Transcript of Interview with Rabbi Daniel Polish

Rabbi Daniel Polish is the Director of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism. He has served in congregations, taught in universities and served in leadership capacities in Jewish organizations. Polish is currently Rabbi of Vassar Temple in New York, where he lives with his family.

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Kristin Houlé, AIUSA: For our faith tradition focus on Judaism, we are speaking with Rabbi Daniel Polish. Rabbi Polish is the director of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism. He has served in congregations, taught in universities and served in leadership capacities in numerous Jewish organizations. Welcome Rabbi Polish, we are delighted to have you as a participant in this first ever Faith in Action online event.

Rabbi Daniel Polish: Well, Kristin, I am delighted to be here and I give you a lot of credit for creating this event. I think it's terrific.

K: Thank you. Can you please start us off today with a brief overview of the perspective of Judaism on the death penalty?

Rabbi: Sure…If you talk about the Jewish tradition, you have to always start with the Bible. Our understanding of the death penalty -- as with everything else -- grows out of our reading of the Bible. The truth of the matter is, as Judaism understands the Bible, it exists in an interesting relationship with its cultural environment. The Bible on one hand reflects the cultural background out of which it grew, and on the other hand it is at odds with that background. So that, the first question you would ask is, "Does the Bible accept capital punishment?" And, you have to say yes, you can't deny that it does. It is very clear in places like Chapter 21 of the book of Exodus that the Bible accepts capital punishment, which obviously was the common attitude of that time and that part of the world. But then the Bible goes on to modify, to impose limits on the imposition of capital punishment, and I think that part becomes very interesting.

You have a society where revenge was obviously very common. The Bible goes on to virtually eliminate someone's right to avenge the death of a family member. It makes a distinction between premeditated and unpremeditated murder. In the case of an accidental or unintentional or perhaps even unpremeditated murder, it makes provisions for the murderer to flee to cities of refuge, which were on the other side of the Jordan. Well, that's really kind of a remarkable innovation for the Bible itself to make, to say that on one hand, to say yes, of course capital punishment is permissible and on the other hand, to say that there are whole classes of people that are exempted from it.

But, from the Jewish tradition, what is even more amazing is the way that the rabbis further modify capital punishment and further hem it in. In the Jewish tradition, the rabbis who wrote the Talmud were the ones who gave shape to the way that our community understands the Bible itself. Obviously, the rabbis were not going to disagree with the Bible and say that something the Bible said was wrong. But they can go on to define it in such a way that it becomes virtually inapplicable and that is what they did with capital punishment.

So that while they start out with the Bible's permission of capital punishment, they put stringent limitations on it about the way that court cases must be conducted, the way capital punishment could be applied.
They made it become virtually impossible to carry out capital punishment. They made it easier and easier to appeal a capital punishment decision. They made it easier and easier to grant stays of executions. So much so that at one point, one of the rabbis said a court of law that imposes an execution once in 70 years is branded as a "bloody court". Then another rabbi, responding to that, said actually a court that applies it -- capital punishment or an execution -- once in 70 years… And then there is a citation of two rabbis, Rabbi Tephron and Rabbi Keba, who were great rabbis, who said that if we were members of a court of law, nobody would ever be put to death.

I think that last statement rather captures the mood of the Jewish tradition in terms of capital punishment. I think that the tendency of Jewish tradition is to oppose capital punishment. I would say one other thing, Kristin, and that is that's witnessed for us by the fact that when the state of Israel was created, the chief rabbi then of Palestine wrote the first Knesset, the first Senate that met, and asked please to create laws that outlawed capital punishment all together. And the truth of the matter is, that in the 54 years that Israel has existed as a state, there has been only one person who was ever executed, and that is Adolf Eichmann. If you think about a country that has executed one person in 54 years, I think that reveals the greatest thrust of Jewish understanding of capital punishment.

K: Are there any Jewish groups or organization in the United States that have adopted similar positions of opposition to the death penalty?

