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An Eye for an Eye?
A page of Talmud. Photo: Chajm Guski/Wikimedia
JNS.org – I once heard a story about two Jews back in Russia who got into a terrible argument. Their blood pressure was rising fast. One fellow got so incensed that he shouted, “I am so angry at what you’ve done to me that I… uh… I uh… I know: I won’t go to your funeral!”
Whereupon the other guy very calmly replied: “I don’t take revenge. I will go to your funeral.”
While other cultures sanction and may even encourage revenge, in Judaism revenge is explicitly forbidden (Leviticus 19:18).
Some Muslim countries still practice amputation as a punishment for stealing. It seems anathema to the modern mind. Yet in this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, we find that famous line: “An eye for an eye … a hand for a hand … a wound for a wound.”
Why?
The Talmud in Bava Kama explains that never in Jewish history was “an eye for an eye” understood literally. It was understood as the value of an eye for an eye; a monetary compensation, rather than an act of pure vengeance with no positive purpose. The Talmud offers several logical proofs as to why this is so.
Besides, taking out the culprit’s eye will not bring back the victim’s eye. It does nothing for him. But financial compensation can help. It brings some relief to the victim and an element of atonement for the perpetrator.
In Judaism, there is no such thing as punishment that is purely punitive. A generation of teachers punished their ill-behaved students by making them stand in the corner, wear a dunce cap or write 500 times, “I will not throw spitballs at the teacher.” What rehabilitative effect did that have? Probably, it only made the students angrier and they behaved worse than they had before.
The concept of imprisonment does not exist in Judaism. We find it only in a handful of circumstances in which the penalty for the crime was not yet known and the guilty party was temporarily put in a holding cell.
In the Torah, besides monetary compensation, there are mainly two types of punishment: Lashes, which would no doubt serve as a very serious deterrent to repeating the crime, and capital punishment for extreme crimes like murder. Though rarely enforced, the death penalty was on the statute books. There are times when a person’s sin is so grave that their only atonement can be giving up their own life. But prison as a punishment didn’t feature at all.
How successful is our prison system today? In the U.S., they have been calling prisons “correctional centers” for many years now. But the number of rehabilitated prisoners whose way of life has been “corrected” is, sadly, very low. Most of those released become repeat offenders and end up right back where they came from.
The very same verse in Leviticus that forbids revenge also prohibits even bearing a grudge. But while Jews are not meant to practice revenge, Jewish law would hand down penalties that required the offender to atone for his offense. This was not punitive, but spiritually rehabilitative. Someone guilty of manslaughter, for example, would be exiled to a city of refuge. He did it accidentally, it wasn’t premeditated murder, but by going into exile the wrongdoer would atone for taking another’s life, albeit inadvertently.
“Sweet revenge” is sanctioned all too often in society today. On radio talk shows people are invited to share their stories of how they retaliated against someone who wronged them. We are even subjected to the shocking and shameful phenomenon of “revenge porn” and many people consider it appropriate or, worse still, funny.
I remember that while I was growing up in my parents’ home in Brooklyn, I once overheard them discussing how to react to someone who had wronged them quite badly. In the end, they decided not to respond in kind, as they were not prepared to stoop to the level of the person who hurt them.
Indeed, it is the mark of a true mensch to do the right thing, even when others around you are not. As the legendary Hillel taught in Pirkei Avot, “Where there are no men, strive to be a man.” A “real man,” a true mensch, always does the right thing, whether it is popular or not.
Or, as a witty gentleman once put it, “Be nice to your enemies. It’ll drive them crazy!”
I think of Israel today. The IDF is not on any revenge mission in Gaza. It is conducting a campaign to prevent future massacres by unrepentant terrorists who promise to do it again and again unless they are stopped. This is not revenge. This is saving innocent lives. God bless them.
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European Jewish Leaders Demand EU Action After Belgian Police Raid Mohels’ Homes, Raising Religious Freedom Concerns
Police pictured at an Anderlecht supporters village at the Atomium, before the final of the ‘Croky Cup’ Belgian soccer cup, between Club Brugge and RSC Anderlecht, May 4, 2025. Photo: BELGA/HATIM KAGHAT via Reuters Connect
Dozens of European Jewish leaders are calling on the European Union to take action against Belgium over recent police raids on the homes of several trained circumcisers known as mohels — a move that has drawn sharp criticism and intensified fears over growing restrictions on religious practices.
On Wednesday, 60 rabbis and Jewish community leaders, led by the European Jewish Association (EJA), urged European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to call on the Belgian government to address the mounting concerns of Jewish communities regarding the recent raids.
In a formal letter, they argued that the Belgian police’s actions “represent a breach of an EU fundamental right, that of freedom of religion” and warned that this “echoes one of the darkest chapters in European history.”
