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- Title
DEFINING AND DEFENDING BORDERS; JUST AND LEGAL WARS IN JEWISH THOUGHT AND PRACTICE.
- Authors
Goldfeder, Mark
- Abstract
The renewal of Jewish sovereignty in 1948 presented Jewish tradition with fundamental questions. Absent national borders usually intrinsic to identity, the people had long ago turned inward toward their Law. The Diaspora-based rabbinic literature seemed to almost oppose the use of force; warfare in the text was marginalized, Biblical references to heroism reinterpreted as allegorical expressions of valor in the 'battles of the study hall.' Some saw the re-establishment of the state as a return to "real" Judaism, a chance to re-hinge national identity on borders instead of bookmarks. Halacha had no place on the battlefield. Others, however, felt that approaching war through the ethical prism of the sages was not only possible but imperative, if those who wish to fight God's wars are to remain above temptation, exercise restraint, and retain a purity of arms in the face of challenging dilemmas and unforgivable demands. This paper asks whether or not a modern army can define and live within the borders of Israel's longtime ideological homeland and surrogate refuge, i.e. inside her 'four cubits of Law,' even as it seeks to defend her reestablished physical borders in the realities of war, and under both international pressure and international legal norms.
- Subjects
JUDAISM; WAR; RELIGION; TALMUD; GEOGRAPHIC boundaries; MILITARY science; NATIONALISM; LEGAL status of refugees
- Publication
Touro Law Review, 2014, Vol 30, Issue 3, p631
- ISSN
8756-7326
- Publication type
Article