Judaism's doctrines and texts have sometimes been associated with violence or anti-violence. Laws requiring the eradication of evil, sometimes using violent means, exist in the Jewish tradition. However, Judaism also contains peaceful texts and doctrines.Fighting the War and the Peace: Battlefield Ethics, Peace Talks, Treaties, and Pacifism in the Jewish Tradition. Michael J. Broyde, 1998, p. 1*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. * * There is often a juxtaposition of Judaic law and theology to violence and non-violence by groups and individuals. Attitudes and laws towards both peace and violence exist within the Jewish tradition. Throughout history,

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...

's religious texts or precepts have been used to promoteCarl. 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. as well as oppose violence.The Columbus Platform: The Guiding Principles of Reform Judaism, 1937

Normative Judaism

Normative Judaism is not pacifist and violence is condoned in the service of self-defence. J. Patout Burns asserts that Jewish tradition clearly posits the principle of minimization of violence. This principle can be stated as "(wherever) Jewish law allows violence to keep an evil from occurring, it mandates that the minimal amount of violence be used to accomplish one's goal."

Nonviolence

Judaism's religious texts endorse compassion and peace, and the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' According to the 1937 Columbus Platform of

Reform Judaism Reform Judaism, also known as Liberal Judaism or Progressive Judaism, is a major Jewish denomination that emphasizes the evolving nature of Judaism, the superiority of its ethical aspects to its ceremonial ones, and belief in a continuous sear ...

, "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." The philosophy of nonviolence has roots in Judaism, going back to the

Jerusalem Talmud The Jerusalem Talmud ( he, תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, translit=Talmud Yerushalmi, often for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century ...

of the middle 3rd century. While absolute nonviolence is not a requirement of Judaism, the religion so sharply restricts the use of violence, that nonviolence often becomes the only way to fulfilling a life of truth, justice and peace, which Judaism considers to be the three tools for the preservation of the world.

Warfare

The biblical narrative about the conquest of Canaan, and the commands related to it, have had a deep influence on Western culture. Lemche, Niels Peter, ''The Old Testament between theology and history: a critical survey'', Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, pp. 315–316:"The iblicalstory of the 'morally supreme people' that defeats and exterminates another, inferior, nation was part of the ideological baggage of European imperialists and colonizers throughout the nineteenth century. It was also carried by European Jews who,... migrated to Palestine to inherit their ancestral country … In this modern version of the biblical narrative, the Palestinian population turned into 'Canaanites', supposed to be morally inferior to the Jews, and of course the Arabs were never considered their equals … The Bible was the instrument used to suppress the enemy". Throughout

Jewish history Jewish history is the history of the Jews, and their nation, religion, and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions, and cultures. Although Judaism as a religion first appears in Greek records during the Hellenisti ...

, mainstream Jewish traditions have considered these texts purely historical or highly conditioned, and in any event, they are not considered relevant to later times. The Second Temple period experienced a surge in militarism and violence which was aimed at curbing the encroachment of Greco-Roman and

Hellenistic Jewish Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Greek culture. Until the early Muslim conquests of the eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Hellenistic Judaism were ...

influences in

Judea Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous sou ...

. Groups such as the Maccabees the

Zealots The Zealots were a political movement in 1st-century Second Temple Judaism which sought to incite the people of Judea Province to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the Holy Land by force of arms, most notably during the First Jew ...

, the

Sicarii The Sicarii (Modern Hebrew: סיקריים ''siqariyim'') were a splinter group of the Jewish Zealots who, in the decades preceding Jerusalem's destruction in 70 CE, strongly opposed the Roman occupation of Judea and attempted to expel them and th ...

at the

Siege of Masada The siege of Masada was one of the final events in the First Jewish–Roman War, occurring from 73 to 74 CE on and around a hilltop in present-day Israel. The siege is known to history via a single source, Flavius Josephus, a Jewish rebel leade ...

