Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality, by Shlomo Brody, is an excellent overview of the ethics of war as seen through disparate Jewish sources, old and new.
Rabbi Shlomo Brody tries to synthesize what are often seemingly contradictory material to come up with a framework on how to look at various topics on the battlefield and beyond.
For nearly 2,000 years, these issues were only of theoretical interest because Jews had no political power. When modern Zionism came about, it brought up a host of new questions about self defense and the ethics of war which were tackled by Jewish philosophers and rabbis.
Brody organizes the book in a roughly chronological order of specific events that occurred since the beginning of the twentieth century and the new issues that came about. In early chapters he discusses the different viewpoints of rabbis toward World War I, the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations. For example, is pacifism a Jewish ideal, as Rabbi Aharon Shmuel Tamares argued?
One question is that the rabbis grapple with is whether Jews can be protected by the international community as promised by nascent international law and the League of Nations in the interwar years. It soon became apparent that the answer was a clear "no," as Brody notes, international law's protection for minorities was mostly a quid pro quo between European countries to protect the minorities of other Europeans, while all of them continued to persecute Jews.
Should Jews fight for their own nations - especially in World War I, when they might be attacking other Jews - when it is s a challenge to keep Jewish law as a soldier? How do rabbis deal with the seemingly problematic ethics of the Torah commandments to destroy Amalek and the residents of Canaan, and if they do not apply today, why not? Should Jews in Palestine actively defend themselves from Arab violence or trust the British to protect them? Can this defense include attacking the innocent to deter future aggression?
One theme of the book is that nations might claim to be acting for the highest moral ideals but they are usually guided by self-interest, not morality. However, Jews should be in the forefront of teaching the world ethics. Indeed, most western nations learn a great deal about ethics in war from Israel, whether they admit it or not.
Brody formulates several Jewish principles that broadly inform what Judaism says about war. He calls them The Jewish Multivalue Framework for Military Ethics. It is worth listing them here:
1. Dignity of mankind: All humans, friend and foe alike, were created in the image of God. This demands us to generally grant basic dignity to any person and not to cavalierly treat people as a means toward some desired end.2. Inherent wrong of illicit bloodshed: The commandment "Thou shall not kill" is reflective of this deep theological principle and demands that we do not take a life lightly. In fact, the ability to avoid unnecessary bloodshed is one of the factors that make the Jews worthy of settling the Land of Israel.3. Individual responsibility: Individuals bear primary responsibility for their actions and should ideally bear the sole weight of responsibility for their actions.4. Vision of world peace: The ultimate biblical vision is for the cessation of all warfare and is a goal toward which humanity must aspires)5. Take up arms for the sake of justice. ls Warfare in pursuit of justice: Until the Messianic Era, the Bible calls upon its followers to take up arms for the sake of justice. This can be:- to defend oneself,- to settle the Homeland, or- to rid the world of evil.6. Warfare, by its nature, is a collective affair. This entails citizens and soldiers endangering themselves for their nation alongside a willingness to kill individual members of the enemy nation. Accordingly, warfare creates a form of communal identity and responsibility .7. National partiality: The primary responsibility of political leaders and citizens is to protect their own people. Israel goes to war even to redeem one captive. This is part of a general ethos that people have particularistic obligations to their family, comrades, community, or nation. These "associative commitments" create a moral obligation not to shirk one's responsibility to fight on behalf of the collective.8, Bravery and courage: In warfare, bravery is a virtue and fearfulness is a vice It is virtuous to worry about killing someone illicitly, like Abraham and Jacob. Nonetheless, one must still fight courageously.9. National honor: As with all actions, the honor of both God and His people is a factor. This includes:- not acting in an unethical manner that will disgrace our reputation and- not becoming a downtrodden people subjugated to mass ridicule.
He notes that they can contradict each other and circumstances will dictate which rules are more important in specific cases.
This complexity is part of the value of this framework. Too much of today's discussion of military ethics is narrowed down to a single factor: rights. Not to diminish the importance of human rights - they are rules #1 and #2 above - but there are competing values that are at play. One question Brody talks about at length is whether soldiers should endanger themselves to minimize the chances of killing civilians. While human rights advocates think this is obvious, the Geneva Conventions does not make such a requirement, and neither does any serious ethical system.
Other topics include the differences between obligatory and permissible wars, the moral dangers to the soldiers of getting too comfortable with killing, when war can be morally justified as a response to provocations that are not full attacks, and whether the "CNN Effect" of bad publicity should affect behavior in wartime. Jewish principles like dina d'malchuta dina (in terms of following international conventions) and chillul Hashem (both in terms of not allowing Jews to be persecuted as well as behaving ethically in general in wartime) are expounded upon.
Rabbi Brody's intent is to have Jewish ethics be part of the larger conversation taking place about the ethics of war. We have a lot to contribute to the issue.
Brody's knowledge is broad and wide; his extensive footnotes show how well he knows both Jewish and classic secular sources. It is a shame there is no index.
His acknowledgements are dated October 2023, and I almost wish he has waited two months to tackle the topics that have come up in the current war, some of which are a bit different than from previous Gaza wars. But it is still a timely and timeless work, and very much worth reading.
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