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Michael Zoosman

Aug 19, 2026, 8:32 PM

Sadistic Death Viewing Chamber Puts Israel Squarely on the Wrong Side of History

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The thousands of members of the group “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty,” of which I am the co-founder, wholeheartedly condemn the sadistic death chamber that Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has recently unveiled. On August 18, 2026,...

Michael Zoosman

Aug 16, 2026, 7:09 AM

“Eye for an eye?” A 2026 Shabbat Shof’tim Sermon Against the Death Penalty

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The below text is a copy of the sermon that this writer delivered for Shabbat Shof’tim at Or Shalom Synagogue in Vancouver, BC on August 15, 2026. The writer is a former Jewish prison chaplain and co-founder of the...

Stephen A. Cooper

Aug 16, 2026, 6:57 AM

How the death penalty creates more victims

When Anthony Darrell Hines was executed by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution August 13, Hines’s son was there, bearing witness to his father’s murder by Tennessee. As reported on the website of ABC-affiliated television station WKRN in...

Stephen A. Cooper

Aug 11, 2026, 11:37 PM

Life without parole is the cure for America’s death penalty disease

Three executions are scheduled in America on August 13. The states set to kill men that day are Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Alabama. The terrible crimes the men committed were reprehensible, and this writing is not meant to diminish, minimize,...

Michael Zoosman

Aug 11, 2026, 6:38 AM

Jewish Reflections Ahead of a Triple Execution Day in the United States

This Thursday, three lethal injections will take place across the United States in Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Alabama. In a horrific synchronicity, this American triple execution day will occur during the very same week that Jews across the world study the parsha (portion)...

Kiffer Johannes

Jul 12, 2026, 11:26 AM

The Scaffold of State-Sponsored Vengeance: A Moral and Security Failure

The current push to implement the death penalty for terrorists in Israel is often framed by its proponents—such as Moshe Fuzaylov of the Misgav Institute—as a "vital pincer movement" to extinguish operational motivation. However, as we witness the legislative...

Michael Zoosman

Jul 10, 2026, 7:06 PM

The death penalty only unlocks a Pandora’s Box of more terror and killing

In his June 11 op-ed for the Jerusalem Report, ex-Shin Bet official Moshe Fuzaylov claims that “(t)he death penalty isn't revenge, it's how terror loses its key.” Mr. Fuzaylov concludes that executions form part of “a vital pincer movement...

Stephen A. Cooper

Jun 23, 2026, 9:02 PM

Alabama’s justice system: A depraved heart and no soul

Since June 11 when, without explanation, the Supreme Court let stand a decision from a lower court refusing to allow Alabama to gas convicted murderer Jeffery Lee with nitrogen, legal observers have issued a variety of opinions as to...

Michael Zoosman

Jun 5, 2026, 3:19 AM

From Death Penalties to Hanging Effigies: Executions Feed the Cycle of Violence

The hanging effigies of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and President Donald Trump on display at a recent pro-Palestinian rally in Montreal serve as the latest nauseating reminder that calling for executions only...

Stephen A. Cooper

May 24, 2026, 12:40 PM

Alabama’s summertime torture of Black men

What is it about the swaggering, sweltering heat of summer that stirs up so much bloodlust? By now it’s a platitude that murder and other violent crime rates rise when the weather gets hotter. And while there’s no time...

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