, and later the Bar Kochba revolt, all derived their power from the biblical narrative of Hebrew conquest and hegemony over the Land of Israel, sometimes garnering support of the rabbis, and at other times their ambivalence. In Modern times, warfare which has been conducted by the State of Israel is governed by Israeli law and regulation, which includes a purity of arms code that is based in part on Jewish tradition; the 1992 IDF Code of Conduct combines international law, Israeli law, Jewish heritage and the IDF's own traditional ethical code. However, tension between actions of the Israeli government on the one hand, and Jewish traditions and

halakha ''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical commandm ...

on the conduct of war on the other, have caused controversy within Israel and have provided a basis for criticisms of Israel. Some strains of radical

Zionism Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

promote aggressive war and justify them with biblical texts.

Forced conversion

Forced conversion Forced conversion is the adoption of a different religion or the adoption of irreligion under duress. Someone who has been forced to convert to a different religion or irreligion may continue, covertly, to adhere to the beliefs and practices which ...

s occurred under the Hasmonean kingdom. The Idumaens were forced to convert to Judaism, either by threats of exile, or threats of death, depending on the source. In ''Eusebíus, Christianity, and Judaism'' Harold W. Attridge claims that “there is reason to think that Josephus’ account of their conversion is substantially accurate.” He also writes, "That these were not isolated instances but that forced conversion was a national policy is clear from the fact that Alexander Jannaeus (c. 80 BCE) demolished the city of Pella in Moab, 'because the inhabitants would not agree to adopt the national custom of the Jews. Josephus, Antiquities. 13.15.4.

Maurice Sartre Maurice Sartre (born 3 October 1944) is a French historian, an Emeritus professor of ancient history at the François Rabelais University, a specialist in ancient Greek and Eastern Roman history, especially the Hellenized Middle East, from Alexand ...

has written of the "policy of forced Judaization adopted by Hyrcanos,

Aristobulus I Judah Aristobulus I or Aristobulus I (; el, Ἀριστόβουλος, Aristóboulos) was the first Hasmonean king of Judaea from 104 BCE until his death in 103 BCE. He was the eldest of the five sons of John Hyrcanus, the previous leader. Josep ...

and

Jannaeus Alexander Jannaeus ( grc-gre, Ἀλέξανδρος Ἰανναῖος ; he, ''Yannaʾy''; born Jonathan ) was the second king of the Hasmonean dynasty, who ruled over an expanding kingdom of Judea from 103 to 76 BCE. A son of John Hyrcanus, h ...

", who offered "the conquered peoples a choice between expulsion or conversion". William Horbury has written that "The evidence is best explained by postulating that an existing small Jewish population in Lower Galilee was massively expanded by the forced conversion in c. 104 BCE of their Gentile neighbours in the north."

Kingdom of Himyar

After the conversion of the kingdom of Himyar in the late 4th century to Judaism, two episodes of "coercion and brutality" by Himyar Jewish kings took place during the fifth and early sixth centuries. Thirty-nine Christians were martyred in the third quarter of the fifth century, and a massacre of Christians took place in 523. The Yemeni Jewish Himyar tribe, led by King Dhu Nuwashad, offered Christian residents of a village in Saudi Arabia the choice between conversion to Judaism or death, and 20,000 Christians were massacred. Inscriptions show the great pride he expressed after massacring more than 22,000 Christians in Zafar and Najran.

Retribution and punishment

An eye for an eye

While the principle of ''lex talionis'' ( "an eye for an eye") is clearly echoed in the Bible, in Judaism it is not literally applied, and was interpreted to provide a basis for financial compensation for injuries. Pasachoff and Littman point to the reinterpretation of the lex talionis as an example of the ability of Pharisaic Judaism to "adapt to changing social and intellectual ideas." Stephen Wylen asserts that the lex talionis is "proof of the unique value of each individual" and that it teaches "equality of all human beings for law."

