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Notes for Jews and Human RightsRobert Traer* 1 Lowell W. Livezey notes that the Union of U.S. Hebrew Congregations, which represents Reform Judaism, "is the only major Jewish denomination that is active in the international human rights movement, and even its work in the human rights field is considerably less that that undertaken by cultural or 'secular' Jewish agencies such as the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, B'nai B'rith International, and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith." Livezey, "US Religious Organizations and the International Human Rights Movement," Human Rights Quarterly 11, no. 1 (February 1989):42. 2 Daniel F. Polish, "Judaism and Human Rights," in Human Rights in Religious Traditions (New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1982), 40.3 Ibid., 46. Abraham Kaplan argues that while Judaism places moral responsibility upon the individual, it does not support an individualistic understanding of human rights. Kaplan, "Human Relations and Human Rights in Judaism," in The Philosophy of Human Rights: International Perspectives, ed. Alan S. Rosenbaum (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980), 57-59.4 David Daube, "The Rabbis and Philo on Human Rights," in Essays on Human Rights: Contemporary Rights and Jewish Perspectives, ed. David Sidorsky (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979), 234-46.5 S. D. Goitein, "Human Rights and Jewish Thought and Life in the Middle Ages," in Essays on Human Rights, 249.6 Jacob Katz, "Post-Emancipation Development of Rights: Liberalism and Universalism," in Essays on Human Rights, 292.7 Daniel F. Polish, "Judaism and Human Rights," in Human Rights in Religious Traditions, 40. See R. J. Zwi Werblosky, "Judaism and Human Rights," in Human Rights Teaching 2, no. 1 (1981), 7-9.8 Michael Fishbane, "The Image of the Human and the Rights of the Individual in Jewish Tradition," in Human Rights and the World's Religions, ed. Leroy S. Rouner (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 17.9 Daniel F. Polish, "Judaism and Human Rights," in Human Rights in Religious Traditions, 40.10 Ibid., 47-48.11 Ibid., 48.12 Ibid.13 Ibid., 49.14 Ibid., 50.15 Ibid.16 William A. Irwin, "The Rule of a Higher Law," in Judaism and Human Rights, ed. Milton R. Konvitz (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1972), 101. This book is copyrighted by the B'nai B'rith Commission on Adult Jewish Education.17 Ibid., 101-02.18 Lord Acton, "Kingship under the Judgment of God," in Judaism and Human Rights, 90.19 Milton R. Konvitz, "Editor's Note," in Judaism and Human Rights, 88.20 Quoted in Milton R. Konvitz, "Judaism and the Democratic Ideal," in Judaism and Human Rights, 138.21 Emanuel Rackman, "Judaism and Equality," in Judaism and Human Rights, 33.22 Milton R. Konvitz, "Judaism and the Democratic Ideal," in Judaism and Human Rights, 124-25.23 Ibid., 139.24 Emanuel Rackman, "Judaism and Equality," in Judaism and Human Rights, 34.25 Robert Gordis, The Root and the Branch (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 81.26 Lenn Evan Goodman, "Equality and Human Rights: The Lockean and Judaic Views," Judaism 25 (Summer 1976):361-62.27 Ibid., 360.28 Ibid.29 Emanuel Rackman, "Talmudic Insights on Human Rights," Judaism 1 (1952):158-63.30 Herbert Chanan Brichto, "The Hebrew Bible on Human Rights," in Essays on Human Rights, 225.31 Milton R. Konvitz, "Judaism and the Democratic Ideal," in Judaism and Human Rights, 121.32 Quoted in Milton Konvitz, "Judaism and the Democratic Ideal," in Judaism and Human Rights, 121.33 Milton Konvitz, "Judaism and the Democratic Ideal," in Judaism and Human Rights, 121.34 Michael Fishbane, "The Image of the Human and the Rights of the Individual in Jewish Tradition," in Human Rights and the World's Religions, 31.35 Haim H. Cohn, Human Rights in Jewish Law (New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1984), vii. This book was published for the Institute of Jewish Affairs in London.36 Ibid., 1.37 Ibid.38 Ibid., 18.39 Ibid., 18-19.40 Ibid., 20.41 Ibid., 21.42 Ibid.43 Ibid., v.44 Ibid., 157.45 Ibid., 160.46 Ibid., 165-66.47 Ibid., 166.48 Ibid., 167.49 Ibid., 170-71.50 Ibid., 189.51 Ibid., 198, 208 and 217.52 Article 29.2, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in Human Rights in International Law, 13. Quoted in Haim H. Cohn, Human Rights in Jewish Law, 231.53 Haim H. Cohn, Human Rights in Jewish Law, 231.54 Ibid.55 Ibid.56 Ibid.57 Louis Henkin, "Human Rights: Reappraisal and Readjustment," in Essays on Human Rights, 87.58 Isaac Lewin, "On the Right of Everyone to Leave Any Country, Including His Own" (21 January 1963), in Ten Years of Hope: Addresses before the United Nations (New York: Shengold Publishers, 1971), 30.59 Michael Meerson-Aksenov, "The Influence of the Jewish Exodus on the Democratization of Soviet Society," trans. Gloria Donen Sosin, in Essays on Human Rights, 153.60 Ibid., 152.61 See also Yoran Dinstein, "Soviet Jewry and International Human Rights," in Essays on Human Rights, 126-43, and Paul Litvinov, "The Human-Rights Movement in the Soviet Union," in Essays on Human Rights, 113-25. Similarly, it is argued that the right to emigrate is the only protection Jews have in societies like Iraq. See Mitchell Knisbacher, "The Jews of Iraq and the International Protection of the Rights of Minorities (1856-1976)," in Essays on Human Rights, 157-78.62 David Sidorsky, "Introduction," in Essays on Human Rights, xxxiv. He attributes this to a letter by S. French to Herzl.63 Leslie C. Green, "Jewish Issues on the Human-Rights Agenda in the First Half of the Twentieth Century," in Essays on Human Rights, 298.64 Jacob L. Talmon, "Mission and Testimony: The Universal Significance of Modern Anti-Semitism," in Essays on Human Rights, 359. Jews argue that Israel's human rights record is better than their neighbors and that Israel has acted with restraint in the face of extreme provocation in the occupied territories. See Jerome J. Shestack, "Human Rights Issues in Israel's Rule of the West Bank and Gaza," in Essays on Human Rights, 193-209. To its credit, the Jacob Blaustein Institute has funded the Association for Civil Rights in Israel which defends the rights of Palestinian residents of the West Bank. Lowell W. Livezey, "US Religious Organizations and the International Human Rights Movement," Human Rights Quarterly 11, no. 1 (February 1989:48-49.65 Walter Laquer, "The Issue of Human Rights," in Essays on Human Rights, 9-10.66 Daniel P. Moynihan, "The Significance of the Zionism-as-Racism Resolution for International Human Rights," in Essays in Human Rights, 43.67 Ibid., 43-45.68 Sidney Liskofsky, "The United Nations and Human Rights: 'Alternative Approaches'," in Essays on Human Rights, 48. See Richard H. Schwartz, "Human Rights and Obligations," Judaism and Global Survival (New York: Atara Publishing Co., 1987).69 I. F. Stone, quoted in Zionism: A Preliminary Memo, 31-32, in Colin Chapman, Whose Promised Land? (Herts, UK: Lion Publishing, 1983), 192.70 Ibid., 193.71 See essays in The Israel/Palestine Question, edited by Ilan Pappé (London and New York: Routledge, 1999).72 "Gush Emunim rabbis, politicians and ideological popularizers have routinely compared Palestinians to the ancient Canaanites, whose extermination or expulsion by the ancient Israelites was, according to the Bible, predestined by a divine design. This genocidal theme of the Bible creates great sympathy for Gush Emunim among many Christian fundamentalists who anticipate that the end of the world will be marked by slaughters and devastation. Gush Emunim has from its inception wanted to expel as many Palestinians as possible. Palestinian terrorist acts allow Gush Emunim spokespeople to disguise their real demand for total expulsion by arguing that expulsion is warranted by 'security needs'." Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (London, UK and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 1999), 73. During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 the military rabbinate "exhorted all Israeli soldiers to follow in the footsteps of Joshua and to re-establish his divinely ordained conquest of the land of Israel. This exhortation of conquest included extermination of non-Jewish inhabitants." Ibid., 64.73 April 26, 1996, Jewish Week (New York), quoted in Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, 62.74 See note 46.75 Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, 71.76 Rabbi Israel Ariel of Gush Emunim, quoted from a chapter on "Nationalistic Judaism" in Yehoshafat Harkabi's Israel's Fateful Hour (1988), in Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, 71.77 Quoted by Ian Lustick in his For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (1988), in Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, 71.78 This quote is a paraphrase by Harkabi from Israel's Fateful Hour and is quoted in Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, 73. A booklet published by the Central Region Command of the Israeli Army, which has jurisdiction over the West Bank, contains this statement by the Command's Chief Chaplain: "When our forces come across civilians during a war or in hot pursuit or in a raid, so long as there is no certainty that those civilians are incapable of harming our forces, then according to the Halakhah [alternative spelling for Halacha] they may and even should be killed . . .Under no circumstances should an Arab be trusted, even if he makes an impression of being civilized . . . In war, when our forces storm the enemy, they are allowed and even enjoined by the Halakhah to kill even good civilians, that is, civilians who are ostensibly good." Colonel Rabbi A. Avidan (Zemel), "Tohar hannesheq le'or hahalakhah" (="Purity of weapons in the light of the Halakhah") in Be'iqvot milhemet yom hakkippurim - pirqey hagut, halakhah umehqar (In the Wake of the Yom Kippur War - Chapters of Meditation, Halakhah and Research), Central Region Command, 1973: quoted in Ha'olam Hazzeh, 5 January 1974; also quoted by David Shaham, "A Chapter of Meditation", Hotam, 28 March 1974; and by Amnon Rubinstein, "Who falsifies the Halakhah?" Ma'ariv, 13 October 1975. In Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion (London, UK and Chicago, IL: Pluto Press, 1997), 76 and footnote at 113. Shahak comments in his footnote: "Rubinstein reports that the booklet was withdrawn from circulation by order of the Chief of General Staff, presumably because it encouraged soldiers to disobey his own orders; but he complains that Rabbi Avidan has not been court-martialed, nor has any rabbi ─ military or civil ─ taken exception to what he [the Colonel Rabbi] had written."79 Yuval Katz, Yerusalemaim, 4 March 1994, quoted in Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, 104-5.80 Elie Wiesel, "Wiesel's Speech: 'This Honor Belongs to All the Survivors'," New York Times, 1 December 1986, A-8. At the opening of a photo exhibit entitled "Auschwitz: A Crime against Mankind," on 10 December 1985, Human Rights Day, Wiesel said: "We remember Auschwitz for the sake of all victims everywhere who suffer. We remember our hunger so as to eliminate starvation today. We remember our anguish so as to proclaim the right of men and women everywhere to live without fear." Quoted in "Auschwitz Exhibit Underscores United Nations Commitment to Human Rights," UN Chronicle 23 (February 1986): 93. The dedication of Human Rights and the World's Religions begins: "For Elie Wiesel, eloquent advocate for the human rights of all human beings."81 Ibid.*Revised from a chapter on "Jews" in Faith in Human Rights: Support in Religious Traditions for a Global Struggle (Washington, DC:Georgetown University Press, 1991). |
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