Abstract
The subject of security has undergone significant changes in recent years. For the better part of the past century, security studies had as its goal the examination of international affairs with the hope of finding ways to minimize armed conflict between nations. However, in the past decade or two, security specialists have recognized that security defined in this fashion is of little utility. Human beings may live in a world devoid of war but still be miserable if their lives are endangered by a host of factors in other realms, such as the economy, the environment, and politics. The focus of recent explorations of security has therefore shifted away from the security of states to the security of individuals, with an interest in examining the nexus of factors that affect the individual’s physical well-being.
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Reference
For the imperative to marry, see B.T. Kiddushin 29b; Yevamot 63a; to have children, see M. Yevamot 6:6; B.T. Yevamot 6Ia-64a; to be employed, see Mekhilta de-R. Shimon bar Yohai 20:9; Genesis Kabbah 16:8.
See Kimelman 1968 for a discussion of third and fourth-century rabbinic sources supporting non-violence.
Kimelman argues that discretionary wars are still appli-cable in the modern era (Kimelman 1991: 265, 282–3). His opinion, however, appears to be in the minority. There is a debate in rabbinic sources about how one classifies a pre-emptive war against an enemy that one fears will attack but has not done so yet. According to one opinion, pre-emptive war is essentially defensive and is therefore permitted. According to another opin-ion, it is discretionary because the enemy has not yet struck and war cannot be defensive until the threat is ac-tual. Therefore, it is not permitted. Yet, even though rabbinic sources discuss pre-emptive war as a separate category, its permissibility is still dependent on the ques-tion of whether or not it is defensive. See B.T. Sotah 44b; Gendler 1978: 198-9; Bleich 1989: 251-92; Kimel-man 1991: 267-8; Dorff 2002, 167.
This is just a sampling of the difficulties which the notion of human rights raises for Judaism. For a fuller discussion of these and other difficulties, see Breslauer 1993: 3–21.
See Cohn 1984 who attempts to do this. 11 However, Jewish law involving ritual, family laws, mar-riage, and divorce were always under the exclusive juris-diction of the rabbis
According to another approach, some Halakhic author-ities recognized the community as having the status of a rabbinic court. Communal amendments were therefore justified because the community as a whole effectively had rabbinic authority. Another important precedent for conferring authority on communal leaders in mat-ters of Halakhah is found in Talmudic sources which recognize that “the townspeople” (beney ha-’ir) could impose legislation on themselves regarding monetary matters (Elon 1974c: 645, 1983: 188–191; Walzer/Lorber-baum/Zohar: 378–439).
This theme permeates prophetic writings. See, for instance, Isaiah 1: 10–16.
A number of studies attempt to apply the laws of charity in Judaism to modern social and international policies: see, for example, Tamari 1987; Levine 1993; Dorff 2002: 126-59.
There is an extensive literature on the relationship between religion and state in Israel. Some of the more recent studies include Sharkansky 2005, 2000; Efron 2003; Cohen/Susser 2000.
Studies of religious Zionism include Sprinzak 1991; Rav-itzky 1996.
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Eisen, R. (2008). Human Security in Jewish Philosophy and Ethics. In: Brauch, H.G., et al. Globalization and Environmental Challenges. Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace, vol 3. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75977-5_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75977-5_16
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