“This alarming action directly targets Brit Milah — a sacred commandment that has been safely practiced by the Jewish people for thousands of years across the world,” the EJA wrote in a post on X.
“Out of deep concern for the preservation of religious rights and the protection of Jewish communities in Europe, the European Jewish Association has launched an urgent and coordinated campaign to defend Brit Milah,” the statement read.
On May 14, Antwerp police raided the homes of three mohels, confiscated religious instruments, and demanded a registry of circumcised infants. This alarming action directly targets Brit Milah — a sacred commandment that has been safely practiced by the Jewish people for thousands… pic.twitter.com/N2WqVG3ysd
— EJA – EIPA (@EJAssociation) July 16, 2025
In May, Belgian authorities raided the homes of several mohels in Antwerp, a northern Belgian city, seizing their circumcision tools after a local anti-Zionist Jewish rabbi filed a complaint.
A mohel is a trained practitioner who performs the ritual circumcision in Jewish tradition known as a bris.
Among the homes raided by the Belgian police was that of Rabbi Aharon Eckstein, a highly experienced mohel and a prominent leader within the Antwerp Jewish community.
According to a police report, the searches were ordered by a judge following a complaint filed in 2023 by Rabbi Moshe Aryeh Friedman — an anti-Zionist activist previously accused of Holocaust denial — against Eckstein and other mohels within the Jewish community.
In his complaint, Friedman accused six mohels of endangering infants by performing the metzitzah b’peh ritual, in which the mohel uses his mouth to suction blood from the circumcision area.
However, Eckstein and other rabbis, along with parents of children circumcised by them, have denied such accusations, insisting that they do not perform this practice.
In Antwerp, Friedman is known for publicly criticizing several customs that are important to ultra-Orthodox Jews, who represent the majority of the city’s 18,000 Jewish residents.
“Circumcision is much more than a key tenet of Judaism,” the letter read. “It is what defines the Jewish male, a religious commandment.”
“It represents a core pillar of our faith and a practice carried out over millennia without incidents by meticulous and highly-trained mohalim,” it continued.
Along with their formal letter, the EJA included an open letter from 19 doctors across Europe affirming that “the benefits of male circumcision greatly outweigh the potential negatives, over the lifetime of a male.”
“In our shared experience, those performing the circumcision — known as Mohalim within the Jewish communities — have studied extensively, are proficient in anatomy and hold the required medical experience,” the letter said.
“They are, with their inter-generational experience transmitted for millenia, more than capable of carrying out the procedure,” it added.
Despite several attempts to ban the practice across Europe, ritual circumcision remains legal in all European countries, though many, including Belgium, limit the practice to licensed surgeons and often perform it in a synagogue.
The post European Jewish Leaders Demand EU Action After Belgian Police Raid Mohels’ Homes, Raising Religious Freedom Concerns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Half Human’: Antisemitism Rampant in Ontario Public Schools, New Canadian Report Says
Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters, primarily university students, rally at Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square on Oct. 28, 2023. Photo by Sayed Najafizada/NurPhoto
Antisemitism has been rampant in public schools of the Canadian province of Ontario since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, according to a new report published by the country’s federal government.
Nazi salutes in the hallways, assaults, pronouncements of solidarity with the aims of Hitler’s Final Solution coupled with expressions of regret that he did not live to “finish the job,” and teachers converting their classrooms into outposts for the distribution of anti-Zionist propaganda compose the background of the lives of Jewish students in the province, the report says. One teacher, it added, even called a student “half human” after learning that she has one Jewish parent.
Written by University of Toronto sociology professor emeritus Robert Brym, the report is based on data drawn from interviews conducted with 599 Jewish parents as well as nearly 800 reports of incidents of antisemitic hatred which took place in Ontario public schools, roughly three-fourths of which occurred in the Toronto District School Board, Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, and York Region District School Board systems.
Toronto specifically was the site of 61 percent of the incidents, part of a broader trend in which Ontario’s largest city, home to half of Canada’s 400,000 Jews, has seen a surge in antisemitism following the Oct. 7 atrocities. Last year, 40 percent of all hate crimes reported to law enforcement involved antisemitic bigotry, according to police data.
“The 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing Israeli retaliation in Gaza provoked a three-month outburst of hostility against Jewish K-12 students such as never before seen in Ontario schools,” Brym wrote. “One is immediately struck by the high percentage of responses that have nothing to do with Israel or the Israel-Hamas war. More than 40 percent of responses involve Holocaust denial, assertions of excessive Jewish wealth or power, or blanket condemnation of Jews — the kind of accusations and denunciations that began to be expunged from the Canadian vocabulary and mindset in the 1960s and were, one would have thought, nearly totally forgotten by the second decade of the 21st century.”
Some 30,000 Jewish school-age children live in Ontario, according to the report, which was commissioned by the Office of the Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, Deborah Lyons, in order to provide a picture of the situation in Ontario schools.
