Haman and His 10 Sons: 11 Reasons this Purim to Oppose Israel’s Death Penalty |
“Hang ‘em high like Haman!”
Such is the retort that death penalty supporters often sling at us, the thousands of members of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty” in Israel and across the world, as we protest the death penalty in every case, and in all forms. Haman, of course, is the reviled, ultimately hanged antagonist of the holiday of Purim, which now approaches in the Jewish calendar. Just three years ago, Texas carried out an execution on Purim itself of someone many of us knew personally, a horrific synchronicity that L’chaim addressed in detail. This year, with Israel debating a bill calling for the hanging of convicted terrorists, the stakes of this synchronicity are as high as the lofty fifty-cubit gallows on which Haman and his ten sons were executed.
The same Knesset that is considering this death penalty bill will no doubt pause its macabre arguments in honor of this holiday. This time affords some space for Jews in Israel and throughout the Diaspora to evaluate this legislation. The highly publicized execution of Haman and his ten sons on Purim compels us to offer a total of eleven reasons why the passage of such a bill would be disastrous for the Jewish world in the twenty-first century.
11 Condemned Men and 11 Condemning Factors:
To highlight the vileness that each reason represents, we have assigned each factor the name of one of the eleven condemned Purim villains. We invite readers to consider these eleven facts about capital punishment as we call upon members of the Knesset to vote against the death penalty bill currently before them. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but rather a set of points to keep in mind while weighing this sacred and lethal decision. It is customary for Megillah chanters to whisper the names of Haman’s ten sons quickly. Like the groggers blotting out any mention of Haman, this practice is intended to wipe away their memories, like that of Amalek, the Biblical enemy of the Israelites. Simultaneously, Jewish tradition calls upon us to remember the evil that they perpetuated. We highlight their names here alongside these necessary points to emphasize the horrors of the death penalty bill now before the Knesset. In the interest of space, all points contain links to articles expoinding upon them.
Israel’s death penalty bill will increase – not decrease – terrorist attacks in Israel, creating more murders and martyrs (shahids).
Parshandatha -It will endanger Jews worldwide.
It risks executing the innocent.
4) Aspatha – Jewish tradition makes the death penalty virtually impossible to carry out.
5) Poratha – “Deterrence” is a fallacious delusion, and “retributive justice” is a mask for vengeance, which is at the heart of the death penalty and does not bring closure to murder victims’ loved ones.
6) Adalia – Like the American death penalty, it is blatantly racist.
7) Aridatha – The death penalty often results in physical torture, and always is psychological torture for individuals counting down to their execution day. There is no humane way to execute human beings against their will.
8) Parmashta – Many execution methods are direct Nazi legacies, including firing squad, gassing, and lethal injection.
9) Arisai – It will traumatize Israel Prison Service executioners.
10) Aridai – From Adolph Hitler to Donald Trump and now Ithamar Ben Gvir, the death penalty is used as a political tool, particularly for election campaigns.
11) Vaizatha – The death penalty violates the human right to life.
The Cautionary Tale of Purim Executions and Killings
As Jewish communities across the world this Purim will read the Megillah’s gruesome detail about Haman and his sons’ hanging, many of Israel’s death penalty bill supporters no doubt will feel compelled to repeat the familiar chant “Hang him high like Haman!” This archaic sentiment reflects a barbaric, literalist interpretation of the Tanakh that ignores millennia of rabbinic interpretation and human progress, which many Jews the world over have embraced regarding the death penalty. By such a misguided reading as this, anyone who has ever cursed their parents (Ex. 21: 17; Levit. 20: 9) or persistently disobeyed them (Deut. 21: 18-21) also should be put to death. I myself (and no doubt many readers here) would be among the executed.
The Megillah ends with the Jews of Persia carrying out a bloody battle, in which more than 75,000 people lose their lives. Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the executive director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, powerfully reminds us of what happens when this narrative is taken as a handbook for action today:
“In recent years,” writes Rabbi Jacobs, “some have likened the Palestinians to Amalek [and Haman] and, as such, have justified any violence against this people. It is no coincidence that Baruch Goldstein, a fanatical Jewish settler in the West Bank, chose Purim day to carry out his 1994 massacre of Palestinian worshipers in Hebron. When equated, by those of a certain political viewpoint, to the contemporary Jewish experience, the Purim story becomes an incitement to violence and not simply a satire about a distant time and place.”
The Jewish world should view events such as the execution of Haman and his sons and the related Purim bloodbaths as more examples that the Tanakh gives us of what not to do. For other Biblical counterexamples, consider the lethal sibling rivalry pervasive in B’reishit/Genesis, Pharaoh’s fatal atherosclerosis at the start of Sh’mot/Exodus, King David’s killing of Uriah to wed Bathsheba (II Sam. 11), and King Solomon’s problematic relationship with women (I Kings 11), to name but a few.
We ask instead this Purim that readers recall the words of Elie Wiesel, whose views encapsulated the stance of L’chaim’s members. When questioned about his feelings on capital punishment, Wiesel resolutely stated, “Death should never be the answer in a civilized society.” 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 mirror Hamas, Iran, Saudi Arabia,
Yemen, and others 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, we respectfully implore Israel to join civilized humanity and abolish the death penalty once and for all. The first step toward doing so is voting against the abject abomination that is the death penalty bill.
Talmudic interpretations of the Megillah describe how Haman begged for his life in vain before his killing. If Haman were tried today for the crimes he committed against the Jewish people, we at L’chaim, as well as all of civilized humanity, would advocate against his execution, just as we are against the state murder of convicted October 7 terrorists today. We would have asked that Haman be tried for his murderous plans and imprisoned appropriately.
As Wiesel implied, no matter how high we hang the Hamans of this world, in doing so, we are only further lowering ourselves to their level.
Cantor Michael J. Zoosman, MSM, BCC
L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty
Advisory Committee Member: Death Penalty Action