Capital and corporal punishment

While the Bible and the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

specify many violent punishments, including death by stoning, decapitation, burning, and strangulation for some crimes, these punishments were substantially modified during the rabbinic era, primarily by adding additional requirements for conviction. The

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Tor ...

states that a

sanhedrin The Sanhedrin (Hebrew and Aramaic: סַנְהֶדְרִין; Greek: , ''synedrion'', 'sitting together,' hence ' assembly' or 'council') was an assembly of either 23 or 71 elders (known as "rabbis" after the destruction of the Second Temple), ...

that executes one person in seven years – or seventy years, according to

Eleazar ben Azariah Eleazar ben Azariah ( he, אלעזר בן עזריה) was a 1st-century CE Jewish tanna, i.e. Mishnaic sage. He was of the second generation and a junior contemporary of Gamaliel II, Eliezer b. Hyrcanus, Joshua b. Hananiah, and Akiva. Bio ...

– is considered bloodthirsty. During the

Late Antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...

, the tendency of not applying the death penalty at all became predominant in Jewish courts. According to Talmudic law, the competence to apply capital punishment ceased with the destruction of the Second Temple. In practice, where medieval Jewish courts had the power to pass and execute death sentences, they continued to do so for particularly grave offenses, although not necessarily the ones defined by the law. Although it was recognized that the use of capital punishment in the post-Second Temple era went beyond the biblical warrant, the Rabbis who supported it believed that it could be justified by other considerations of Jewish law. Whether Jewish communities ever practiced capital punishment according to rabbinical law and whether the Rabbis of the Talmudic era ever supported its use even in theory has been a subject of historical and ideological debate. The 12th-century Jewish legal scholar

Maimonides Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Tora ...

stated that "It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death." The position of Jewish Law on capital punishment often formed the basis of deliberations by Israel's Supreme Court. It has been carried out by Israel's judicial system only once, in the case of Adolf Eichmann.

Purim and the Book of Esther

The Book of Esther, one of the books of the Jewish Bible, is a story of palace intrigue centered on a plot to kill all Jews which was thwarted by Esther, a Jewish queen of Persia. Instead of being victims, the Jews killed "all the people who wanted to kill them." The king gave the Jews the ability to defend themselves against their enemies who tried to kill them, numbering 75,000 (Esther 9:16) including

Haman Haman ( ; also known as Haman the Agagite or Haman the evil) is the main antagonist in the Book of Esther, who according to the Hebrew Bible was an official in the court of the Persian empire under King Ahasuerus, commonly identified as Xerxes I ...

, an

Amalekite Amalek (; he, עֲמָלֵק, , ar, عماليق ) was a nation described in the Hebrew Bible as a staunch enemy of the Israelites. The name "Amalek" can refer to the nation's founder, a grandson of Esau; his descendants, the Amalekites; or the ...

that led the plot to kill the Jews. The annual

Purim Purim (; , ; see Name below) is a Jewish holiday which commemorates the saving of the Jewish people from Haman, an official of the Achaemenid Empire who was planning to have all of Persia's Jewish subjects killed, as recounted in the Book ...

festival celebrates this event, and includes the recitation of the biblical instruction to "blot out the remembrance r nameof Amalek". Scholars – including

Ian Lustick Ian Steven Lustick (born 1949) is an American political scientist and specialist on the modern history and politics of the Middle East. He currently holds the Bess W. Heyman Chair in the department of Political Sciences at the University of Pennsyl ...

