Peace and Conflict
Jewish Attitudes to Peace
For Jews, peace — often linked to the Hebrew idea of wholeness and completeness — is one of the highest values in the Torah. Most Jews teach that the Almighty’s ultimate purpose for humanity is peace, and that working towards it is a religious duty. However, Judaism does not teach that Jews must always refuse to fight: the Torah also sets out rules for when and how war may be conducted, showing that peace, while central, is not treated as an absolute rule that can never be broken.
Deuteronomy 20:10–12 instructs that before attacking a city, Israelites had to offer its people terms of peace first. Only if peace was refused, and the city chose to fight, could a siege begin. Even in a war the Torah permits, offering peace comes first.
Jewish teachings about the importance of peace are divergent. Some Jews argue that peace is the ultimate aim of the whole Torah, pointing to rabbinic teachings that encourage compromise and negotiation rather than conflict. Others argue that because the Torah permits war under strict conditions, peace cannot be an absolute value that overrides everything else. This divergence shapes how different Jews respond to conflicts today: some prioritise negotiation above all else, while others accept that force may sometimes be necessary to protect Jewish life and land.
The Role of Jews in Peacemaking
Peacemaking is the active work of ending conflict and restoring good relationships between people. For Jews, peacemaking depends on justice, forgiveness and reconciliation working together — a wrong must be acknowledged and corrected before real peace can exist. Pirkei Avot 1:18 teaches that the world is sustained by three things: truth, justice and peace, showing how closely these values are linked for Jews. Without truth and justice, Jews teach, any peace agreed will not last.
Jews today try to work for peace in many practical ways: taking part in interfaith dialogue with other faiths, mediating between divided communities, supporting refugees displaced by conflict, and campaigning for reconciliation where relationships have broken down. Jews who do this work usually explain that pursuing peace fulfils a religious duty and reflects the belief that a peaceful, just world is part of the Almighty’s purpose for creation.
Pirkei Avot 1:18 teaches that the world depends on three things: truth, justice and peace.
Jewish Attitudes to Conflict
Conflict can arise from many causes: disputes over land and resources, competing ideologies, or a failure to act justly towards others. Isaiah 2:1–5 pictures a future in which nations will ‘beat their swords into ploughshares’ and will no longer learn how to make war, showing conflict as something Jews should work to end, not accept as normal.
Some Jews respond to particular causes of conflict using situation ethics. Rather than saying all conflict is always wrong or always justified, they judge each cause of conflict individually, weighing the specific circumstances before deciding whether Jewish teaching supports resistance, negotiation, or acceptance.
Some non-religious thinkers, including atheists and Humanists, argue that religion itself is a major cause of conflict, pointing to wars fought in the name of religious belief throughout history. Many Jews respond that the vision of the Jewish scriptures themselves, shown in the prophet Isaiah, is one of peace and justice, and that conflict is caused by people failing to live up to religious teaching, not by religion itself. They argue that blaming religion ignores the political, economic and social causes that lie behind most wars.
Pacifism is not a single, agreed Jewish position. Some Jews reject strict pacifism, arguing that self-defence and the protection of life sometimes require force. Others point to prophetic visions of peace, such as Micah 4:1–6, which pictures a time when people will sit safely under their own vine and fig tree with nothing to fear, as evidence that non-violent solutions should always be sought first.
Passive resistance — resisting oppression without using weapons — has examples within Jewish history. Emanuel Ringelblum, a historian trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust, secretly organised the collection and hiding of documents recording ghetto life, so that the truth would survive even if its writers did not. Some Jews see this as an example of passive resistance: refusing to let injustice go unrecorded, without taking up arms.
Other Jews argue this is not full pacifism, since Jewish history also includes armed resistance, such as ghetto uprisings against Nazi persecution. This shows that Judaism does not require Jews to remain non-violent in every circumstance, even under extreme oppression.
The Just War Theory in Judaism
Judaism developed its own categories for judging when war is permitted. A Milchemet reshut is a discretionary war, needing the approval of a religious court before it could go ahead. The conditions for this kind of war are rooted in Deuteronomy 20, which requires that peace be offered first and lists exemptions from fighting, including for a man with a new house, a new vineyard, or a new marriage.
Jewish opinions are divergent about whether a Just War is possible today. Some argue that without a functioning religious court, a discretionary war in the strict biblical sense cannot be properly declared in the modern world. Others apply situation ethics instead, judging each modern conflict on its own circumstances and arguing that wars fought in self-defence still meet the basic requirements of a just cause, even without the ancient court system in place.
The conditions for a Milchemet reshut include offering peace before attacking and exempting certain people from fighting, based on the rules in Deuteronomy 20.
Milchemet mitzvah describes a commanded or obligatory war, which — unlike a discretionary war — did not need the approval of a religious court. This category included wars fought purely in self-defence, treated as a religious duty rather than a choice.
2 Samuel 22 records King David’s song of thanks to the Almighty for delivering him from his enemies and giving him victory in battle. It presents God as David’s rock and protector in war, showing that fighting could be understood as carrying out the Almighty’s will and receiving divine support, not simply a human decision.
Jewish teachings about war remain divergent. Some Jews treat Holy War as a category limited strictly to biblical history, with no equivalent today. Others argue that any war fought for Jewish survival carries similar religious weight, even without the term being used formally.
Some non-religious thinkers, including atheists and Humanists, argue that language about ‘Holy War’ is dangerous because it can be used to justify almost any violence in God’s name. Many Jews respond that the biblical categories always came with strict conditions and limits, not a blank permission for violence, and that most Jews today reject describing any current conflict as a Holy War.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) raise serious problems for Jewish teaching. They could offer benefits such as deterring attack and possibly ending a conflict quickly, but their main problem is that they cause indiscriminate destruction, harming civilians as much as combatants. This conflicts with the Jewish concept of Purity of Arms, which draws on the same principle behind Deuteronomy 20’s rules limiting harm in war: force must always be limited and directed only at what is necessary.
Some non-religious thinkers apply utilitarianism to argue that possessing WMD can be justified if it deters attack and secures peace for the greatest number of people overall. Most Jews respond that the sanctity of life and the principle of Purity of Arms make it very difficult to justify weapons that could kill huge numbers of innocent people, so building or using WMD is rejected by most Jews even where a utilitarian argument is offered in its favour.
Issues Surrounding Conflict
Violence, war and terrorism cause enormous suffering, and Jewish teaching consistently calls for this suffering to be answered with justice rather than acceptance. Psalm 10:12–18 calls on the Almighty to defend the weak, the orphan and the oppressed, and to break the power of those who commit violence against them, showing that Jews should never treat violence and terrorism as normal or acceptable.
Jews have worked to overcome these issues in various ways: campaigning against terrorism, supporting victims and their families, working through international law and organisations for justice and security, and standing in solidarity with communities affected by violence around the world.
Some non-religious thinkers argue that terrorism and violence are political and social problems that are best tackled without any reference to religion at all. Many Jews respond that the values of justice and defending the oppressed, found throughout Jewish scripture, are not obstacles to solving these problems but essential resources for doing so.
Jewish teaching on peace and conflict combines a strong duty to pursue peace, justice and forgiveness with strict, limited conditions under which war may sometimes be fought — never an unconditional permission for violence.