Shlomo Brody on What the Jewish Tradition Says about Going to War

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2024

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last month, host Jonathan Silver spoke with the rabbi Shlomo Brody about Jewish military ethics. They spoke, in particular, about the Jewish ethical tradition’s conception of right conduct once a war has begun: how one ought to calibrate the force of a maneuver to the threat it is meant to neutralize, how one ought to balance collateral damage and civilian casualties with force protection, and other related questions. This week, Brody joins Silver once again to discuss the reasons nations go to war—that is, to discern in Jewish history, Jewish text, and the drama of modern Zionism, the ethical parameters of thinking about going to war in the first place. As with their previous conversation, this conversation is informed by Brody’s recently published book, Ethics of Our Fighters.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In early May of this year, I spoke with the rabbi, Shlomo Brody, about Jewish military ethics.
0:13.1	We spoke in particular about the Jewish ethical tradition's conception of right conduct in war.
0:20.3	That subject concerns questions, such as how one ought to
0:24.3	calibrate the force of a maneuver to the threat it's meant to neutralize, how one ought to
0:30.0	balance collateral damage and civilian casualties with force protection, and other related
0:35.9	questions. This week, Rabbi Brody joins me once again
0:39.8	to discuss the reasons men go to war to begin with. We try to discern in Jewish history,
0:46.2	Jewish texts, and the drama of modern Zionism, the ethical parameters of thinking about
0:52.0	going to war in the first place.
0:59.8	Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. Just like our previous conversation,
1:05.1	this one is inspired by Rabbi Brody's recently published book, Ethics of Our Fighters.
1:10.1	If you enjoy this conversation, you can subscribe to the Tikva podcast on Apple Podcasts,
1:11.3	Google Play, and Spotify.
1:15.8	I hope you'll leave us a five-star review to help us grow this community of ideas.
1:21.3	I welcome your feedback on this or any of our other podcast episodes at podcast at tikfafund.org. And of course, if you want to learn more about our work at Tikva, you can
1:26.7	visit our website, Tikva, you can visit our website,
1:28.0	tikfafund.org, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
1:31.8	Here now is my conversation with Rabbi Shlomo Brody.
1:36.0	Rabbi Brody, welcome back to the Tikva podcast.
1:39.4	Always wait to be here, John.
1:41.3	Last time in our conversation about military ethics, we spoke about the ethical conduct
1:46.6	of Jewish and Israeli soldiers in war.
	...

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