Brym noted that many Jewish students abstain from reporting antisemitic discrimination due to fear of “being ostracized, re-victimized, or physically harmed.” In lieu of pursuing a course of action which guards their civil rights, they resort to effacing “visible symbols of their Jewishness,” which, he explained, “suppresses the visibility of the problem and contributed to the undercounting of incidents.” He recommended that school boards correct the hostile environments on their grounds by applying the widely adopted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and recognizing the Zionist component of Jewish identity, which is often the target of antisemitic bullies.
“This report exposes an appalling reality that far too many Jewish students face antisemitism and harassment on a regular basis, and worse yet, many schools are failing to take the necessary steps to protect them,” Michael Levitt, chief executive officer and president of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, a human rights nonprofit which raises awareness of discrimination and racial intimidation, said in a statement responding to the Canadian government’s findings. “These latest revelations are a searing indictment of what we’ve been hearing anecdotally for some time now.”
He added, “While the Ontario government and some school boards are making an effort to bring antisemitism training and Holocaust education to staff and students, our education must do more to root out antisemitism and hold perpetrators accountable. There must be a genuine commitment by schools and school boards to ensure every student, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, feels welcome and safe.”
Antisemitism infects all levels of Canadian society, as The Algemeiner has previously reported, from the streets to the halls of government. Following the Oct. 7 attack, the Toronto Police Service (TPS) issued data showing that Jews had been the victims of 57 percent of all hate crimes, with 56 of the 98 hate crimes that occurred in the city from Oct. 7 to Dec. 17 being documented as antisemitic. Compared to the same period in 2022, the number of hate crimes targeting the Jewish community during that period more than tripled.
During all of 2023, Jews were the victims of 78 percent of religious-based hate crimes in Toronto, according to police-reported data. Overall in Canada, Jewish Canadians were the most frequently targeted group for hate crimes, with a 71 percent increase from the prior year.
In 2024, according to the latest TPS data, Jews were the victims of over 80 percent of religious-based hate crimes in Toronto.
“These numbers reflect a disturbing reality: antisemitism in our city is growing more aggressive, more visible, and more tolerated,” Michelle Stock, vice president of the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said in May, commenting on the statistics. “Jewish Canadians — like all Canadians — deserve to feel safe. It’s time for governments to match words with actions.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Half Human’: Antisemitism Rampant in Ontario Public Schools, New Canadian Report Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel to Raise Defense Spending to Meet Security Challenges
Israeli tanks are positioned near the Israel-Gaza border, in Israel, March 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel will raise defense spending by 42 billion shekels ($12.5 billion) in 2025 and 2026, the finance and defense ministries said on Thursday, citing the country’s security challenges.
The budget agreement will allow the Defense Ministry to “advance urgent and essential procurement deals critical to national security,” the ministries said in a statement.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the new defense budget “fully covers the intense fighting in Gaza, alongside comprehensive security preparations for all threats — from the south, the north, and more distant arenas.”
Israel‘s military costs have surged since it launched its military offensive on Gaza following the deadly attacks by Hamas terrorists on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Since then, Israel has also fought Hezbollah in Lebanon and waged a 12-day air war with Iran, and carried out airstrikes in Syria this week after vowing to destroy government forces attacking Druze in southern Syria and demanding they withdraw.
Over the past 21 months, Israel‘s missile defense systems have been working almost daily to intercept missiles fired by Hezbollah, Iran, and Houthis in Yemen.
Current annual defense spending is 110 billion shekels – about 9 percent of gross domestic product – out of a total 2025 budget of 756 billion shekels.
The extra budgetary funding “will allow the Defense Ministry to immediately sign procurement deals for the weapons and ammunition required to replenish depleted stocks and support the IDF’s ongoing operations,” said Amir Baram, director general of the Defense Ministry.
It would also enable the defense establishment to initiate development programs to strengthen the Israel Defense Forces’ qualitative edge for future systems, he said.
MULTIPLE SCENARIOS
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the funds would allow Israel to prepare for multiple scenarios since “enemies are openly declaring their intent to destroy us … For this we require complete military, technological, and operational superiority.”
Separately, the Defense Ministry said it had signed a deal with state-run Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to accelerate serial production of Arrow interceptors.
The Arrow, developed and manufactured in cooperation with the US Missile Defense Agency, is a missile defense system designed to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles.
The Arrow had a high interception rate during the conflicts with Hamas and Iran. As part of the deal, IAI will supply the military with a significant additional amount of Arrow interceptors.
“The numerous interceptions it carried out saved many lives and significantly reduced economic damage,” Baram said.
On Wednesday, the ministry signed a $20 million deal with Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) to supply advanced machine guns aimed at significantly enhancing the IDF ground forces’ firepower capabilities.
($1 = 3.3553 shekels)
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