, Marc Gopin, and Steven Bayme – state that the violence described in the Book of Esther has inspired and incited violent acts and violent attitudes in the post-biblical era, continuing into modern times, often centered on the festival of

. Other scholars, including Jerome Auerbach, state that evidence for Jewish violence on Purim through the centuries is "exceedingly meager", including occasional episodes of stone throwing, the spilling of rancid oil on a Jewish convert, and a total of three recorded Purim deaths inflicted by Jews in a span of more than 1,000 years. In a review of historian Elliot Horowitz's book ''Reckless rites: Purim and the legacy of Jewish violence'',

Hillel Halkin Hillel Halkin ( he, הלל הלקין; born 1939) is an American-born Israeli translator, biographer, literary critic, and novelist, who has lived in Israel since 1970. Biography Hillel Halkin was born in New York City two months before the outbr ...

pointed out that the incidences of Jewish violence against non-Jews through the centuries are extraordinarily few in number and that the connection between them and Purim is tenuous. Rabbi

Arthur Waskow Arthur Ocean Waskow (born Arthur I. Waskow; 1933) is an American author, political activist, and rabbi associated with the Jewish Renewal movement. Education and early career Waskow was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He received a bachelor's degr ...

and historian Elliot Horowitz state that Baruch Goldstein, perpetrator of the

Cave of the Patriarchs massacre The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, also known as the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre or the Hebron massacre, was a shooting massacre carried out by Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli extremist and member of the far-right Kach movement. On 25 F ...

, may have been motivated by the Book of Esther, because the massacre was carried out on the day of Purim but other scholars point out that the association with Purim is circumstantial because Goldstein never explicitly made such a connection.

Modern acts of religiously motivated violence

Cases

The motives for acts of violence committed by Religious Jews in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict against Palestinians in the

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

are complex and varied according to Weisburg. While religious motivations for these acts of violence have been documented, the use of non-defensive violence is outside of mainstream Judaism.Morris 2008, pp. 126–128.

Abraham Isaac Kook Abraham Isaac Kook (; 7 September 1865 – 1 September 1935), known as Rav Kook, and also known by the acronym HaRaAYaH (), was an Orthodox rabbi, and the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine. He is considered to be one ...

(1865–1935), the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of

Mandate Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 i ...

, stated that the Jewish people's settlement of the land should only proceed by peaceful means.Judaism and the ethics of war, Norman Solomon. International Review of the Red Cross. Volume 87 Number 858 June 2005 Contemporary settler movements follow Kook’s son

Tzvi Yehuda Kook Zvi Yehuda Kook ( he, צבי יהודה קוק, 23 April 1891 – 9 March 1982) was a prominent ultranationalist Orthodox rabbi. He was the son of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook, the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of British Mandatory Pales ...

(1891–1982), who also did not advocate aggressive conquest. Critics claim that

Gush Emunim Gush Emunim ( he, גּוּשׁ אֱמוּנִים , ''Bloc of the Faithful'') was an Israeli ultranationalist Orthodox Jewish right-wing activist movement committed to establishing Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Gol ...

and followers of Tzvi Yehuda Kook advocate violence based on Judaism's religious precepts.

, Benny Morris, and

Nur Masalha Nur-eldeen (Nur) Masalha ( ar, نور مصالحة ''Nūr Maṣālḥa''; born 4 January 1957) is a Palestinian writer and academic. He is a historian of Palestine and formerly professor of religion and politics and director of the Centre for R ...

assert that radical Zionist leaders relied on religious doctrines for justification for the violent treatment of Arabs in Palestine, citing examples where pre-state Jewish militia used verses from the Bible to justify their violent acts, which included expulsions and massacres such as the one at

Deir Yassin Deir Yassin ( ar, دير ياسين, Dayr Yāsīn) was a Palestinian Arab village of around 600 inhabitants about west of Jerusalem. Deir Yassin declared its neutrality during the 1948 Palestine war between Arabs and Jews. The village was razed ...

. After Baruch Goldstein carried out the

in 1994, his actions were widely interpreted as being based on the radical Zionist ideology of the Kach movement, and they were condemned as such by mainstream religious and secular Jews but they were praised by a number of radical Zionists.

Dov Lior Dov Lior ( he, דב ליאור, born 30 October 1933) is an Israeli Orthodox rabbi who served as the Chief Rabbi of Hebron and Kiryat Arba in the southern West Bank until late 2014. He is the rosh yeshiva of the Kiryat Arba Hesder Yeshiva and h ...

