Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T15:31:25.416Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Series:   Elements in Religion and Violence

Judaism and Violence

A Historical Analysis with Insights from Social Psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2021

Robert Eisen
Robert Eisen
Affiliation:
George Washington University, Washington DC

Summary

This Element explores the potential in Judaism to incite Jews to engage in violence against non-Jews. The analysis proceeds in historical fashion, with sections devoted to the Hebrew Bible, rabbinic Judaism, medieval and early modern Judaism, and modern Zionism. The last topic is given special attention because of its relevance to the current Middle East conflict. This Element also draws on insights from social psychology to explain Jewish violence - particularly Social Identity Theory.
Get access

Keywords

JudaismviolenceZionismSocial Identity Theoryreligion
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in Religion and Violence
Online ISBN: 9781108935388
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 07 October 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adwan, S. D., Bar-On, D., & Naveh, E., eds. (2012). Side by Side: Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine, New York: Peace Research Institute in the Middle East.Google Scholar
Appleby, R. S. (2000). The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar
Avot de-Rabi Natan (1967). ed. Schechter, S., New York: Feldheim.Google Scholar
Bar-On, M. (1996). In Pursuit of Peace: A History of the Israeli Peace Movement, Washington, DC: The United States Institute of Peace.Google Scholar
Beiser, F. C. (2018). Hermann Cohen: An Intellectual Biography, Oxford, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Berger, M. S. (2007). Taming the Beast: Rabbinic Pacification of Second-Century Jewish Nationalism. In Wellman, J. K. Jr., ed., Belief and Bloodshed: Religion and Violence across Time and Tradition, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, pp. 47–62.Google Scholar
Biale, D. (2011). Not in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Boyarin, D. (1997). Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man, Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Brett, M. G. (1995). Nationalism and the Hebrew Bible. In Rogerson, J. W., Davies, M., & Caroll, M. D. R., eds., The Bible in Ethics, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, pp. 136–63.Google Scholar
Cohen, G. D. (1991). Esau As Symbol in Early Medieval Thought. In Studies in the Variety of Rabbinic Cultures, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, pp. 243–69.Google Scholar
Collins, J. J. (2010). The Scepter and the Star: Messianism in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2nd ed., Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing.Google Scholar
Cross, F. M. (1973). Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DellaPergola, S. (2001). Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History. In S. DellaPergola & J. Even, eds., Papers in Jewish Demography 1997, Jerusalem: Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, World Union of Jewish Studies, Association for Jewish Demography and Statistics, pp. 11–33.Google Scholar
Demmers, J. (2017). Theories of Conflict, 2nd ed., London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Efron, J., Weitzman, S., & Lehmann, M. (2013). The Jews: A History, 2nd ed., London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Eisen, R. (2011). The Peace and Violence of Judaism: From the Bible to Modern Zionism, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Eliade, M. (1971). The Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos and History, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Galtung, J. (1990). Cultural Violence. Journal of Peace Research 27(3), 291–305.Google Scholar
Goldenberg, R. (2006). The Destruction of the Temple: Its Meaning and Consequences. In Katz, S. T., ed., The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 191–205.Google Scholar
Gorenberg, G. (2006). The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967–1977, New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
Greenberg, M. (1995). Mankind, Israel, and the Nations in the Heritage, Hebraic. In Studies in the Bible and Jewish Thought, Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, pp. 369–93.Google Scholar
Hillers, D. (1969). Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hogg, M. A. (2016). Social Identity Theory. In S. McKeown, R. Haji, & N. Ferguson, eds., Understanding Peace and Conflict through Social Identity Theory, New York: Springer, pp. 3–18.Google Scholar
Holzer, E. (2009). A Double-Edged Sword: Military Activism in the Thought of Religious Zionism [in Hebrew], Jerusalem: The Hartman Institute.Google Scholar
Horsley, R. A. (1992). “Messianic” Figures and Movements in First-Century Palestine. In Charlesworth, J. H., ed., The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity, Minneapolis: Fortress, pp. 276–95.Google Scholar
Inbari, M. (2012). Messianic Religious Zionism Confronts Territorial Compromises, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jaffee, M. S. (2006). Early Judaism: Religious Worlds of the First Judaic Millennium, 2nd ed., Bethesda: University Press of Maryland.Google Scholar
Kaminsky, J. S. (2007). Yet I Loved Jacob: Reclaiming the Biblical Concept of Election, Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press.Google Scholar
