America’s Adar Execution Spree Opens a Pandora’s Box of Death

According to Jewish tradition, the current Hebrew month of Adar is meant to be joyful. Ancient rabbinic commentators demand: “Mishenichnas Adar, marbim b’simcha” (“One who enters Adar should increase one’s joy.”) Yet, in another horrific synchronicity, the United States will be “celebrating”  the month of Adar this year – 5785 in the Jewish calendar, corresponding to March, 2025 – with a veritable execution spree. The dance macabre began already with abject state-sponsored gore when a South Carolina firing squad shot to death my longtime penpal Brad Sigmon on March 7. Mercifully, another Purim day execution was halted in the eleventh hour after a torturous wait for David Wood in Texas. He still lives – likely to be executed another day. The psychological torture that this development produced for him and his loved ones on this joyous holiday was eerily reminiscent of the Lone Star State’s Purim execution of 2023/5783.

The worst leg of this latest killing spree is slated to occur the week after Purim. During a span of just three days, Americans will witness four of their fellow citizens across the nation become state-sponsored murder victims. Louisiana will inaugurate that barbarism by gassing to death Jessie Hoffman, a man with a Jewish wife who will be marking Adar with her husband’s death by nitrogen hypoxia. It will continue with Arizona, Oklahoma and Florida lethally injecting Aaron Gunches, Wendell Grissom and Edward James respectively over the course of two days. The use of these gassing and lethal injection execution methods – which like the firing squad are undeniable, unconscionable Nazi legacies –  would surely give pride to Adolf Hitler, his personal physician Dr. Karl Brandt and the architects of the Third Reich’s Final Solution and Aktion T4 lethal injection protocol used to execute individuals deemed “unworthy of life.” This monstrous post-Purim week will be followed by three more executions in April. That batch will feature Texas’ Yom HaShoah/Holocaust Memorial Eve state murder of my years-long pen pal Moises Mendoza. The United States already has carried out five excursions this year, and has scheduled five more for later in the year after Moises’ murder.

But, alas, it so happens that while writing this very blog post and momentarily pausing at the conclusion of the above paragraph, I have learned of the now breaking news that the United States has added still another date. This is courtesy of Alabama, which will inject to death my pen pal James Osgood on April 24th. That date falls on  – and undoubtedly denigrates – Yom HaShoah/Holocaust Memorial Day itself.  Let there be no doubt: the American execution horror show has become so grotesque that it feels at times impossible to keep up with all the bloodletting…

The Adar execution spree of 2025 is proof positive of the dangers of opening capital punishment’s Pandora’s Box. The eponymous Greek myth originates from the 8th-century poet Hesiod’s “Theogony” and “Works and Days.” In this infamous narrative, Pandora opens a jar (later mistranslated as a box) containing all the evils and sorrows of the world, releasing them all with disastrous consequences, including disease, old age and death. The myth serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of curiosity and disobedience, and it symbolizes the introduction of suffering and misfortune into the world.

If a society wantonly elects to violate the most fundamental human right of life by allowing its government to kill its fellow incarcerated human beings in cold blood, then all bets are rendered off regarding the value of life itself. Any pro-death culture that unveils this Pandora’s Box unleashes the manmade Angel of Death, who responds in kind with a spate of wanton killings that can only be checked when he is forever banned without exception. By keep this door ajar,  the United States places itself in the company of such modern bastions of state-sponsored murder as China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Singapore and Indonesia.

Twentieth-century Jewish human rights icon Elie Wiesel knew this truth all-too well. When asked about his feelings on capital punishment, Wiesel resolutely stated “Death is not the answer.” In a videotaped interview he gave with Amnesty International in the 1990s, Wiesel clearly made no exception to this stance, stating: “With every cell of my being and with every fiber of my memory I oppose the death penalty in all forms. I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don’t think it’s human to become an agent of the angel of death.” This is the torch that the 3800+ members of the group “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty” carry.

In the wake of the Shoah and the unparalleled horrors of the twentieth century, civilized  nations of the world have come to recognize the inviolability of the human right of life and have abolished the state-sponsored murder of the incarcerated. Modern-day Judaism, directly targeted by that singular conflagration, must reflect this by evolving beyond its ancient reluctance to allow capital punishment, even with prodigious rabbinic safeguards. Pandora Box’s must forever remain sealed shut, including for the so-called “worst of the worst,” from Nazi perpetrators, to the notorious Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue shooter, to the Hamas terrorists who carried out the unspeakable October 7th attacks. It is a non-starter that the lid of that jar be reinforced in order to preserve the lives of all state firing squad, gassing and lethal injection victims during Adar’s so-called season of joy.

The cycle of violence must end, and these Nazi legacies put to rest once and for all. Kein y’hi ratzon – may it be the Divine Will to join all of civilized humanity as it vociferously chants: L’chaim – to Life!

Cantor Michael J. Zoosman, MSM

Board Certified Chaplain:  Ohalah: Association of Rabbis and Cantors for Jewish Renewal

Co-Founder: L’chaim: Jews Against the Death Penalty

Advisory Committee Member: Death Penalty Action