ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the Jewish tradition for its approaches to war, pointing out stories of retribution, injunctions to conquer and annihilate, and the moral imperative to kill for the sake of self-preservation. It investigates the Jewish principle that life must be saved at all cost, the injunction against murder, and the understanding that every human being is a sacred representation of imago Dei. The chapter shows the intertwining values of justice and peace made famous by the Hebrew prophets and the rabbinic value placed upon proactive peacemaking. Peacemaking within and beyond the community, and warriorship for both preservation and conquest, are dual and parallel standards. The chapter elucidates how the identity of chosenness side by side with the fact of protracted Jewish historical trauma both influence the Jewish balance between war and peace on the world stage. A central theme within Jewish history relating to pacifism and warriorship is that of self-defense or self-preservation.