Kellner, M. (1991). Maimonides on Judaism and the Jewish People, Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Kimelman, R. (2006). Rabbinic Prayer in Late Antiquity. In Katz, S. T., ed., The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 573–611.Google Scholar
Krug, E. G., Dahlberg, L. L., Mercy, J. A., Zwi, A. B., & Lozano, R. (2002). World Report on Violence and Health, Geneva: World Health Organization.Google Scholar
Liberles, R. (1995). Salo Wittmayer Baron: Architect of Jewish History, New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Lüders, A., Jonas, E., Fristche, I. & Agroskin, D. (2016). Between the Lines of Us and Them: Identity Threat, Anxious Uncertainty, and Reactive In-Group Affirmation: How Can Anti-Social Outcomes be Prevented? In McKeown, S., Haji, R., & Ferguson, N., eds., Understanding Peace and Conflict through Social Identity Theory, New York: Springer, pp. 33–54.Google Scholar
Luz, E. (2003). Wrestling with an Angel: Power, Morality, and Jewish Identity, trans. M. Swirsky, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mandel, M. (2009). Assimilation and Cultural Exchange in Modern Jewish History. In Cohen, J. & Rosman, M., eds., Rethinking European Jewish History, Oxford and Portland, OR: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, pp. 72–92.Google Scholar
Marks, R. G. (1994). The Image of Bar Kokhba in Traditional Jewish Literature: False Messiah and National Hero, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Mavor, K. I. & Ysseldyk, R. (2020). A Social Identity Approach to Religion. In Vail, K. E. III & Routledge, Clay, eds., The Science, Religion, and Spirituality of Existentialism, London: Academic Press, pp. 187–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melchior, M. (2018). Opening the Tent of Peace. In Overland, G. et al., eds., Violent Extremism in the 21st Century, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 447–52.Google Scholar
Meyer, M. A. (1988). Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Myers, J. (1991). The Messianic Idea and Zionist Ideologies. In Frankel, Jonathan, ed., Studies in Contemporary Jewry, Volume 7: Jews and Messianism in the Modern Era: Metaphor and Meaning, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 3–13.Google Scholar
Niditch, S. (1993). War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center (2016). “Israel’s Religiously-Divided Society,” www.pewforum.org/2016/03/08/israels-religiously-divided-society/.Google Scholar
Ravitzky, A. (1996). Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism, trans. M. Swirsky & J. Chipman, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ross, M. H. (1993). The Culture of Conflict: Interpretations and Interests in Comparative Perspective, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Rowlett, L. (1996). Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence: A New Historicist Analysis, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.Google Scholar
Sagi, A. (1994). The Punishment of Amalek in Jewish Tradition: Coping with the Moral Problem. Harvard Theological Review 87(5), 323–46.Google Scholar
Schiffman, L. (2006). Messianism and Apocalypticism in Rabbinic Texts. In Katz, S. T., ed., The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1053–72.Google Scholar
Scholem, G. (1971). Toward an Understanding of the Messianic Idea in Judaism. In G. Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality, New York: Schocken Books, pp. 1–36.Google Scholar
Seul, J. R. (1999). “Ours Is the Way of God”: Religion, Identity, and Intergroup Conflict. Journal of Peace Research 36(5), 553–69.Google Scholar
Shapira, A. (1992). Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881–1948, trans. W. Templer, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shimoni, G. (1995). The Zionist Ideology, Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, M. S. (2001). The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sprinzak, E. (1991). The Ascendance of Israel’s Radical Right, New York: Oxford.Google Scholar
Sprinzak, E. (1999). Brother Against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from the Altalena to the Rabin Assassination, New York: Adama Books.Google Scholar
Tigay, J. H. (2003). The JPS Commentary on the Torah: Deuteronomy, 2nd ed., Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America.Google Scholar
Tishby, I. (1989). The Wisdom of the Zohar, vol. 1, trans. D. Goldstein, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Volkan, V. D. (2007). Massive Trauma: The Political Ideology of Entitlement and Violence. Revue Française de Psychanalyse 74(4), 1047–59.Google Scholar
Wills, L. M. D. (2014). In A. Berlin & M. Z. Brettler, eds., The Jewish Study Bible, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 1635–37.Google Scholar
Wolfson, E. R. (2006). Venturing Beyond: Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ysseldyk, R., Matheson, K., & Anisman, H. (2010). Religion As Identity: Toward an Understanding of Religion from a Social Identity Perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Review 14(1), 60–71.Google Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Judaism and Violence
  • Robert Eisen, George Washington University, Washington DC
  • Online ISBN: 9781108935388
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Judaism and Violence
  • Robert Eisen, George Washington University, Washington DC
  • Online ISBN: 9781108935388
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Judaism and Violence
  • Robert Eisen, George Washington University, Washington DC
  • Online ISBN: 9781108935388
Available formats
×