Rabbi: Certainly the group that I am most familiar with, and the movement that I am most familiar with, the Reform Movement, has numbers of stated policies on record and has numbers of resolutions. The Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which is the congregational body of the Reform Movement, has numbers of resolutions in opposition to capital punishment. The Central Conference of American Rabbis, which is the rabbinical group of the Reform Movement, has numbers of resolutions on record. There used to be an organization called the Synagogue Council of America, which was made up of reform, orthodox and conservative religious communities and that had a resolution on record as opposed to capital punishment. So, you've got those groups. You've got numbers of community relations groups that have spoken out on the issue of capital punishment, including the National Jewish Community Relations Council, which are on record as opposing capital punishment. My guess is that the Jewish community by and large is a community that is pretty consistently in agreement in opposing capital punishment, opposing the death penalty.

K: Beyond the statements of opposition, what do you see as the role of the Jewish faith community, particularly Jewish faith leaders, in the movement to abolish the death penalty?

Rabbi: Right. To me, I think that on this particular issue this is one where people of faith across the different faith lines can really take the lead. All of our faith traditions teach us about the sanctity of human life. In the Jewish community, for sure, we understand the book of Genesis as teaching the sanctity of every individual human life, as embodied in the story of creation where one human being was created. So that life itself is precious even if the vessel in which life is contained is flawed.

But the other thing that all of our faith communities share, including the Jewish faith community, is an awareness of human fallibility. We understand very well that people can make mistakes and here I'm not only talking about perpetrators of crimes. Investigators of crimes can make mistakes, witnesses in trials can make mistakes, judges and juries can make mistakes. We can all understand that it is not impossible for somebody to be convicted even of murder in error. All of us are seeing numbers of instances around the country, a disturbing number of instances, where people are being freed from prison after having served years in jail for crimes that they did not commit. Imagine what would happen if someday we were to discover - and it is not at all impossible - that someone has been executed for a crime that they didn't commit. The Jewish religious community can join with other religious communities, as people of faith, sharing a commitment to the sanctity of life, sharing an awareness that people can make mistakes.

It is a wonderful opportunity for inter-group and interfaith cooperation. I think that this is an issue that is being address increasingly at the local and the state level. We can all join together across faith lines in studying the question, in formulating positions, in acting to educate the public and acting to educate our state officials.

One specific thing that occurs to me - I think all of us are familiar with the notion of vigils that are held outside of penitentiaries when someone is going to be put to death, but there is something else that I think that we could do and that is: over and over again we are seeing people released from prison. And, I think that every time somebody is freed from death row, we should have an interfaith service of welcoming of that person, as a way of publicizing both our relief that this person was spared but also as a way of publicizing the deepest implications of the fact that that person had been condemned to death and was only miraculously saved. I think that is a wonderful occasion for an interfaith joining of hands and interfaith worship.

K: Are there other ways you think we can encourage more people who are already active in faith communities to become involved in the abolition movement?

Rabbi: I think that every one of our churches and synagogues has as a piece of our own mission the engagement with social issues. I think that every church and every synagogue tries to be of service to the community, but also tries to study the issues that come before our communities. So I think that every synagogue, every church ought to take a look at capital punishment, ought to take a look at what their tradition says about capital punishment, ought to take a look at the implications for the possibility of error in judging someone to death.

And then in whatever way that individual institution is given to making its understandings known, should act on that. And that can be things as simple as writing letters to state and local and federal officials. It can be, as I mentioned before, joining with other institutions in mounting large public displays or educational undertakings. But I do believe that people that are moved by their faith can be the most powerful advocates in favor of life and against the state itself becoming an instrument of death.

K: Rabbi Polish, I want to thank you again for taking the time to share your important perspective on this issue with us. Do you have any parting words of encouragement or guidance for the activists listening to this recording?

Rabbi: Yes, I consider myself one of those activists, so that what I would say is that there have been times when we really felt that we were pushing against the tide and that our understanding was definitely a minority position and that it was very hard to get people to listen to us. I truly believe that this particular moment is a moment when American society is especially attuned to the message that we bring about abolishing the death penalty. I think that this is a time when public support is growing for this understanding of that issue, when an increasing number of people are really moving to the same understanding that we already have. So that when we have people beginning to understand things as we do, this is certainly not a time to let up but a time for increased energy, increased activity, and increased energy around getting the word out and in convincing all of our governments - local, state, and federal - to do away with this very primitive form of justice and to do away with the possibility that we could, God forbid, make a mistake and as a society, as a collective group take the life of an innocent person.

K: Thank you again Rabbi Polish. We greatly appreciate your time.

Rabbi: It was a pleasure to be with you.

K: Thank you.

Two road signs near the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, an execution site. (© Scott Langley)