, Chief Rabbi of Hebron and

Kiryat Arba :''This article is mainly about the modern Israeli settlement, not the biblical town'' Kiryat Arba or Qiryat Arba ( he, קִרְיַת־אַרְבַּע, , Town of the Four) is an urban Israeli settlement on the outskirts of Hebron, in the south ...

in the southern

and head of the "Council of Rabbis of

Judea and Samaria The Judea and Samaria Area ( he, אֵזוֹר יְהוּדָה וְשׁוֹמְרוֹן, translit=Ezor Yehuda VeShomron; ar, يهودا والسامرة, translit=Yahūda wa-s-Sāmara) is an administrative division of Israel. It encompasses th ...

" has made speeches legitimizing the killing of non-Jews and praising Goldstein as a saint and martyr. Lior also said "a thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew's fingernail" according to journalists."The List: The World’s Worst Religious Leaders". foreignpolicy.com. April 2008 (original article no longer available online). Copies ar
cached at Google.com
and reproduced o
richarddawkins.net
Retrieved 17 March 2010. Lior publicly gave permission to spill blood of Arab persons and has publicly supported extreme right-wing Jewish terrorists. Following an arson incident in 2010, in which a mosque in Yasuf village was desecrated, apparently by settlers from the nearby Gush Etzion settlement bloc,"Does the Torah back burning mosques?"
by Rabbi Gideon Sylvester. The Jewish Chronicle Online. 22 October 2010. the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi

Yona Metzger Yona Metzger ( he, יונה מצגר; born 1953) is an Israeli Orthodox rabbi and the former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel. In 2013, while chief rabbi, a fraud investigation was opened. Metzger later pleaded guilty to a number of corruption c ...

condemned the attack and equated the arson to

Kristallnacht () or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation fro ...

, he said: "This is how the Holocaust began, the tragedy of the Jewish people of Europe.""Chief rabbi: Palestinian mosque burning harkens to Kristallnacht"
by Anshel Pfeffer. Haaretz. Rabbi

Menachem Froman Rabbi Menachem Froman (also spelled ''Menahem'' and ''Fruman''; he, מנחם פרומן‎; 1 June 1945 – 4 March 2013) Note: Birth date is 1 Jan – 4 Mar 1945 based on 1) year known as 1945, 2) age known to be 68, 3) date of death kn ...

, a well-known peace activist, visited the mosque and replaced the burnt Koran with new copies. The rabbi stated: "This visit is to say that although there are people who oppose peace, he who opposes peace is opposed to God" and "Jewish law also prohibits damaging a holy place." He also remarked that arson in a mosque is an attempt to sow hatred between Jews and Arabs. According to Haaretz, in July 2010,

Yitzhak Shapira Yitzhak Shapira is an Israeli rabbi who lived in the West Bank Israeli settlement Yitzhar,Matthew Wagner"Shimshon soldiers to be hailed at 'farbrengen'" ''Jerusalem Post'', 12 November 2009 and is head of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva. In 2009, he pub ...

who heads Dorshei Yihudcha

yeshiva A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are st ...

in the

settlement of

Yitzhar Yitzhar ( he, יִצְהָר) is an Israeli settlement located in the West Bank, south of the city of Nablus, just off Route 60 (Israel), Route 60, north of the Kfar Tapuach, Tapuach Junction. The predominantly Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jewish ...

, was arrested by Israeli police in suspicion for the writing of a book that encourages the killing of non-Jews. The book, ''The King's Torah'', (''Torat HaMelech'') claims that, under

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

and Jewish Law, it is legal to kill

Gentile Gentile () is a word that usually means "someone who is not a Jew". Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, sometimes use the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is generally used as a synonym fo ...

s and, even in some cases, to kill the babies of enemies. Later in August 2010, police arrested rabbi Yosef Elitzur-Hershkowitzco-author of Shapira's bookon the suspicion of incitement to racial violence, possession of a racist text, and possession of material that incites to violence. While the book has been endorsed by radical Zionist leaders including Dov Lior and

Yaakov Yosef Ya'akov Yosef ( he, יעקב יוסף; 18 October 1946 – 12 April 2013) was an Israeli rabbi and politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Shas between 1984 and 1988. Early life Ya'akov Yosef (Jacob Joseph) was born in Jerusale ...

