Encore Archive
On this page, we present essays–, profound or timely–culled from the CLAL literary archive. CLAL faculty members wrote many of the articles that appear here, past and present. Many were written by others and originally appeared in the pages of Sh'ma– journal of Jewish responsibility, which was founded by Eugene Borowitz in 1970 and published by CLAL (and edited by Nina Cardin) from 1994-1998.
For further information regarding Sh'ma today, click here.
We also hope that you will visit Encore Talk and join in a dialogue about the issues these articles raise. We also encourage you to post your reflections on how your own take on the issue under discussion has shifted (or not, as the case may be) over the years.
To join the conversation at CLAL Encore Talk, click here.
(from Sh’ma
13/252, April 15, 1983)
Promoting Racism in Israel
By Eric H. Yoffie
On February 26, 1980,
an article entitled "The Mitzvah of Genocide in the Torah" appeared in Bat Kol, the student publication of Bar-Ilan
University, which is Israel's major Orthodox institution of higher learning. Written by Rabbi Israel Hess, the article is an
explanation of the commandment in Deuteronomy
25:17 to obliterate the memory of Amalek. Rabbi
Hess notes that the commandment requires the killing of babes and sucklings, and forbids
the showing of mercy. Amalek, he tells us, is any nation that declares war against Israel. In response to such a war, "God proclaims a
counter-jihad" in which He Himself participates. Lest the reader thinks that Rabbi
Hess is referring only to an abstract halachic
matter, he concludes by stressing that we shall all soon be called upon to wage a milchemet mitzvah (a war of religious
obligation), the purpose of which will be to exterminate Amalek. Today's Amalek is not identified, but it is not
difficult to guess whom he has in mind. Following
the article's publication, there were no expressions of protest from the Bat Kol editorial board, Bar-Ilan students, or
the university administration, and it was later reprinted in other newspapers.
The opinions of Rabbi
Hess are significant because they indicate a distressing trend which has become
increasingly apparent in the State of Israel in the last decade. In certain Orthodox circles, rabbis and others,
quoting Torah and speaking in the name of Jewish law, have expressed views about the
relations between Jews and non-Jews that are such a departure from normally accepted
thinking on such matters that one can only react to them with incredulity. Their underlying assumption seems to be that the
hostility of the Gentile world to the Jewish people has created an unbridgeable gap
between Jew and non-Jew. This hatred is seen as being so intense that it demands, with the
supposed approval of the Jewish tradition, a radical response on the part of Jews to the
non-Jews who live in their midst and on their borders.
Gentiles Suspected
Of Intent To Murder
A second striking example of this phenomenon is an
exchange of letters between Rabbi Shimon Wizer and a yeshiva student serving in the
Israeli army (Niv Hamidrashiyah, vol. 11, pp. 29-31, and vol. 13, pp. 211-212). The student had asked his teacher about the
application of the concept of tohar haneshek (the
purity of arms) to the Arab non-combatant population during wartime. The rabbi struggles with the question of how to
judge a Jew who murders a Gentile during peacetime, but proceeds to assert that "in
any case, in time of war, one is obligated to kill."
He explains his conclusion by pointing to the talmudic principle that if one
comes to kill you, you should arise and kill him first.
When applying the principle to Jews, Rabbi Wizer points out, it is valid
only when there is firm reason
to believe that your
attacker has murderous intentions. However,
the non-Jew in wartime "must always be judged as one who comes to kill you, except if
it is otherwise clear that he has no malicious intent." Rabbi Wizer insists that his view of tohar haneshek is the correct one according to halachah, and he laments the fact that the Israel
Defense Forces have accepted the Gentile meaning of the term, thus forcing them to suffer
unnecessary casualties.
In response to his
rabbi's answer, the soldier concludes in his letter that "during wartime I am
permitted, and even obligated, to kill every Arab man and woman who happen across my way.
I am obligated to kill them even if this leads to complications with the military
code." Concerned that so many children
are misled by the "rationality" that is so prevalent in Israeli society, the
soldier urges that this concept of tohar haneshek be
taught in Israeli schools, especially the religious ones.
In a later defense of
his position, Rabbi Wizer reaffirms his stand, and adduces as support an opinion by Rabbi
Abraham Zemel which "arrived at a similar conclusion.” Rabbi Zemel's views are also worthy of
consideration. They appeared in an article
which was written while he served as Chief Military Rabbi of the Central Command, and
which contains a halachic justification for
the killing of non-Jewish civilians, including women and children, in time of war:
"Thus they say, ‘And the best among the Gentiles thou shall kill,’ and one
must never trust that a non-Jew will refrain from causing harm to our forces." The Chief of Staff suppressed the article, but it
later found its way into the secular press (Haolam
Hazeh, no. 1915).
Proponents Of
Racism Well-Known
The proponents of
these views are in some cases well-known and highly respected figures. For example, Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, the winner
of the 1976 Israel Prize, has contended that it is forbidden for non-Jews to live in
Jerusalem: "I, for example, am for maintaining the law that forbids non-Jews from
living in Jerusalem, and if we are to maintain this law in a proper fashion we would need
to expel all non-Jews from Jerusalem.…In like manner, it is forbidden to us to permit
non-Jews to be in a majority in any city among the cities of Israel (Haaretz, May 9, 1976).
It would be terribly
wrong to suggest that all or most members of Israel's Orthodox community support such
ideas. Surely, they do not. A relatively small number of Gush Emunim members and sympathizers are
responsible. However, it must be stressed
that these quotations are no longer simply isolated examples, and many more could be added
to those offered above. Even more distressing
is the fact that with a few exceptions, the Orthodox establishment in Israel has remained
silent in the face of these clumsy distortions of Jewish law.
Amnon Rubinstein
Takes Exception
The one public figure
who has carefully catalogued these outrages and has attempted to bring them to the
public's attention is Amnon Rubinstein, a law professor at Tel Aviv University and a
member of the Knesset's moderate Shinui party. Unfortunately, Rubinstein's efforts have gained
little notice. He is usually ignored or seen
as an alarmist, while Gush Emunim supporters
have vilified him as a Jew hater and an Arab lover.
He has remained undeterred, however, and has pointed out that not only do
such voices bring Judaism into disrepute, but they also could create a dangerous mood
which might have serious practical consequences for the Arabs of Israel.
Rubinstein is right,
and the time has come for a concerted and forceful protest from the religious community,
Orthodox and non-Orthodox, both in Israel and the Diaspora.
All those who cherish Torah must be anguished by its use as an instrument
of racism. Such sentiments are anti-Jewish,
anti-Zionist, and an affront to the entire Jewish people.
We must condemn them now, clearly and unequivocally, before they begin to
claim innocent victims.
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