Saturday, January 03, 2026

Judaism’s Pro-Death Penalty Tradition

Judaism’s Pro-Death Penalty Tradition, 
Steven Plaut, FrontPage Magazine, 22 April 2004
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=13290 -  can't pull up, use
or

      Why the Israeli Left's opposition to capital punishment is politically naive and spiritually unsound.  

      One of the most popular causes among Jewish liberals is opposition to capital punishment. The Religious Action Center, the political SWAT Team of the Reform movement, has long considered opposing capital punishment to be one of its highest priorities. Many other groups of Jewish liberals, and some non-liberals, oppose all forms of capital punishment, supposedly in the name of Jewish ethics and the invariably misrepresented tikkun olam.  
       Whenever one comes out in favor of capital punishment, one inevitably hears shrieks from such folks about how execution is inhumane, how it violates human dignity, how every human soul, even that of murderers, has been created in God`s image and so should be preserved at all costs.  This is all very interesting.
      There’s just one little problem, though. The Bible makes it crystal clear that the way one acknowledges that human souls are created in God`s image and deserving of respect and dignity is through capital punishment. Just read Genesis 9:6: "A man who spills human blood, his own blood shall be spilled by man because God made man in His own Image." 
         Not just among Jews, by the way, but among all sons of Noah.  In other words, the preservation of human dignity requires capital punishment of convicted murderers. 
      The position of Judaism is the opposite of the position espoused by liberals. 
      It is precisely because of man`s creation in God`s image that capital punishment is declared justified and necessary. Human dignity requires execution of murderers, not compassion for their souls.  Moreover, capital punishment is regarded by Judaism as a favor for the capital sinner, a form of atonement and redemption. 
      Ordinary murderers are allowed to achieve atonement for their souls in their execution. Only especially vile murderers — such as a false witness whose lies are discovered after the person who was framed has been executed, or a man who sacrifices both his son and his daughter to the pagan god Molokh — are denied execution because they are regarded as beyond redemption through capital punishment. 
      Again, execution preserves human dignity, it does not defile it.  Israelis have for years debated the pros and cons of capital punishment for convicted terrorist murderers. Up to this point, Israel has never had a death penalty, the lone exception being the execution of the Nazi beast Eichmann. 
        Naturally, the Beautiful Left is vehemently opposed to the very idea of capital punishment.  So maybe the time is right to take a deep breath and step back and re-examine the issue. Should Israel have a death penalty?  
      Opponents of the death penalty say it does not deter terrorism or violence. But how do they know? How do they know the level of violent crime the United States would experience if it did not have a death penalty — or if it had a more widely applied one? How do they know whether the level of terrorism would decrease in an Israel with a death penalty compared to an Israel without one?  
       Actually, the death penalty should be implemented against terrorists even if it doesn’t deter terrorism. It should be implemented because it represents a great moral statement. It is the moral and ethical thing to do. Executing terrorists makes a statement that they are scum with no claim a right to life. 
      Capital punishment represents a moral and just vengeance. It represents a declaration of good and evil. We do not build statues of heroes and otherwise honor them because we necessarily believe these are utilitarian and will lead to the emergence of new heroes, but rather because we are making a statement as a society regarding our values and what we honor. 
       Executing terrorists is precisely the same sort of societal statement, in the opposite direction.  It is for this moral reason that traditional Judaism unambiguously endorses the death penalty for premeditated murder .It does not do so because of any sociological speculation about the powers of deterrence, and it is clear that the death penalty is viewed as a just punishment even if it deters nothing at all.  
      Opponents of the death penalty argue that implementing it would represent capitulating to the populist demands and pressures of the public. Huh? That is essentially a concession that the general electorate favors it and so its establishment would be the democratic thing to do. Denying the death penalty is elitist and anti-democratic.  
       Opponents of the death penalty in Israel argue that Arab terrorists would retaliate by mistreating or killing Jews they capture. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry at this claim. The PLO and its sister organizations already lynch, torture and murder every Jew they can lay their hands on, including children — all this while Israel has no death penalty. So what exactly is there to lose?  
      Opponents argue that it would be dehumanizing to ask an Israeli to act as an executioner, as the one who would push the button or pull the switch. They worry it would be hard to find someone to play the executioner. My guess, however, is that the number of volunteers for any such switch-pulling would be so large that the Israeli government could balance the budget by auctioning off lotto chances to pull it. 
        Personally, I would offer family members of victims of terrorism first "dibs."  Opponents of the death penalty in Israel and elsewhere argue that errors in judgment might be made and innocent people might be executed. 
        This is a fallacious argument even when discussing execution of criminals, but even more so when discussing terrorists. There is no serious evidence I know of that any innocent person has ever been executed in the United States.            
       But more generally, everything we do (and everything government does) carries some risk that an innocent person might be killed as a result of those actions and policies. Should we shut down the post office because postal trucks sometimes run over innocent people? Should we ground all planes because sometimes innocent people are killed in accidents? Even if there were a non-negligible risk of such errors, that is certainly no reason not to have a death penalty. 
        Opponents of the death penalty argue that it is expensive to implement. This is absurd. Room and board for terrorists for life in prison are exorbitant. The death penalty is "expensive" in the U.S. only because of America`s judicial system, which allows endless expensive appeals to proceed forever. 
       Israel has no jury system at all. In any case, these costs can be contained by restricting the options of appeals of convicted terrorists.  Opponents of the death penalty in Israel argue that terrorists might resist capture by fighting to the death and so harm police and soldiers. I say let`s take our chances. Better the soldiers than the children on the school buses or the women in the cafes. That is why we have soldiers. I am sure they will cope. 
      And suicide bombers are not exactly likely to turn more deadly because they face the death penalty if captured.  
       One shouldn’t be shocked that the most vociferous opposition to the death penalty for terrorists comes from the same Israeli leftists who always put the rights of Arab murderers ahead of the rights of innocent Jews. These are the same people who turned most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip into cities of refuge for terrorists, bases for launching murder atrocities against hundreds of Israelis each year.