, it has been widely condemned by mainstream secular and religious Jews.Daniel Estrin for ''The Forward'' and ''Haaretz'' Jan. 22, 201
"The King's Torah: a rabbinic text or a call to terror?"
/ref> Rabbi

Hayim David HaLevi Hayim David HaLevi (24 January 1924 – 10 March 1998) (), was Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Yafo. Biography Hayim David HaLevi was born in Jerusalem. He studied under Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel at the Porat Yosef Yeshiva. When R. Uziel wa ...

stated that in modern times no one matches the biblical definition of an idolater, and therefore ruled that Jews in Israel have a moral responsibility to treat all citizens with the highest standards of humanity.

Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

The assassination of Israeli Prime Minister

Yitzhak Rabin Yitzhak Rabin (; he, יִצְחָק רַבִּין, ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77, and from 1992 until h ...

Yigal Amir Yigal Amir ( he, יגאל עמיר; born May 31, 1970) is an Israeli right-wing extremist who assassinated former Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin. At the time of the assassination he was a law student at Bar-Ilan University. The assas ...

was motivated by Amir’s personal political views and his understanding of Judaism's religious law of ''moiser'' (the duty to eliminate a Jew who intends to turn another Jew in to non-Jewish authorities, thus putting a Jew's life in danger) and''

rodef A ''rodef'' ( he, רודף, "pursuer"; , '), in traditional Jewish law, 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. A sourc ...

'' (a bystander can kill a one who is pursuing another to murder him or her if he cannot otherwise be stopped). Amir’s interpretation has been described as "a gross distortion of Jewish law and tradition" and the mainstream Jewish view is that Rabin's assassin had no Halakhic basis to shoot Prime Minister Rabin.Halacha File: The Halacha of Rodef and the Rabin Shooting
Koltorah.org (2004-11-20). Retrieved on 2010-10-27.

Extremist organizations

In the course of history there have been some organizations and individuals that endorsed or advocated violence based on their interpretation of Jewish religious principles. Such instances of violence are considered by mainstream Judaism to be extremist aberrations, and not representative of the tenets of Judaism. * Kach (defunct) and Kahane Chai * Gush Emunim Underground (defunct): formed by members of

. *

Brit HaKanaim Brit HaKanaim (Hebrew: בְּרִית הַקַנַאִים, lit. ''Covenant of the Zealots'') was a radical Jewish underground organization which operated in Israel between 1950 and 1953, in opposition to the widespread trend of secularization i ...

(defunct): an organisation operating in Israel from 1950 to 1953 with the objective of imposing Jewish religious law in the country and establishing a

Halakhic state A halachic state ( he, מדינת הלכה, ''Medinat Halakha'') is a Jewish state governed by ''halakha'', Jewish religious law. Public opinion An opinion poll released in March 2016 by the Pew Research Center found high support for a halach ...

. * The

Jewish Defense League The Jewish Defense League (JDL) is a Jewish far-right religious-political organization in the United States and Canada, whose stated goal is to "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary". It has been classified as "a right wi ...

(JDL): founded in 1969 by Rabbi

Meir Kahane Meir David HaKohen Kahane (; he, רבי מאיר דוד הכהן כהנא ; born Martin David Kahane; August 1, 1932 – November 5, 1990) was an American-born Israeli ordained Orthodox rabbi, writer, and ultra-nationalist politician who serv ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, with the declared purpose of protecting Jews from harassment and

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

.Anti-Defamation League on JDL

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

statistics show that, from 1980 to 1985, 15 terrorist attacks were attempted in the U.S. by members of the JDL. The FBI’s Mary Doran described the JDL in 2004 Congressional testimony as "a proscribed terrorist group". The National Consortium for the Study of Terror and Responses to Terrorism states that, during the JDL's first two decades of activity, it was an "active terrorist organization".

