Do Jewish religious teachings have any wisdom or direction to give on how Wisconsin Jews should vote this November on the advisory referendum on the death penalty?
Wisconsin is one of 12 U.S. states that does not have the death penalty; and reportedly it is the one that has banned it for the longest period of time, having abolished it in 1853.
Within the past few weeks, the state’s legislature approved placing an advisory referendum on the subject on the ballot. The version that passed in the Assembly — which was approved by the Senate on Tuesday and will appear on the ballot — reads:
“Should the death penalty be enacted by the State of Wisconsin for cases involving a person who is convicted of first-degree intentional homicide, if the conviction is supported by DNA evidence?”
The Chronicle asked four Wisconsin rabbis from the various religious movements about the referendum. Most said outright that they oppose the death penalty, will vote no on the issue and will encourage members of their congregations to do the same.
‘Barbaric, regressive’
Rabbi Steven Adams, spiritual leader of Congregation Emanu-El of Waukesha (Reform), said he thinks the death penalty is “barbaric, regressive rather than progressive” and represents a policy born “out of fear instead of hope for the future.”
Moreover, “I would say that as liberal Jews we aspire to the elimination of the death penalty,” Adams said.
In his opposition, Adams follows the position of the Reform movement, which has opposed the death penalty since 1959.
Rabbi Kenneth Katz, spiritual leader of Beth Israel Center (Conservative) in Madison, said he is inclined to side with those Talmud rabbis who vehemently disapproved of the death penalty, and “I would urge people to vote against the referendum.”
Katz took particular note of the referendum’s call for DNA evidence. Those who created this, he said, are “saying we found a way to make” the death penalty “fair,” given the criticism that the penalty is applied unfairly by race and economic condition.
But “you will never find a way to make it 100 percent fair in evidence gathering or in sentencing,” he said.
His view is also in keeping with the Conservative movement, whose Committee on Jewish Law and Standards in 1960 ruled that the death penalty is “barbaric and obsolete.”
Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman of Congregation Shaarei Shamayim in Madison (Reconstructionist/ Renewal) said she “very much” opposes the death penalty. She said she doubts its deterrence value, charged that it “affects disproportionately poor and minority populations” and “does not provide comfort for victims’ families.”
She, too, is in accordance with her movement. The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Council in 2003 issued a statement “opposing the death penalty under all circumstances.”
But one rabbi admitted to mixed feelings and said he has not yet made up his mind on the issue: Rabbi Nachman Levine, spiritual leader of Anshe Sfard Kehillat Torah (Orthodox).
“If the Torah deems it necessary to have a death penalty, there is a reason for it,” he said. And he acknowledged that the Talmud considers it “one of the things a good non-Jewish society should have.”
Still, the matter is not so simple, particularly regarding the criteria for how such a penalty would be applied, Levine said. “I have to give it a lot more thought.”
And this, too, reflects at least some thinking in the Orthodox world. In 2000, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations announced support for a moratorium on application of the death penalty in the U.S. “while a comprehensive review of how the death penalty is administered in America’s courts is undertaken.”
“While traditional Judaism clearly contemplates and condones the death penalty as the ultimate sanction within a legitimate legal system, Judaism simultaneously insists that capital punishment be administered by a process that ensures accuracy as well as justice,” the OU’s statement reads. “In recent months, too many questions have been raised as to whether in America’s courts the demand for accuracy is being met.”
Torah vs. Talmud
The Torah appears unequivocal when it comes to the death penalty for murder. Genesis 9:6 proclaims: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in His image did God make man.”
And this is a commandment to humanity generally. In its prescriptions for the society that Jews should create for themselves, the Torah has many passages demanding the death penalty for murder and other violations of Jewish law. For example:
“You may not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of a capital crime; he must be put to death” (Numbers 35:31).
But the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud appear more conflicted on the matter. As Rabbi Joseph Telushkin wrote in his book “Jewish Wisdom” (William Morrow and Co., 1994):
“There are few areas in Jewish law where the biblical and talmudic view so conflict as in the matter of capital punishment.” The Talmud “places so many restrictions on the judicial authorities that very few, if any, murderers would be convicted were these restrictions enforced.”
Yet the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin Chapter 7) also contains discussion of the “seven laws of Noah,” which the rabbis regard as the minimal requirements for a good non-Jewish society. Such a society must have the death penalty for murder, and the rabbis cite Genesis 9:6 as the proof text.
Loading ...