Tag: Pittsburgh

Response to death sentence

L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty co-founder Cantor Michael Zoosman on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman on Aug. 2, 2023, reiterating L’chaim’s opposition to the death penalty for the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooter – and in all cases. (screenshot)

Recently, the American TV show Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman approached me in my role as co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty – which has roughly 2,700 members worldwide – to explain our opposition to the death sentence that the U.S. federal government issued for Robert Bowers, the perpetrator of the Pittsburgh Tree of Life shooting on Oct. 27, 2018. This was the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history and a crime of unspeakable horror that took the lives of the 11 Tree of Life martyrs, z”l.

My journey to becoming L’chaim’s co-founder was a direct result of my service as the cantor of Vancouver’s Congregation Beth Israel from 2008 to 2012. During my time at BI, that wonderful kehillah granted me the opportunity to serve as an agent of the Canadian government as Jewish prison chaplain for the 11 federal prisons within the Pacific region of Correctional Service Canada, which I did from 2009 to 2012. That experience was integral in the formation of my stance as a firm opponent of capital punishment in every case. During my years in that position, I got to know many individuals whose crimes might have qualified them for the death penalty in various states or federally in the United States. I saw firsthand how many of these individuals changed, while they remained incarcerated.

Since 2020, L’chaim’s members and I have been in touch with all individuals with active execution warrants in the States, as well as all Jewish men and women on American death rows. This includes my longtime penpal Jedidiah Murphy, a Jewish man with dissociative identity disorder who is the next human set for execution by Texas. The Lone Star State – the most prolific state killer in the United States – plans to kill Jedidiah on Oct. 10, which is World Day Against the Death Penalty. To do so, Texas will use the most common American form of execution, which is lethal injection.

Lethal injection was first implemented in this world by the Nazis as part of the Aktion T4 protocol used to kill people deemed “unworthy of life.” That protocol was first devised by Dr. Karl Brandt, the personal physician of Adolf Hitler. Every use of lethal injection carries on this direct Nazi legacy. This is the method by which the federal government likely will put to death Robert Bowers. Various states employ gas chambers to put their inmates to death, with Arizona even offering Zyklon B, as used in Auschwitz.

The members of L’chaim who, like me, are direct descendants of Holocaust survivors, know very well that the death penalty is not the same as the Shoah. And yet, members also know the dangers of giving a government the power to kill prisoners. Holocaust survivor and human rights activist Elie Wiesel articulated this most prophetically when he famously said in a 1988 interview: “With every cell of my being and with every fibre of my memory, I oppose the death penalty in all forms…. I don’t think it’s human to become an agent of the angel of death.”  He later added of capital punishment: “death should never be the answer in a civilized society.”

There are no exceptions. For Wiesel, Martin Buber, Gershom Scholem, Nelly Sachs and other Jewish human rights activists in the wake of the Shoah, this included staunch opposition to Israel’s execution of Nazi perpetrator Adolf Eichmann, which Buber called a “great mistake.” For the thousands of members of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty who carry this torch, the mistake applies as well to Robert Bowers.

In his “Reflections on the Guillotine,” Albert Camus concluded: “But what then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared?” From my personal experience in communicating daily over email, letters and phone with condemned men and women counting down their final months, weeks, days and hours, I can attest to this psychological torture. I can confirm that there is no humane way to put prisoners to death against their will.

The death penalty condemns the society that enacts it infinitely more than the human beings it condemns to death. Canada realized this decades ago, when it abolished the death penalty. The west African nation of Ghana was the latest country to join Canada as an abolitionist nation, just weeks ago, during the Tree of Life capital trial. I pray that, one day, the United States will join Ghana, Canada and the more than 70% of world nations who stand against the consummate human rights violation that is capital punishment.

For those who remain unconvinced, as I was before I became a prison chaplain, consider the words of the late Jewish U.S. Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis, the namesake of my alma mater. In his dissent for a renowned 1928 case, Brandeis wrote: “Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious.”

When the government imposes and then carries out a death sentence, it teaches everyone that unnecessary lethal violence is an appropriate problem-solving tool. Pittsburgh resident and death penalty abolitionist Fred Rogers (children’s educator and entertainer Mister Rogers) recognized this when he said of the death penalty “it just sends a horribly wrong message to children.” In every single case, state-sponsored murder under the disproven pretence of deterrence is not an appropriate tool to punish an offender who is no longer a threat behind bars. As Brandeis and Wiesel knew: the government should set a moral and ethical example.

