Beyond the Sword: Jewish Nonviolence and the Politics of Liberation

Jewish thought has long been animated by two symbolic poles: the book and the sword, representing the ethical traditions that sustain Jewish life on one hand and military power on the other. This paper examines the tensions between these two poles in the contemporary moment, when Jewish identity is often conflated with Zionism and Israeli state violence. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper analyzes three contemporary expressions of Jewish nonviolence: (1) Israeli conscientious objectors; (2) “safety through solidarity” initiatives in American Jewish communities seeking alternatives to armed security; and (3) Jewish activists engaged in protective presence and co-resistance in the West Bank. Framed through the dual legacy of the Warsaw Ghetto represented by the Ghetto uprising and the Oneg Shabbos archives, the paper argues that Jewish nonviolence is both a necessary strategy and an urgent ethical response to the political crises of our time rooted in Jewish traditions.