Jews and Violence

The Jewish Establishment's concepts of violence and nonviolence are too often derived not from Jewish sources but from assimilated liberal ones.

Too many of our lay and also, incredibly, "religious" leaders derive their knowledge and concepts from foreign, not Jewish, sources.

Our rabbis have told us that "the actions of the fathers are a sign (direction) for the sons", and it behooves us to search Jewish history and Jewish tradition for the proper Jewish response to evil and oppression.

What a Jew must and must not do for other Jews who are suffering is predicated upon the great idea of Ahavat Israel, love of Jews.

This magnificent concept is stated simply, forcefully, and unequivocally in the Torah (Leviticus, 19:16):
"Thou shalt not stand idly by your brother's blood."

The talmudic commentary on this verse is quite as clear (Sanhedrin 73):
"How do we know that one who sees his comrade drowning in the sea or threatened by a wild beast or by armed robbers is obligated to save him?

"We are taught: Thou shalt not stand idly by your brother's blood.

"How do we know that if one sees someone pursuing his comrade with the purpose of killing him, that he is free to save a life through killing the pursuer?

We are taught: "Thou shalt not stand idly by.....".

What we have inherited as Torah Halakha is hardly a theorical thing. From the days that our father Abraham went to battle against the four Kings in order to save his nephew Lot to the moment that Moses smote an Egyptian rather than create a committee to study the root causes of Egyptian anti-Semitism; from the wars of Joshua and the Prophets (Ehud, Déborah, Gideon, Samson, Yiftach) to the battles of David; from the Maccabees to the students of Rabbi Akiba who were sent from their studies to fight with Bar Kochba's army---Jewish leadership has taken an active and violent part in the struggle for freedom.