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NATIONAL MOVEMENTS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW: RABBI SHLOMO GOREN'S UNDERSTANDING OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 May 2014
Abstract
Rabbi Shlomo Goren was one of the leading rabbinic figures in religious Zionist circles. As the first chief Rabbi of the Israeli military, he had a unique opportunity to influence the development of the Israeli army and its policies. He needed to deal with questions that had no precedents in Jewish law. One of his challenges was the part international law played in the formation of a modern army. Rabbi Goren wished to give a halachic perspective to questions of international law, and to do that, he had to translate the language of international law, a field developed in the modern period, to halachic language. This process led him to evaluate moral positions that are part of international law and the ability of halacha to be part of the modern world.
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References
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64 A copy of the letter was supplied by the Goren family and will be discussed in depth in the future.
65 Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field, Aug. 22, 1864, 25 Stat. 1885; Geneva Convention (III) Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Aug. 12, 1949, 75 U.N.T.S. 135, 6 U.S.T. 3316. For the early stages of this field, see Hersch Lauterpacht, The Grotian Tradition in International Law, XXIII Bri. Y. B. Int'l L. 1 (1946).
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75 Later, he mentions that combatants who lay down their arms cannot be harmed. Goren, supra note 67, at 15.
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77 Maimonides, Laws of Kings, 9:14.
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