THE HOSTAGES

QUESTION:

What guidance does Jewish legal tradition give us in handling situations like the recent one in which an airplane containing American citizens was hijacked and the travelers were held as hostages by their Shiite Moslem captors? (Asked by Rabbi Daniel Syme, New York.)

ANSWER:

The many-sided effort made by the United States government to free these hostages has its analogy in Jewish experience and Jewish law Actually, the Jewish experience is far more extensive and more multifarious than that of any modern government whose citizens have been held hostage. In the Jewish past, especially in the Middle Ages, large numbers of Jews (numbered into the thousands) were captured and held hostage. A description of the extent of this bitter Jewish experience may be found in Abraham’s Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, pp. 96 and 336.

Since the taking of Jews as hostages was so widespread an ex-perience, it is obvious that the Jewish legal literature had considerable material on the subject.

The first statement was by Rabbi Jochanan in the Talmud (Baba Batra 8b). He comments on the following verse in Jeremiah 15:2: ” Those who are for death will have death; those for the sword will have the sword; and those for captivity will have captivity.” Rabbi Jochanan says that these three tragedies are given in the order of ascending severity; that is to say, that captivity (being held hostage) is a greater tragedy even than war and death itself.

The relationship of the Jewish community to this constant tragedy expressed itself in the fact that there arose in various periods all over the Jewish world, special societies organized devoted to the mitzvah of rescuing hostages (Pidyan Shevuyim). The law involved in this social spiritual effort is codified in the Shulhan Arukh. It occupies all of section Yoreh Deah 252. Among the statements there which reveal the depth of the tragedy involved is that any money collected for any other charitable purpose (except the building of the synagogue) may be converted from its original purpose and used for the redemption of captives.

However, a sharp distinction must be made between the Jewish experience in the past and the modem situation. The earlier taking of captives was almost entirely the work of pirates for gain. Therefore, all that was needed was money to ransom the hostages. But the modem hijacking generally has a different purpose, not financial but political, i.e., to force a hated nation to suffer. Therefore the mere paying of money is no solution to the modem problem.

Unfortunately, modem nations when thus assaulted, have not yet found a method of dealing with the captors. The whole subject is at its very beginning and undoubtedly will be studied carefully. But so far at least, one conclusion that is tentatively arrived at in dealing with these hijackers is not to bargain with them, and certainly not to give in to their demands when that is possible, because so doing would encourage them and hijacking would increase. Some such caution in dealing with the captors is found in Jewish law. In the Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 232:2, the community is cautioned not to give too much to the captors, lest they be encouraged to increase their crimes. And also, in #336, the community is warned against trying to rescue the captives by force lest the captors will become increasingly cruel to those captives in their hands.

To sum up: Although the modern situation is chiefly political, and the older situation pecuniary, the long and bitter Jewish experience with hostages gives us, as we see above, various methods that may be deemed analogous and helpful. One thing, perhaps, may also be mentioned as a final analogy: Special societies devoted to the redemption of hostages became a method of widespread social dedication in Jewish life. So nowadays with modem methods of broadcasting communications, the communities can not only be kept informed of the latest news, but can be morally aroused as the Jewish communities were, and thus will ultimately be led to the solution of this tragic modern problem.