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Steven Plaut (born 1951) is an American-born Israeli associate professor of Business Administration at the University of Haifa and a writer. Plaut is a member of the editorial board of the Middle East Quarterly, a publication of the Middle East Forum think tank. 
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Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Zoosman's Anti-death Penalty Disaster

 To: All Members, The Knesset

Subject: Rebuttal: Anti-death Penalty Nonsense or
Zoosman's Anti-death Penalty Disaster

Re: Rebuttal - 8 Reasons to Vote Against Israel’s Death Penalty Bill this Hanukkah, Cantor Michael J. Zoosman, MSM, BCC  Co-Founder: L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty, Blogs, The Times of Israel, Dec 12, 2025,

From: Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom

Preface

Zoosman's 8 Reasons is a normal anti-death penalty screed, meaning parroting anti-death penalty groups, with no fact checking, no vetting and no critical thinking and avoiding all pro-death penalty experts or pretending that is the case, what I call anti-death penalty FEMS (fraud, error and/or mis-directions) (1).
======

Method: I quote Zoosman and reply as Sharp
Zoosman uses the death penalty in the US for some of his examples.

1) Zoosman: "The death penalty will increase – not decrease – terrorist attacks."  

Sharp: The more dead terrorists the fewer terrorists. Unchallenged. There are countless dead terrorists, now,all martyred, with no rational that more martyrs will make things worse. Without executions, terrorists have murdered how many Israelis and Jews? Without executions there was October 7th, the worst slaughter of Jews since WWII. 
      Anti-Semite terrorists need no additional hatred nor incentive to murder Jews. With or without executions the terrorist goal is all Jews murdered. Is any of this news to Zoosman? No.

2) a) Zoosman:  "The death penalty risks executing the innocent": "The reputable Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) . . . "  finds that "since 1973 in the United States, over 200 death-row prisoners have been exonerated . . .".

