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Judaism and the ethics of war

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2010

Norman Solomon
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Abstract

The article surveys Jewish sources relating to the justification and conduct of war, from the Bible and rabbinic interpretation to recent times, including special problems of the State of Israel. It concludes with the suggestion that there is convergence between contemporary Jewish teaching, modern human rights doctrine and international law.

Type
Religion
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 87 , Issue 858: Religion , June 2005 , pp. 295 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © International Committee of the Red Cross 2005

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References

1 On this distinction see Johnson, J.T., Ideology, Reason and the Limitation of War: Religious and Secular Concepts 1200–1749, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1977, p. 53Google Scholar.

2 Compare Deuteronomy 9:5. Walzer, Michael, in Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, Basic Books, New York, 1992, p. 215Google Scholar, aptly observes that no biblical author “undertakes to construct an argument on behalf of the seven Canaanite nations comparable to Abraham's argument on behalf of the Canaanite cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

3 Altogether ten nations are named in various verses, but they are conventionally referred to as seven.

4 CE stands for “common era”, i.e. 100 AD. Joshua's example concerned a self-proclaimed “Ammonite proselyte” who but for Joshua's ruling would have been forbidden to marry a native-born Jewish woman. See Mishna Yadayim 4:4.

5 Jerusalem Talmud Shevi'it 6:1.

6 “For the sin of the Amorites will not be total until then” (Genesis 15:16) is a justification of the Israelite conquest on the grounds that God would not have permitted the Canaanites to be destroyed unless and until their evil justified it.

7 De Indis, sect. II, 16, cited by Johnson, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 156–7.

8 Weinfeld, Moshe, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972Google Scholar. Weinfeld compares Deuteronomy's military orations with those to be found in Herodotus and Thucydides; they are “literary programmatic creations and do not convey the actuai content of speeches delivered in concrete circumstances”, p. 51. He attributes them to the scribes of Josiah's Reform, p. 158.

9 Some English translations have “lay in wait.”

10 The Hebrew nahal may be translated “valley” or “inheritance.” Rabbi Mani interprets the verse as hinting that Saul was troubled about the means by which he was to secure possession of the land for Israel. Two Palestinian rabbis were called Mani, or Mana, one in the third century and one in the fourth; it is not certain which is cited here.

11 The allusion is to the atonement ceremony to be performed by representatives of the town nearest to where a slain person was found (Deuteronomy 21:1–9, immediately following the section on war).

12 Babylonian Talmud Yoma 22b. Midrash Rabba on Deuteronomy 5:12 ascribes to Moses the initiative, confirmed and praised by God, to seek peace with Sihon; Midrash Tehillim on Psalm 120:7 ascribes a similar initiative to the Messiah.

13 Babylonian Talmud Sota 44 b.

14 Inbar, Efraim, “War in the Jewish tradition”, in Jerusalem Journal of International Relations 9:2 (1987), pp. 83–99Google Scholar, on p. 86, and n. 6 on p. 98, points to the distinction between pre-emptive and preventive war. He cites Leùem Mishneh who interprets Maimonides' expression “war to enlarge the borders of Israel” (Mishneh Torah: Melakhim 5:1) as preventive war, to deter potential aggressors.

15 The Urim and Tumim (Exodus 28:30), the precise nature of which is a matter of debate. The oracular function assumed by the rabbis is hinted at in Ezra 2:62 and Nehemiah 7:65.

16 Mishna Sanhedrin 1:5.

17 Johnson, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 104 and 117 ff., especially the section on Alexander Leighton, pp. 125 ff.

18 For an example of this application see in Crossroads: Halakha and the Modern World, Zomet, Jerusalem, 1987/5747, p. 199.

19 Other diagnoses are of course possible.

20 Babylonian Talmud Sota 10 a.

21 Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 72 a.

22 Ibid., 74 a.

23 Philo, The Special Laws, 219–223.

24 Sefer ha-Uinukh No. 527. The work is of unknown authorship, though traditionally ascribed to Aaron ha-Levi of Barcelona (c. 1235–1300).

25 Weinberger, Leon J., Jewish Prince in Moslem Spain: Selected Poems of Samuel Ibn Nagrela, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1973, p. 118Google Scholar.

26 D. Levine (ed), The Bustan al-Ukul by Natanaël Ibn al-Fayyumi, p. 24. With an English translation, The Garden of Wisdom, Columbia University Press, New York, 1908Google Scholar; repr. 1966, English p. 40, Arabic p. 24.

