Eight Reasons to Oppose the Death Penalty This Hanukkah |
Photo by Gary Sankary
To the Esteemed Members of the Knesset,
For each of the eight nights of Hanukkah this year, we, the thousands of members of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty,” invite you to consider these eight facts (plus one for the Shammash – Helper candle) about capital punishment as we call upon you to vote against the death penalty bill currently before you for non-Jewish convicted terrorists. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but rather some points to keep in mind as you weigh the sacred and lethal decision now before you. May these points of light help illuminate your consciences:
1) The death penalty will increase – not decrease – terrorist attacks.
First and foremost, 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 philosopher Eliphas Levi famously wrote: “Every head that falls upon the scaffold may be honored 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. Why would Israel want to encourage potential terrorists? On a purely practical level, this proposed legislation is insane.
2) The death penalty risks executing the innocent.
There is rightfully no tolerance for the execution of an individual who is innocent of an alleged capital crime. The reputable Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) writes that, given the fallibility of human judgment, there has always been the danger that an execution could result in the killing of an innocent person. Since 1973 in the United States, over 200 death-row prisoners have been exonerated of the charges related to the wrongful convictions that had put them on death row. (This includes one individual, Elwood Jones, whose exoneration from Ohio Death Row became news while we are writing this very letter.) DPIC adds the following grim statistics about these human beings, which speak for themselves:
“These individuals have collectively spent 2,621 years in harsh prison conditions for crimes they did not commit. On average, death row exonerees spent 13 years under the sentence of death before their exonerations, with some individuals spending more than 40 years fighting to prove their innocence. 65% of exonerees are people of color, and of them, 54% are Black, highlighting systemic racial disparities. Florida has the highest number of death row exonerations of any state (30), followed by Illinois (22) and Texas (18).”
How many more innocent individuals must be released before any society – including Israel – recognizes the fallibility of any human-crafted system of justice and stops the possibility of executing an innocent human being?
Jewish tradition, to be sure, forbids the execution of someone where there is any level of doubt about guilt or fairness. It is for this very reason that rabbinic tradition placed prodigious safeguards to ensure that no innocent person was put to death. Arguably, the most famous comment comes from one of the most renowned Jewish sages: the Rambam, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (1135-1204). Maimonides, as he is often called, was a Sephardic Jewish physician and philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. As he famously wrote of capital punishment in Sefer HaMitzvot, Prohibition 290:
“It is better to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death.”
Maimonides’s charge for the protection of the innocent must inform the decision now before you in the Knesset.
Image: The grave of George Stinney, Jr., a boy executed in 1944 and exonerated in 2014. South Carolina recently has added the firing squad to its approved methods of executions. How many more innocent deaths will it take? (Source: South Carolina Department of Archives and History)
3) Jewish tradition makes the death penalty virtually impossible.
Speaking of Jewish tradition, let there be no doubt: the safeguards that traditional Jewish law established rendered capital punishment essentially impossible to carry out. For murders to be eligible for death, two eyewitnesses needed to have caught them in the act and warned them ahead of time that their action would result in the death penalty. Many of the most powerful and brilliant rabbinic voices reflect this impossible standard. Let us recall the words of some of the loftiest figures among them: Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah, Rabbi Tarfon, and Rabbi Akiva,........