Kahanist Kahanism () is an extremist Jewish ideology based on the views of Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League and the Kach party in Israel. Kahane maintained the view that the majority of Arabs living in Israel are enemies of Jews an ...

groups are banned in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

.Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs)
U.S. Department of State, 11 October 2005

General claims

Some critics of religion such as

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argue that all monotheistic religions are inherently violent. For example, Nelson-Pallmeyer writes that "Judaism, Christianity and Islam will continue to contribute to the destruction of the world until and unless each challenges violence in 'sacred texts' and until each affirms nonviolent, including the nonviolent power of God."

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writes of ancient history that "Jews and Christians who smugly console themselves that Islam is the only violent religion are willfully ignoring their past. Nowhere is the struggle between faith and violence described more vividly, and with more stomach-turning details of ruthlessness, than in the Hebrew Bible". Similarly, Burggraeve and Vervenne describe the Old Testament as full of violence and evidence of both a violent society and a violent god. They write that, " numerous Old Testament texts the power and glory of Israel's God is described in the language of violence." They assert that more than one thousand passages refer to YHWH as acting violently or supporting the violence of humans and that more than one hundred passages involve divine commands to kill humans. Supersessionist Christian churches and theologians argue that Judaism is a violent religion and the god of Israel is a violent god, while Christianity is a religion of peace and that the god of Christianity is one that expresses only love. While this view has been common throughout the history of Christianity and remains a common assumption among Christians, it has been rejected by mainstream Christian theologians and denominations since the

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.R. Kendall Soulen. ''The God of Israel and Christian Theology''. Fortress Press (June 11, 1996) .

References

Sources

* Berger, Michael S., "Taming the Beast: Rabbinic Pacification of Second-Century Jewish Nationalism", in ''Belief and bloodshed: religion and violence across time and tradition'', James K. Wellman (Ed.), Rowman & Littlefield, 2007, pp. 47–62 * Boustan, Ra'anan S., "Violence, Scripture, and Textual Practice in Early Judaism and Christianity", in ''Violence, Scripture, and Textual Practice in Early Judaism and Christianity'', Ra'anan S. Boustan, Alex P. Jassen, Calvin J. Roetzel (Eds), Brill, 2010 pp. 1–12 * * Chilton, Bruce, ''Abraham's Curse: The Roots of Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam'', Doubleday, 2009 *

Chomsky, Noam Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...