27 Numbers 18:20, 23; Deuteronomy 18:1, 2.

28 Maimonides Mishneh Torah (“The Torah Reviewed”): Shemiåa v'Yovel 13:12,13.

29 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 2:2 40:2; Corpus Juris Canonici: Decretum Quaest. VIII, Cans. IV, XIX.

30 Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, transl. Shlomo Pines, 2 Vols., University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1963, p. 126 (Book 1, Chapter 54).

31 Noah Feldman rightly observes that “the king preserves his discretion to use his own practical reason to decide whether or not it is appropriate to seek to expand his borders,” but he omits to point out that whatever practical reason suggests remains subject to the prophetic verdict of the Urim and Tummim.

32 Eliyahu Munk, (tr.) Akeydat Yitzchak: The Commentary of Isaac Arama on the Torah (condensed version), 2 Vols., Rubin Mass, Jerusalem, 1986, pp. 726 ff. and 791 ff.

33 This is the theme of Mendelssohn's well-known and frequently translated Jerusalem.

34 Mendelssohn, Moses, Anmerkungen zu des Ritters Michaelis Beurteilung des ersten Theils von Dohn, über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, in Moses Mendelssohns Gesammelte Schriften, Leipzig, 1843, Vol. 3, pp. 365–367Google Scholar.

35 Luzzatto, p. 157.

36 Hertz, J. H., Sermons, Addresses and Studies, Vol. 1, Soncino Press, London, 1938, pp. 25–29Google Scholar.

37 Bleich, David J., Contemporary Halakhic Problems II, Ktav, New York, 1983, p. 165Google Scholar, citing Zera' Abraham 24.

38 Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. Zemba.

39 Shapira, Anita, Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881–1948, transl. Templer, William, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1999Google Scholar (reprint of the 1992 Oxford University Press publication), p. 16, citing Kalischer's Derishat Zion (1862).

40 Shapira, Ibid., p. 10.

41 That is, the areas under Russian domination where Jews were permitted to live.

42 Even so, he refused a compromise, acceptable to the secular Zionist leadership, that might have acknowledged Muslim title to the Western Wall. Samson, David and Tzvi Fishman, Eretz Yisrael: Lights on Orot: The Teachings of HaRav Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook. Jeruslaem: Torat Eretz Yisrael Publications, 5756 (1996), pp. xv–xvi.

43 Ravitsky, Aviezer, “Prohibited wars in the Jewish tradition”, in Nardin, T., (ed.), The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1996, pp. 115–127Google Scholar, at p. 116, based on Kook, Igrot R'ayah (Jerusalem 1966) Vol. 1 p. 140Google Scholar.

44 Ravitsky, Ibid., p. 116, based on Karelitz' Notes on Maimonides' Code: Melakhim 5:1 in the Jerusalem, 1957 edition.

45 The letter is dated 25 Ab 5698, which is equivalent to 25 August 1938.

46 The letter (in Hebrew) was republished in the Hebrew journal Teùumin X: p. 148.

47 Tzvi Yehuda Kook, Torat Eretz Yisrael p. 165.

48 See Elliot Dorff's remarks in Landes, Daniel (ed.), Confronting Omnicide: Jewish Reflections on Weapons of Mass Destruction, Jason Aronson, Northvale NJ and London, 1991, pp. 177–179Google Scholar. Dan Yahav, in Tohar ha-Nesheq: Ethos, Mythos u-Metziut 1936–1956 (Purity of Arms: Ethos, Myth and Reality 1936–1956), Tammuz Publishers, Tel Aviv, 2002, has investigated the relationship between the official ideal and the reality “on the ground.”

49 Cited in Yahav, op. cit. (note 48), p. 13, from Siah Lohamim, a volume of reflections by Israeli soldiers following the invasion of Lebanon.

50 The English text is available on <www.idf.il> (last visited 10 May 2005).

51 Goren, Shlomo, “Combat morality and the Halakha” in Crossroads: Halakha and the Modern World, Zomet, Jerusalem, 1987/5747, pp. 211–231Google Scholar. The volumes of Crossroads contain selected material based on articles in the Hebrew journal Teùumin.

52 Ibid., p. 215.

53 Roberts, , Adam, and Guelff, Richard (eds.) Documents on the Laws of War, Revised edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, pp. 271 ffGoogle Scholar.

54 UN Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects, Ibid., pp. 473 ff.