Sharp:  The "reputable" goes to Zoosman's lack of credibility. He did not fact check, nor vet nor use critical thinking. The DPIC frauds of the high number of the "exonerated" and released from death row have been well known since 1998, at a fraud rate of 71-83%, depending upon study. (2)." 
      To have any credibility, how did Zoosman not know this? I have no reason to believe Zoosman has more credibility, elsewhere, and we only have to look at what's next: 

b) Zoosman "Image:  The grave of George Stinney, Jr., a boy executed in 1944 and exonerated in 2014." 

Sharp: Stinney was not nor can be exonerated. At the 2014 hearing, the judge, specifically stated that she was not ruling on guilt or innocence. Again, Zoosman's aversion to credibility.

"At Sumter County courthouse in January, 2014 Circuit Judge Carmen Mullen stressed that her job was not to establish the guilt or innocence of George Stinney, who "may well have committed this crime", but to determine whether or not he received a fair trial." " . . . George's confession, and a handwritten note from a Clarendon County deputy stating he confessed and had led them to the murder weapon – a 15 in railroad 
spike – was proof enough of his guilt." "George Stinney was executed at 14. Can his family now clear his name?", The Observer, 3/22/2014

Much more here:
George Stinney, Jr.: No Exoneration

3) Zoosman: "Jewish tradition makes the death penalty virtually impossible." "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."

Sharp:  a) We have many more accurate ways of determining guilt in many crimes, which are much  more accurate than eyewitnesses. All murderers have been warned that the death penalty may be, rarely, given within murders, therefore, those requirements have been met, plus additional safeguards which go far above Jewish tradition (3).
          b)  The deterrent effect of severe sanctions and severe negative incentives has never been negated and cannot be. Execution is the most severe sanction and one of the most severe negative incentives. Since 1997, 24 studies have confirmed the deterrent effects of the death penalty/executions (4).

Nobel Prize Laureate (Economics) Gary Becker:
“the evidence of a variety of types — not simply the quantitative evidence — has been enough to convince me that capital punishment does deter and is worth using for the worst sorts of offenses.” (NY Times, 11/18/07)

"(Becker) is the most important social scientist in the past 50 years (NY Times, 5/5/14)

4) a) Zoosman: The death penalty would not bring “deterrence.”   

Sharp: a) based upon Zoosman's full writings, on deterrence, within the referenced, he has no understanding of deterrence. 

Zoosman writes: "Meta-studies have concluded that when it comes to deterrence, there is no demonstrable link between the presence or absence of the death penalty and murder rates."

Sharp: It's because you can't use murder rates to determine deterrence. Example:  If Iceland and its capital Reykjavik have the lowest crime rates in the world, does that mean that every other country and city have no deterrence, because they all have higher crime rates? Of course not (4).

Zoosmman, please start your re-learning curve, here (4). If consistent, he will not.
  
b)  Zoosman: "As renowned anesthesiologist Dr. Joel Zivot has reminded the world, “Israel’s death penalty would bring darkness, not deterrence.” 

Sharp: Why would you use Zivot as an expert on deterrence, which he is not, when he is so bad on other death penalty topics (5)? FEMS.

The discussion is about those who are deterred, not those not deterred.

5) Zoosman: "The death penalty is racist.: "75 per­cent of the cas­es involve the mur­der of white vic­tims, even though about half of all homi­cide vic­tims in America are black."

Sharp: Typical nonsense. How? Why? Willful ignorance or FEMS. Either seem to work well with Zoosman. White victims are the dominant group in capital, death penalty eligible murders (6). Zoosman is unaware that "all homicides" are not death penalty eligible (6). No surprise. About 1% of murders result in a death sentence, in the US. 

6) Zoosman: "The death penalty often results in physical torture, and always is psychological torture for individuals counting down to their execution day."

Sharp: Possibly, 1% of lethal injections are botched (7), with less than that, feeling any pain. 
         Any psychological torture is the fear of death, which is, totally, the fault of the murderer and is just Zoosman providing more proof why the death penalty is more of a deterrent than a life sentence (4). Life is preferred over death and death is feared more than life, What we prefer more, deters less. What we fear more, deters more. Unchallenged (4).

 c) Zoosman: "Telling a human being the date and time on which she or he is to be put to death is a level of inhumanity and torture without comparison in this world." 

