(RNS) — Judaism is a religion that values all human life equally. The foundation is written in Genesis 1:27, which states that humans were all created in the image of God. And while all the religions that hold Genesis in their canon of sacred texts differ in interpretation, Judaism is clear that every human life is a world unto itself, a line well known from the Mishnah (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5) quoted in the movie “Schindler’s List.” 

So how can it be that lawmakers in Israel — a country that purportedly bases itself on Jewish teachings and values — approved a death penalty law and tribunal that only apply to one class of people?

As part of a congregation that lost 11 members in a violent antisemitic attack against our synagogue and two others in Pittsburgh in 2018, I know the pain of loss through terror. But perhaps the best rationale against the death penalty is that given by the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel in a speech at Wesleyan University in 2010: “I know the pain of those who sur­vive. … Your wound is open. It will remain. You are mourn­ing, and how can I not feel the pain of your mourn­ing? But death is not the answer.” 

Of course, there are other texts in the Hebrew Bible, a famous one being the lex talionis, which reads, “thou shalt give life for life” (Exodus 21: 23, Leviticus 24:18), and in Leviticus, “he that kills a man, he shall be put to death.”(Leviticus 24:20). It is repeated in Deuteronomy 19:21, for good measure. And yet, even within the Hebrew Bible there is a drawing back, a sense that this is not absolutely applicable in all situations. The Book of Numbers notes a contingency, saying that in some cases, rather than be put to death, an assailant should be banished to a city of refuge where the family of the victim cannot seek revenge if the killing was done accidentally and without malice (Numbers 35:9-34). We see that even within the Bible, there are exceptions to what might seem in a literal reading to be an absolute rule.

The death penalty is not just a problem from the stance of whether Jews have the right, in the absence of an authoritative court, to put others to death, as I have written previously. The state of Israel has claimed that it upholds modern Jewish values. Until now, the death penalty has been used in Israel only with the architect of the “Final Solution,” Adolf Eichmann. Even then, there were those, most famously the theologian Martin Buber, who thought it wrong, despite the guilt of the accused. Buber did not want other Germans to think that once Eichmann was put to death they could feel less guilty for their own roles in the Holocaust.

In modern times, rabbis have effectively done away with the death penalty. The prevailing modern Jewish opinion is that it is for God to avenge guilt — not humans.

The other looming problem with the law the Israeli Knesset passed in March is that it provides different punishments for different classes of people; the law only allows for the execution of Palestinians convicted of terror charges — not Jews charged with similar crimes. In fact, it mandates the death penalty for Palestinians in the West Bank who are convicted of killing Jews there, according to The Times of Israel.

The Hebrew Bible is unequivocal that this is not right: “There shall be one law for the citizen and for the stranger who dwells among you.” (Exodus 12:49, with parallels in Leviticus 24:22 and Numbers 15:15). Or, as member of Knesset and Reform Rabbi Gilad Kariv has stated of the death penalty bill, “This is an immoral law that contradicts the foundational values of the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, and the provisions of international law that Israel has undertaken to uphold.” 

Rather, a just society creates conditions for all to flourish. In his commentary on the Exodus verse, the late Bible scholar Nahum Sarna said the aforementioned religious law gave all residents the enjoyment of many rights and privileges, including Sabbath rest, the sabbatical year off and access to cities of refuge. In other words, a society with laws governed by the Jewish religion should create fairness for all.

It is still unclear whether the Israeli Supreme court will permit the law, which many legal experts say is unconstitutional. The Arab-majority Hadash-Ta’al political party has said the law “is not merely a punitive measure — it is an official declaration of the institutionalization of apartheid and racism, and the transformation of the legal system into yet another tool in the violent political repression of the Palestinian people.” The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, has condemned it as well, saying it is “patently inconsistent with Israel’s international law obligations, including in relation to the right to life.”

One of the main drives of the bill is to prevent terrorists from being freed in prisoner exchanges, as Yahya Sinwar was in 2011. He ended up becoming the master planner of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. However, death penalty opponent Cantor Michael Zoosman has a simple solution, writing in The Jerusalem Post, “What they fail to recog­nize is that Israel can avoid this out­come simply by chan­ging the law to for­bid includ­ing any­one dir­ectly involved in murder in any future pris­oner exchanges, without excep­tion. Such legis­la­tion would solve the prob­lem without cre­at­ing new mar­tyrs around whose memory other ter­ror­ists would assuredly rally.” And as has been demonstrated in many countries, the death penalty is no deterrent to future criminals, as its advocates claim.

A bill that contradicts the value of all human life, the value of having one law for all and that will not deter criminals is clearly wrong. And as Wiesel said, death will not be the right answer in Israel or anywhere else in the world. 

(Beth Kissileff is co-editor of “Bound in the Bond of Life: Pittsburgh Writers Reflect on the Tree of Life Tragedy.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)