Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Charges Unlikely for Advocates of Killings

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein is tending toward not prosecuting the author or endorsers of the controversial book “Torat Hamelech,” Haaretz has learned.

The book, written in 2009 by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira and Rabbi Yosef Elitzur, was endorsed by two other rabbis, Yitzhak Ginzburg and Dov Lior. The authors describe it as a discussion of Jewish law on the conditions under which it is permissible to kill a non-Jew in times of war and peace.

The book’s publication led to the launch of a criminal investigation against the four rabbis for incitement to racism and violence.

According to one statement in the book, “when we come upon a non-Jew who is not keeping the seven [Noahide] laws, and we kill him out of concern for the keeping of the seven laws, it is not prohibited.”

Weinstein is expected to explain that he is basing his decision on limiting the use of criminal law as a tool to deal with offenses involving freedom of expression, particularly in light of the fact that the statements were made as part of a religious tract, as general statements, and the book mentions neither the word “Arab” nor the word “Palestinian.”

For more, go to Haaretz.com

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.