The ruling in favour of state killing perpetuates the cycle of violence. It leaves the door open to the man-made Angel of Death – a door that allowed the United States to execute a severely mentally ill prisoner in Missouri on Aug. 1 and a prisoner “volunteer” for state-assisted suicide in Florida on Aug. 3. The United States was joined that week by Iran, which executed 12 human beings. The previous week, Singapore hanged a man and a woman for drug charges, and Bangladesh hanged two other human beings.

America – and human civilization – must do better. If not, the Pandora’s box of death can lead to what the world has seen with the execution of political protesters in Iran, the recent “kill the gays” law passed in Uganda, which allows execution for homosexual sex crimes, and the calls for the death penalty for abortion, which at least four American states have proposed since the overturning of Roe vs. Wade.

Let there be no doubt that those immediately impacted by the Pittsburgh shooting – including surviving family members – have been divided in their attitudes about the death penalty for the shooter. On a congregational level, two of the three targeted synagogues within the Tree of Life building have asked the federal government not to pursue the death penalty. This includes Dor Hadash, which hosted leaders in L’chaim for a program to help their community mobilize to abolish the death penalty. Still, quite understandably, most immediate family members indeed advocated death for the shooter. Far be it from me or anyone to judge them for how they feel. As a hospital chaplain, I regularly counsel mourners that, when grieving, they should be allowed to feel the full gamut of human emotion, including rage, and even the desire for vengeance where applicable. Any civilized society has a responsibility to protect and honour all such mourners, while simultaneously upholding the fundamental human rights upon which the world stands. Most basic to these, of course, is the right to life.

May Americans and Jews everywhere honour the victims of Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life – Eitz Chaim in Hebrew – by reaffirming the sanctity of life. Instead of more killing, may they follow the example of the inspiring Jewish community of Pittsburgh. Earlier in the week before the verdict of death, in what was but the latest example of that community’s unflagging proverbial steel resolve, it hosted a life-affirming parade to celebrate the dedication of a new Torah – known also as an Eitz Chaim – in loving memory of Joyce Fienberg, z”l, one of the 11 Tree of Life martyrs, and her late husband, Dr. Steven Fienberg, z”l. That sacred community once again has brought new life to the exhortation that has motivated Jewish people for millennia: “Am Yisrael chai,” “The people of Israel live.”

To this profound demonstration of the very best of Jewish values and resilience, I fervently add the resounding response to the Tree of Life verdict from the thousands of members of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty, chanting “l’chaim!” – “to life!”

The Democracy Now! TV interview ended with a video clip of the El Maleh Rachamim for the 11 Tree of Life martyrs that I chanted in front of the U.S. Supreme Court while the trial was taking place, as part of the Annual Fast and Vigil to Abolish the Death Penalty. No matter where TV viewers and readers stand on the death penalty, it is most appropriate for that memorial prayer for the victims to be the final words here.

Zichronam livracha, may the beloved memories of the 11 Tree of Life martyrs be for an everlasting blessing.

May their neshamot / spirits be loving guides for us all.

May their loved ones be comforted among all the mourners of Zion and Israel from a grief the likes of which most human beings like me never could begin to fathom.

May the killings end.

Cantor Michael J. Zoosman, MSM, BCC, served as cantor of Congregation Beth Israel 2008-2012 and as Jewish prison chaplain for Correctional Service of Canada, Pacific Region, 2009-2012. He is the co-founder of L’chaim: Jews Against the Death Penalty and an advisory committee member of Death Penalty Action.

Goats out in the wilderness

Let’s talk about goats. When I was doing research for my book Fiber Gathering, about U.S. fibre festivals, which attract thousands of people, I learned lots about goats. But what do goats, which produce milk, fibre and meat, have to do with Judaism?

In Leviticus, we read precise descriptions of the high priests’ clothing. One may scoff about the details, but I bet you’re wearing clothes. In many Torah portions, Jews think a lot about textiles. (If you don’t, you should! You’d be cold without clothes.)

We read rigid rules for sacrifice, how we should eat and how we should behave in terms of intimacy towards our partners and family. This is also the text that includes the most discriminatory and misunderstood interpretations of homosexuality.

