While the claim that tradition forbids those with tattoos from being buried in a Jewish cemetery is without merit, it is indeed true that Leviticus, and rabbinic law, strictly prohibit tattooing. According to Moses Maimonides, the proscription is a response to the pagan practice of inscribing the names of deities on one’s flesh. Menachem Levine suggests some additional explanations:

Historically, slave-owners tattooed their slaves to prove ownership, just as cowboys branded their cattle. Perhaps that was a reason that the depraved Nazis tattooed human beings at Auschwitz. In addition to a practical solution that enabled them to keep track of prisoners, it also served to dehumanize their victims and strip them of their unique identity. The formerly-free individual was now nothing more than a number, mere property of the Reich. As human beings we have a desire for freedom and an innate sense of our uniqueness. Tattooing the body does not reflect that ideal.

Our lives, [moreover], are given to us for a purpose, and our time is meant to be used to accomplish our unique mission. Similarly, our body is on loan from our Creator to fulfill our job with it. Self-inflicted gashes, excessive body piercings, or tattoos all bespeak a lack of respect and reverence for the body, and hence, for the body’s true Owner and Designer. Tattooing one’s body can be compared to etching a name onto someone else’s freshly poured cement. It is defacing property that does not belong to us.

The latter explanation is brought into stark relief by the situations in which contemporary halakhists have permitted tattooing. These, Levine explains, involve not just “pressing medical needs” but also cases where a tattoo can serve to “preserve human dignity,” such as “scar removal, reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy, or blemish corrections.” Thus rabbinic thought understands the body, and its appearance, not as a material shell to be transcended, but as an expression of the sanctity and majesty with which God has endowed mankind.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.