so the tree of life shooter got sentenced to death and im rather glad about that (esp bc the defense attorney invoked the commandment to choose life in her defense, what chutzpah) but now im also very intrigued about how exactly the halakha says jews should feel about the death penalty. i know vaguely how it worked with the sanhedrin and the opinions of the time about the death penalty being enacted by them (that a sanhedrin who sentences a man to death even every 70 years is bloodthirsty) but what’s the consensus in the diaspora? especially for cases of antisemitic violence?
this isn’t me saying anything about how we should feel about the sentencing of the shooter or other infamous antisemites, im just genuinely interested in what the religious law has to say about this sort of situation.
I’m intrigued by the halacha as well. That said, I don’t know what good it does to kill him… if anything I worry it will make him into a martyr.
Typical of Judaism, we disagree about essentially everything. I wouldn’t say that capital punishment is against Judaism, but generally there are pretty high standards one must meet in order to qualify for a death sentence. The Talmud does mention four different types of acceptable execution methods, which leads us to believe that capital punishment is not completely out of the question. To look at modern times, the Jewish state has only carried out the capital punishment twice, one of which was for Adolf Eichmann.
Largely, looking at American Jews, the Reform and Conservative movements have generally supported abolition of the death penalty, while the Orthodox Union has stated that they conditionally support it, if it were to be reformed (chiefly, one of the reforms mentioned was racial bias in the judicial system).
So, halachically, it’s… sort of permissible? Rabbis have stated this issue still needs to be studied. The Torah permits, and even commands in certain cases, that we punish someone with death. In practice, however, the crime has to be egregious in order for the death penalty to even be considered. The Talmud lays out very specific conditions that must be met, such as several eye witnesses, of which no one contradicts their testimony, and a thorough examination of their testimony to identify any potential faults or questions. Which, in this case, I believe those conditions were met.
Interesting, thank you for this write up. Re: your tags:
Yeah, agreed, no dispute from me that he has done unforgivable things and I will not mourn him. I do, however, worry about how this will affect the Jewish community afterwards. Will this encourage more hate crimes? Will it make people see us as vengeful and violent, and therefore more acceptable as targets?
