A Jewish Movement to Abolish the Death Penalty

As Texas inmate John Hummel was executed on Wednesday evening for killing his pregnant wife, 5-year-old daughter, and father-in-law in 2009, Cantor Michael Zoosman was reciting Kol Nidre to a crowd of protestors at the U.S. Supreme Court. Zoosman, a former prison chaplain and founder of L'chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty, says he recited the sacred Yom Kippur prayer to "atone for the national sin of the death penalty." His prayer was part of the 28th annual "Starvin' for Justice," a four-day liquid-only fast and vigil starting June 29, co-sponsored by several abolitionist organizations. "The death penalty says infinitely more about our society that allows it than the human beings condemned by it," he says.