush Emunim, by Ian S. Lustick
  42. ^ a b Anti-Defamation League on JDL
  43. ^ Bohn, Michael K. (2004). The Achille Lauro Hijacking: Lessons in the Politics and Prejudice of Terrorism. Brassey's Inc. p. 67. ISBN 1574887793.
  44. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation - Congressional Testimony
  45. ^ JDL group profile from National Consortium for the Study of Terror and Responses to Terrorism
  46. ^ Kahane Chai (KACH) Public Safety Canada
  47. ^ Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) U.S. Department of State, 11 October 2005
  48. ^ Council Decision of 21 December 2005 implementing Article 2(3) of Regulation (EC) No 2580/2001 on specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities with a view to combating terrorism and repealing Decision 2005/848/EC Official Journal of the European Union, 23 December 2005
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