Just as Israel’s new racist, vengeful, unjust and dangerous death penalty law defiled last week’s observance of Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) and Yom Hazikaron (Israeli Remembrance Day), so, too, does it now violate Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day) commemorating the signing of the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948. Israel rightfully marks this celebratory day annually with a variety of official and unofficial ceremonies and observances intended to honor the establishment of a state that its founders intended to reflect the very highest of Jewish values. This year, as Rabbi Yitz Greenberg and countless others have argued, the Knesset’s March 30 passage of the “Death Penalty for Terrorist Law” in Israel betrays the most basic of those values: Judaism’s inherent affirmation of life itself. The monstrous shadow of this abominable law profanes any festivities slated for the observation of Israel’s Independence Day beginning at sunset on April 21.

Current Supreme Court justices need only look to the words of their own renowned forefather, Justice Haim Herman Cohen (1911-2002),  to see how capital punishment is anathema to Jewish – and Israeli – values this Yom Haatzmaut. At the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, Cohn was asked to help create its legal system, which he did by combining Jewish, Ottoman, Roman, and British legal traditions. An ardent opponent of capital punishment, including cases against terrorists, he resigned as state attorney to avoid having to serve as a prosecutor in the 1961 death penalty trial of Adolf Eichmann, against which he famously stated: “We cannot uproot evil by recycling it through us.” Cohn was appointed to the Israeli Supreme Court in 1960 and served for 21 years, including a period as the court’s deputy chief justice. He founded the Israeli branch of Amnesty International and was the first president of the Israeli Association of Civil Rights. His books included “The Trial and Death of Jesus” and “Human Rights and Jewish Law,” and he received the Israel Prize in 1980.

In his 1994 essay, “The Values of a Jewish and Democratic State,” Cohn famously wrote the following about the death penalty:

“The prohibition against harming human life, as a foundational principle of public law, means first and foremost the prohibition against imposing the death penalty. Human life – meaning the life of a murderer or a traitor as well. The fact that a murderer took human life does not justify taking his, neither by the state nor by anyone else…The sages of the Mishnah did everything in their power to ensure that no offender would be put to death…Not only has the death penalty ceased to be a Jewish value, but one could argue that the rejection of the death penalty has itself become a Jewish value. And this rejection is also a distinctly democratic value.”

Israeli legal analyst Yuval Yoaz recently offered some of the most salient comments on Cohn’s unambiguous words. Writing in the Times of Israel, Yoaz stated: “Ultimately…the death penalty law for Palestinians convicted of deadly acts of terror must be struck down by the High Court not just because it fails the proportionality test, but because it contradicts the very values of the State of Israel, both as a Jewish state and as a democratic one.”

Additionally, allowing executions again in the Jewish state now would only give fodder to Israel’s enemies, ultimately threatening the very national sovereignty that Yom HaAtzma’ut celebrates. Until recently, Israel stood apart in the Middle East for its virtual abolishment of the death penalty. Hamas regularly executes Palestinians in Gaza, extrajudicially and otherwise. A court operating under Yemen’s Houthi rebels recently sentenced 17 people to death for allegedly spying on behalf of Israel and others. Iran, which has carried out death sentences against Jews, has executed more than 1,600 people in 2025 alone.

By narrowing the gap between these neighbors and itself,  Israel is violating its moral obligations and ethical standards. By undoing its historic commitment not to inflict the one punishment that can never be undone, it will be giving its enemies a gift.

First, changing the justice system to allow for the death penalty now provides Hamas terrorists incarcerated in Israel with a new platform for their message. Hamas will proclaim them to be martyred heroes — a new layer of disingenuous but effective propaganda.

Terrorists such as the perpetrators of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre often believe that their spirits will receive rewards upon their physical death. Within that framework, lifetime incarceration is a far harsher punishment, and therefore a more effective one. Plus, the notion that executing terrorists will prevent future hostage-taking for prisoner swaps is shaky, at best. Hamas’ relationship with Israel has long been defined by retaliatory action, which means that the state killing of Hamas prisoners is likely to lead to Hamas reciprocally executing future Israeli hostages and “collaborators.” The endless cycle of violence will continue.

Since Israel seeks to be a transparent democracy that follows the rule of law, particularly within its judiciary, this legal death sentencing scheme will also prove costly in terms of public perception.

Israel’s reputation as a bastion of moral clarity in the Middle East has dramatically changed in the more than two years since the Oct. 7 attack. The devastation of the war in Gaza and the increasing violence in the West Bank have led to a substantial drop in positive perceptions of Israel worldwide. And while the Israeli judiciary has long been one of the country’s most trusted institutions, the deleterious effects of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pre-war proposals for a judicial overhaul mean it is no longer held in the same high regard, in Israel or the rest of the world, as it once was.

The recent passage of this law has only hastened this decline of Israel’s image.

Some of those who have argued in favor of the law have invoked the fallacy of “deterrence.” Shin Bet security service Chief David Zini even told the Security Cabinet that enacting the death penalty for terrorists who kill Israelis would help prevent future attacks.

That statement doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Recent 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.

But the most profound reason to reject this law comes from our own painful history as a people. Many Jews, including myself, have long objected to the death penalty in part because of the shadow of the Holocaust.

We believe, in the words of Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, that “death is not the answer.” By the end of his life, Wiesel publicly said that he saw no possible exceptions to this rule: “With every cell of my being and with every fiber of my memory, I oppose the death penalty in all forms,” he said. “I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don’t think it’s human to become an agent of the angel of death.” Not long before his death, he again reiterated that, when it comes to capital punishment, “death should never be the answer in a civilized society.”

In the wake of the Holocaust and the unparalleled horrors of the 20th century, more than 70% of the nations of the world have recognized the inviolability of the human right to life, and have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

21st-century Judaism must reflect this evolution, and Israel must never cross this moral Rubicon.

The time has come for Israel to abolish the death penalty without exception. The Supreme Court’s repeal of Israel’s current death penalty law would mark the first necessary step in this existentially vital process. After debates spanning thousands of years from the ancient Sanhedrin to the present, Israel must finally do away with Wiesel’s aptly-named manmade “Angel of Death.” Instead of lifting a glass to the machinery of death, as National Security Minister Ithamar Ben Gvir nauseatingly did just before Passover, those justices should join the thousands of members of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty” in saluting “To Life!” this Yom HaAtzma’ut, and always.

Cantor Michael J. Zoosman, MSM, BCC

Co-Founder: L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty

Advisory Committee Member: Death Penalty Action

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)