Jewish Texts Permit Celebrating the Death of Enemies

Strangely, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach missed that distinction, and in a Jerusalem Post article (“Hate Ismail Haniyeh, but don’t celebrate his death,” August 1), he claims that Judaism frowns on celebrating Haniyeh’s demise. This is the second time Boteach has made this erroneous claim on the pages of The Jerusalem Post, utilizing the same misquotes. The previous time was in a nearly identical article in October 2019, regarding the raid by US Special Forces that saved the world from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the then-leader and self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State terrorist organization.