Michael Zoosman, at The Blogs

Jun 16, 2022, 10:24 AM

Shalom Aleichem Oklahomans, We Americans know June 6 very well. It is D-Day - the date in 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. D-Day was the largest seaborne invasion in history. It...

May 29, 2022, 6:23 AM

Mr. Rogers – and the Death Penalty

In the wake of another incomprehensible school shooting - this time leaving 21 children and teachers in Uvalde, Texas - I cannot help but think of Mister Rogers, z’l, of blessed memory. Fred McFeely Rogers (March 20, 1928 –...

May 21, 2022, 3:35 PM

Tennessee prisons ban book opposing capital punishment; they should reconsider

Shalom Aleichem Tennesseeans: We, the members of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty, are an international group that advocates against the death penalty and provides spiritual support to all of those impacted by the self-perpetuating cycle of violence of capital...

May 13, 2022, 6:56 AM

Testimony from the next T4/Zyklon B Victim

Yesterday, on May 11th, 2022, Mr. Clarence Wayne Dixon - a blind 66-yo Navajo man with documented schizophrenia - became the victim of state-sponsored murder in Arizona for the horrific murder of Ms. Deana Bowdoin, z’l, of blessed memory. As...

May 3, 2022, 1:02 AM

‘Pikuach Nefesh’ – Jewish Abolitionists Help Save the Life of Melissa Lucio

Pictured: Abe Bonowitz, Director and Co-Founder of Death Penalty Action, and Sabrina van Tassel, reporter and director of the film “The State of Texas vs. Melissa.”

Pikuach Nefesh. In rabbinic parlance, this is loosely translated as “Saving a Life.” Little is more important in Jewish tradition than just this. Most other commandments can be set aside in order to do all that is necessary to save...

Apr 24, 2022, 7:23 AM

“The Banality of Execution”

“Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil” is the title of the renowned 1963 book by political thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt had fled Europe after the rise of Hitler and reported for the New Yorker on the...

Apr 9, 2022, 10:57 PM

America’s Angel of Death: Sophie’s Choice 2.0

Mathew Reeves Learns His Execution is Imminent
Death Penalty Action hosts prayerful and informative Virtual Vigils starting an hour before scheduled executions to help shine a spotlight on the evils of the death penalty. During the vigil for #MatthewReeves on Jan 27, 2022, he called in. We were in community with him when he learned the US Supreme Court had overturned his stay and his execution was imminent.
Posted by Death Penalty Action on Sunday, January 30, 2022

Passover Reflections - The Angel of Death and Sophie's choice 2:0 With preparations now under way across the Jewish world for Passover, which celebrates our people’s quintessential story of national redemption, we in America continue as a society to shut the...

Mar 29, 2022, 11:39 AM

Saving America’s Soul: Step 1 – Abolition!

(This essay was first published on the Death Penalty Action blog.) Photo Credit: A picture of the cover of a card that an innocent woman on Texas Death Row sent to the author. The photo is from MD Anderson Cancer...

Mar 24, 2022, 6:33 AM

The Death Penalty and the ‘Worst of the Worst’

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev represented Russia at the Barents Summit in Kirkenes in 2013. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Many might say that with a war raging, it is no time to discuss the death penalty. I would disagree…and so would the Russians. Russia was suspended from the Council of Europe on Feb. 25, after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine....

Feb 15, 2022, 7:37 PM

Texas to kill innocent woman – Holocaust Mem’l Day

Yom Hashoah - Holocuast Memorial Day in Texas, April 27 This year, the state of Texas intends to celebrate Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Memorial Day on the Jewish calendar - by continuing the Nazi legacy of lethally injecting an innocent...

About Me

Cantor Michael Zoosman is a Board Certified Chaplain with Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains (NAJC) and received his cantorial investiture from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 2008. He sits as an advisory board member at Death Penalty Action and is the founder of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty.” Michael is a former Jewish prison chaplain and psychiatric hospital chaplain. Currently, he is a multi-faith hospital chaplain at a federal research hospital, the National Institutes of Health - Clinical Center. His comments here represent his own opinions.