Like any good Jewish parent, the Almighty offers us strict guidelines in Leviticus. There are things we should and shouldn’t do. However, there’s also an acknowledgement of our humanity. We make mistakes. There are times when we won’t understand how to behave, so here, too, is a Temple sacrifice procedure. This forgiveness process turns into part of our modern Yom Kippur service. We learn how Aaron makes a sacrifice to atone for the “strange fire” that his sons, Nadav and Abihu, brought to G-d and how they were killed for it. Part of Aaron’s prescribed ritual includes sending a goat named Azazel out into the wilderness. The goat carries away the people’s sins, and it lives.

My husband, a biologist, struggled a bit with this but felt comforted that, of all the domesticated animals to be cast out, goats could survive in the wilderness. I remembered the goat cheese we ate at the Taos Fibre Festival in New Mexico. We met the farmer who raised the goats and made cheese. He told us how he lived off the grid. He had to drive hours on a dirt road just to get to his mailbox, and several hours farther to get to town.

Every day, his goats are sent out into the desert to forage along with their guard dogs. Some shepherds keep dogs, others use donkeys or llamas to protect their flocks. This man described how his goats were free range and how they returned each night. He milked these goats and his cheese varied according to where they had grazed and the season. It was truly “wild” cheese – and most of his goats did fine, despite the desert predators.

While we try to follow rules, we are also aware that things change in our world. Like the goats, we are susceptible to danger. A recent JTA article (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) pointed out ways that congregations are preparing for “the next Pittsburgh” by changing the ways congregations protect themselves. The first 911 call in Pittsburgh came from the Sabbath-observant rabbi, who was persuaded the year before to carry a cellphone for emergency use. In the Poway shooting, Steve Vaus, Poway’s mayor, indicated that congregants acted quickly, using training they had received right after the murders in Pittsburgh.

A few years ago, I heard an upsetting story about our responses to potential danger. One day, a religious man was praying when the congregation’s alarm went off. He was concentrating. Although he knew how to shut off the alarm, he didn’t stop praying to silence it. A woman who worked at the shul lived nearby, heard the alarm and came running to help. Perhaps she wasn’t perfectly dressed (according to her community’s standard). She wasn’t calm – but she took her responsibilities seriously and rushed towards the emergency to help. Later, the praying man belittled the woman for being flustered and for not dressing properly. He didn’t acknowledge her speed and bravery. When she ran, she didn’t know it was a false alarm. She made herself vulnerable for the sake of her community.

I didn’t witness that “false” alarm, nor was I there when people acted bravely during the Pittsburgh or the Poway tragedies. However, we must read these situations critically, in the same way we read Leviticus. We continue to face conflicts and emergencies. Along with the rigid everyday humdrum, there’s a vulnerability that we face in the wilderness (the world).

Some feel Leviticus’s rigidity can make us wary of making mistakes or of finding solace in religion. Others suggest these rules create life’s order. We are all different. Yet, we must all cope with changes, surprises and danger. We might get cold in our environment and need to know what to wear. We might be surprised or do the wrong thing in the midst of prayer. We face danger. We are truly vulnerable out there in the world and before G-d, just like the goats.

Parents, like goatherds, have to trust that, after we offer our kids structure and skills, they will make it out there and come home again. We have to hope that our children and congregations will be sturdy and flexible enough when danger arises.

In Leviticus, the goat, Azazel, bore our sins and was alive and at risk. In a sense, we are those goats. We seek divine rules and structure, while at the same time coping with a world that requires us to think critically, adapt and be ready for whatever may happen next. It’s a wilderness out there. We must think on our feet.

I applaud those leaders who run towards the danger as Lori Gilbert Kaye, z’l, did, risking everything, and who follow the spirit rather than the letter of the law. Pittsburgh’s Rabbi Jeffrey Myers saved lives because he made an emergency cellphone call. Our religious traditions evolve. We no longer make sacrifices at the Temple. It’s important to reconsider our habits at many other occasions other than just Yom Kippur.

I’ve been belittled sometimes because I write about knitting. Yet, we wear clothes. According to Leviticus, that’s important. Also important? Being vulnerable to both the Divine, and to change. I keep that goat-in-the-wilderness image alive. We can meet these real-life challenges if we open up our minds to what’s really out there, bring a guard dog and avoid embracing rigid biases.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. See more about her at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.