An Open Letter from the Co-founder of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty”

Dear Israeli Friends and Colleagues,

As an ordained hazzan and former Jewish prison chaplain, I write with abundant kavod to ask that you call upon your members of the Knesset to vote against the proposed bill expanding Israel’s death penalty.

First and foremost, I offer my heartfelt tefilot for chizuk v’nichum in the wake of the monstrous terrorist attack of October 7, 2023. The unjustifiable terror that Hamas unleashed on that day was born of that organization’s foundational mandate to destroy the Jewish homeland. In what constituted the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Hamas terrorists murdered 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals, including 815 civilians, and captured 251 hostages, many of whom eventually died in unfathomable, grotesque conditions in tunnels underneath Gaza.

I would never speak for murder victims or their loved ones. So too, as someone who lives in the Diaspora, I cannot begin to imagine the suffering that you have endured, nor would I try to put myself in your position now. As a chaplain, I regularly counsel mourners that when they grieve, they should allow themselves to experience the full range of human emotions, including rage and, where applicable, the desire for vengeance. Let no one ever judge anyone in such a position. If I myself were to lose a loved one to murder, I, too, might find myself advocating for the death of my loved one’s killer. You certainly have every right to feel this way.

A civilized society has a responsibility to protect and honor all such mourners, while also upholding the fundamental human rights upon which the world stands. Most basic to these liberties is the right to life. This mandate is one of the reasons why more than 70% of the world’s nations have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice.

“L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty,” a group that has now blossomed into thousands of members worldwide, has published many essays outlining its non-negotiable position on capital punishment. These arguments begin with the inexcusable executions of innocent men and women. Arguably, the most famous comment in the Jewish canon on this subject comes from renowned rabbinic sage Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (1135-1204). Also known as the Rambam and Maimonides in Jewish tradition, that Sephardic Jewish philosopher became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the medieval period. “It is better to acquit a thousand guilty persons,” Maimonides wrote, “than to put a single innocent one to death.” And yet: Israel has already done just that with its 1948 execution of innocent Israeli Defense Force officer Meir Tobianski, whom the Jewish State hanged and posthumously exonerated. In the United States, jurisdictions have exonerated more than 200 death-row prisoners of the charges related to the wrongful convictions that had placed them on death row since the resumption of executions in 1977. This glaring fact – combined with the 1,647 American executions that have thus far taken place during the same period – only highlights the harsh reality of the killing of the innocent. May Maimonides’ prophetic warning dissuade Israel from following the United States’ deplorable example.

Other egregious realities about capital punishment include its justification through the disproven fallacy of deterrence, which meta-studies have never demonstrated – its inevitable racist implementation, its inherent employment of psychological – and often physical – torture, and the unquestionable and unconscionable direct Nazi legacy of the execution methods of lethal injection, gassing, and the firing squad, to name a few. This last factor makes capital punishment particularly anathema for L’chaim members like me who descend directly from Holocaust victims and survivors. More than most people, we know that one cannot conflate executions with the singularly horrific genocide of the Shoah. And yet, the shadow of the Holocaust is inextricably linked to our firm rejection of the death penalty in all cases, including for convicted Hamas terrorists, as well as the Washington, D.C., Israeli Embassy and the Pittsburgh Tree of Life shooters.

The most common form of execution that the U.S. federal government and multiple states employ is lethal injection, and it is precisely this method that Israel now seeks to use for state killings. Most people do not realize that lethal injection is a direct Nazi legacy, first implemented in human history by the Third Reich as part of their infamous Aktion T4 protocol used to kill people deemed “unworthy of life.” Dr. Karl Brandt, Adolf Hitler’s personal physician, devised that program. This abject abomination is the legacy that your lawmakers now intend the state of Israel to perpetuate.

L’chaim’s abolitionist position applies as well to Israel’s only other execution, that of infamous Nazi mass murderer Adolph Eichmann in 1962. L’chaim carries the torch of renowned Hebrew university philosophers Samuel Hugo Bergmann and Nathan Rotenstreich, scholar of Kabbalah Gershom Scholem, and Jewish theologian and philosopher Martin Buber, all of whom opposed Eichmann’s state killing, which Buber called a great “mistake.” Other Holocaust survivors themselves, such as Nobel-prize-winning author Nelly Sachs, voiced strident opposition to Eichmann’s execution.

Finally, the myth that killing captured Hamas terrorists will save Israeli lives is patently false. Instead, it would only create more shahids – “martyrs” – among Israel’s enemies. As 19th century philospher Eliphas Levi famously wrote: “Every head that falls upon the scaffold may be honoured and praised as the head of a martyr.” A mandatory death sentence for Palestinians who murder Jews will almost certainly increase the number of terrorist attacks. This is particularly true because Muslim terrorists look forward to dying and receiving the supposed rewards awaiting them in paradise. They want to die. Actually, they want to be killed while they are in the act of killing, but if they can kill and then be put on a pedestal to be lauded as heroes, then such is all the better, even more so if they get to give interviews or become celebrities in a world where Israel is hated because of how it treats non-Jewish citizens. If the death penalty is instituted, these scenarios could happen.  Why would Israel want to encourage potential terrorists? On a purely practical level, this proposed legislation is insane.

A far harsher punishment is incarceration. Let perpetrators consider what they have done and why they endure the constrictions of a maximum-security prison every day. The notion that executing terrorists will prevent future hostage-taking for prisoner swaps is a fair concern. To avoid this, simply change the law to forbid including those directly involved in murder in any future prisoner exchanges, with no exceptions.

Elie Wiesel encapsulated the stance of L’chaim’s members. When asked about his feelings on capital punishment, Wiesel resolutely stated, “Death is not the answer.” By the end of his life, Wiesel publicly said that he made no exception to this rule, 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.”

Twenty-first-century Judaism must hold by the red line that Wiesel set forth. It cannot lower itself to the status of enemies such as Hamas, Iran, and Yemen by violating its moral obligations and ethical standards and engaging in state-sponsored killings of defenseless prisoners. With Wiesel’s neshama in mind and heart, and on behalf of all L’chaim members, I respectfully implore you to hold this line.

Bichvod,

Cantor Michael J. Zoosman, MSM, BCC

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

Advisory Committee Member, Death Penalty Action