Sharp:  The opposite is the case and Zoosman reveals the anti-death penalty norm, that they value murderers more than their innocent victims (8,4).

Quaker biblical scholar Dr. Gervas A. Carey: “. . . a secondary measure of the love of God may be said to appear. For capital punishment provides the murderer with incentive to repentance which the ordinary man does not have, that is a definite date on which he is to meet his God. It is as if God thus providentially granted him a special inducement to repentance out of consideration of the enormity of his crime . . . the law grants to the condemned an opportunity which he did not grant to his victim, the opportunity to prepare to meet his God. Even divine justice here may be said to be tempered with mercy.” synopsis: “A Bible Study”, from Essays on the Death Penalty, T. Robert Ingram, ed., St. Thomas Press, Houston, 1963, 1992. Dr. Carey was a Professor of Bible and past President of George Fox College.

d) Zoosman:  "Albert Camus concluded:   “But what then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared?"

Sharp: Camus' idiocy.  It is as if Camus never heard of the premeditated murders of millions, with Mao, Stalin, Hitler (8).
           Camus calls execution premeditated murder, meaning he has no moral understanding. Legal executions are no more murders than legal  incarcerations are  kidnappings, legal fines are theft and legal community service is slavery, meaning, of course, not at all (8).
          The premeditation is known as the due process of law, which Camus condemns (8). Of course.

7) Zoosman: "Many execution methods are direct Nazi legacies, including firing squad, gassing, and lethal injection."

Sharp: Zoosman is, totally, unaware, that it is not the method of execution, but why it  takes place. Blind. The Nazis murdered 11 million innocent "undesirables". The US, in the modern era, 1973-2025, has executed 1600 guilty murderers. Zoosman appears to see no moral distinction (8).

8) Zoosman: "Executions inevitably become a political tool, creating a recipe for moral disaster for any so-called “civilized” society."

Sharp: The US has executed 0.2% of her murderers in the past 53 years, likely the most invisible tool in the political toolbox. 

9) Zoosman: "The death penalty violates the human right to life.  As outlined in the Third Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person.”

Sharp: Zoosman's non thinking, again. Only those who obey the social contract, the laws, have those rights.  All countries incarcerate those who violate the social contract, so liberty may be taken away, without violating the Declaration, just as taking life with executions. As we all know, the security of the person cannot exist without law and order, laws, law enforcement and sanctions, which often means taking away the life and/or liberty of those who violate the social contract, the laws.

In Closing

Zoosman has the ethical obligation to present this to the membership of his organization, L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty.

Will he?

FN

1)    Research, w/sources, w/fact checking/vetting & critical thinking, as required of everyone in a public policy debate and which rebut all anti-death penalty claims.
      The media/academic norm is to use anti-death penalty material, refuse to fact check or vet it and avoid all pro-death penalty research and experts or pretend that is the case. How will you know that is true? Read on.
a) The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
and
b) Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
(7 pro-death penalty experts are included)
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2022/01/students-death-penalty-research.html
and
600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families &
3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history
http://prodpquotes.info/ 

2) The Death Row "Exonerated"/"Innocent" Frauds 
 71-83% Error Rate in Death Row "Innocent" Claims, 
Well Known Since 1998

3) Texas Death Penalty Procedures
and
THE DEATH PENALTY: LEAST ARBITRARY & CAPRICIOUS SANCTION
Both the guilty & the innocent have the greatest of protections
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-death-penalty-neither-arbitrary-nor.html

and
and

5)  Dr. Joel Zivot's Anti-Death Penalty Nonsense: A Compilation

6)   RACE & THE DEATH PENALTY: A REBUTTAL TO THE RACISM CLAIMS

7)  Rebuttal: Botched Executions
and
Much more detail, here:
Academic Disaster: Law Professor Corinna Barrett Lain
aka Do Ethics Matter: The University of Richmond?

8) 30 Examples: How Death Penalty Abolitionists Value Murderers 
More Than Their Innocent Victims:
AKA - Full Rebuttal of Sir Richard Branson & His Death Penalty Comments
https://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2023/04/full-rebuttal-of-sir-richard-branson.html 


Partial CV
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