, ''World orders, old and new'', Columbia University Press, 1996 * Ehrlich, Carl. S, "Joshua, Judaism, and Genocide", in ''Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century'', Judit Targarona Borrás, Ángel Sáenz-Badillos (Eds). 1999, Brill. pp. 117–124. * Ellens, J. Harold (Ed.), ''The destructive power of religion: violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam'', Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007 * Esber, Rosemarie M., ''Under the Cover of War: The Zionist Expulsion of the Palestinians'', Arabicus Books & Media, LLC, 2009 * Feldman, Louis H., ''"Remember Amalek!": vengeance, zealotry, and group destruction in the Bible according to Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus'', Hebrew Union College Press, 2004 * Firestone, Reuven, "Judaism on Violence and Reconciliation: An Examination of Key Sources", in ''Beyond violence: religious sources of social transformation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam'', James Heft (Ed.), Fordham Univ Press, 2004, pp. 74–87 * Glick, Leonard B., "Religion and Genocide", in ''The Widening circle of genocide'', Alan L. Berger (Ed). Transaction Publishers, 1994, pp. 43–74 * Gopin, Marc, ''Between Eden and Armageddon: the future of world religions, violence, and peacemaking'', Oxford University Press US, 2000. * Harkabi, Yehoshafat, ''Arab attitudes to Israel'', John Wiley and Sons, 1974 * Heft, James (Ed.), ''Beyond violence: religious sources of social transformation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam'', Fordham Univ Press, 2004 * Hirst, David, ''The gun and the olive branch: the roots of violence in the Middle East'', Nation Books, 2003 * Hoffman, R. Joseph, ''The just war and jihad: violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam'', Prometheus Books, 2006 *Horowitz, Elliott S., ''Reckless rites: Purim and the legacy of Jewish violence'', Princeton University Press, 2006 * Jacobs, Steven Leonard, "The Last Uncomfortable Religious Question? Monotheistic Exclusivism and Textual Superiority in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as Sources of Hate and Genocide", in ''Confronting genocide: Judaism, Christianity, Islam'', Steven L. Jacobs (Ed.), Lexington Books, 2009, pp. 35–46 * Johnson, Paul, ''A History of the Jews'', Harper Perennial, 1987 * Juergensmeyer, Mark, ''Terror in the mind of God: the global rise of religious violence'', University of California Press, 2003 * Kuper, Leo, "Theological Warrants for Genocide: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity", in ''Confronting genocide: Judaism, Christianity, Islam'', Steven L. Jacobs (Ed.), Lexington Books, 2009, pp. 3–34 * Lustick, Ian, ''For the land and the Lord: Jewish fundamentalism in Israel'', Council on Foreign Relations, 1988 * Masalha, Nur, ''The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-colonialism in Palestine-Israel'', Zed Books, 2007 *

Morris, Benny Benny Morris ( he, בני מוריס; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of t ...

, ''The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem revisited'', Cambridge University Press, 2004 * Niditch, Susan, ''War in the Hebrew Bible: a study in the ethics of violence'', Oxford University Press US, 1995 * Pappe, Ilan, ''The ethnic cleansing of Palestine'', Oneworld, 2007 * Pedahzur, Ami, ''Jewish terrorism in Israel'', Columbia University Press, Columbia University Press, 2009 * Perliger, Arie and Weinberg, Leonard, "Jewish Self-Defence and Terrorist Groups Prior to the Establishment of the State of Israel: Roots and Traditions", in ''Religious fundamentalism and political extremism'', Perliger, Arie (Ed.), Taylor & Francis, 2004, pp. 91–118 * Phillips, Gary A., "More Than the Jews … His Blood Be Upon All the Children: Biblical Violence, Genocide and Responsible Reading", in ''Confronting genocide: Judaism, Christianity, Islam'', Steven L. Jacobs (Ed.), Lexington Books, 2009, pp. 77–87 * Pitkanen, Pekka, "Memory, Witnesses, and Genocide in the Book of Joshua", in ''Reading the law: studies in honour of Gordon J. Wenham'', J. Gordon McConville, Karl Möller (Eds), Continuum International Publishing Group, 2007, pp. 267–282 * Prior, Michael P., ''The Bible and colonialism: a moral critique'', Sheffield Academic Press, 1997. * Quigley, John B., ''Palestine and Israel: a challenge to justice'', Duke University Press, 1990 * Saleh Abd al-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 * Selengut, Charles, ''Sacred fury: understanding religious violence'', Rowman & Littlefield, 2008 * Shahak, Israel, ''Jewish fundamentalism in Israel'', Pluto Press, 1999 * Sprinzak, Ehud, ''Brother against brother: violence and extremism in Israeli politics from Altalena to the Rabin assassination'', Simon and Schuster, 1999 * Van Wees, Hans, "Genocide in the Ancient World", in ''The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies'', Donald Bloxham, A. Dirk Moses (Eds), Oxford University Press US, 2010, pp. 239–258. * Weisburd, David, ''Jewish Settler Violence'', Penn State Press, 1985 * Whitelam, Keith W., ''The invention of ancient Israel: the silencing of Palestinian history'', Routledge, 1996 {{DEFAULTSORT:Judaism And Violence

Violence Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened ...