Israel Hess

Hess served as campus rabbi at Bar-Ilan University for many years.[2] A 1996 American Jewish Committee publication stated that he was still teaching at the university as a visiting lecturer.[2]

Beyond his institutional role, Hess participated in halakhic discourse. In the Tishri 5732 edition of Or ha-Mizraḥ, he reviewed whether children could emigrate to Israel over their parents' objections.[1] The discussion concerned the tension between honoring one's parents and the commandment to dwell in the Land of Israel. Hess cited the concurring opinions of the Maharik, responsum no. 166, and the Hafla'ah, Rabbi Pinchas ha-Levi Hurwitz.[1]

On February 26, 1980, Hess published an article in Bat Kol, the student publication of Bar-Ilan University; Sprinzak later described the magazine as the university students' official publication.[3][4] The title is rendered differently across the sources. Yoffie and a 1996 American Jewish Committee publication call it “The Mitzvah of Genocide in the Torah.”[2][3] Sprinzak gives “The Genocide Ruling of Torah,” while another archival essay uses “The Genocide Commandment in the Torah.”[4][5]

In Yoffie's account, Hess argued that Amalek referred to any nation that declared war against Israel and that a future religious war would involve exterminating Amalek.[3] Yoffie quotes the article as proclaiming that “God proclaims a counter-jihad” and that readers would be called upon to wage a religiously obligatory war whose purpose would be to “exterminate Amalek.”[3] He also reported that the article was later reprinted in other newspapers and that no expressions of protest followed from the Bat Kol editorial board, Bar-Ilan students, or the university administration.[3]

A 1985 study by Ehud Sprinzak, preserved in the American Jewish Archives, attributed to Hess the view that Arabs living in the Land of Israel were direct descendants of the biblical Amalekites and that extermination was the appropriate solution.[4] Sprinzak characterized this as the most extreme position within the ideological spectrum he examined and called Hess's position isolated.[4] A separate document in the Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum Collection identified Hess as the former Bar-Ilan campus rabbi, attributed to him the identification of Palestinians as present-day Amalekites, and described that explicit identification as a minority position.[5]

Later commentary made the 1980 essay the principal basis for Hess's documented public profile. A 1996 American Jewish Committee symposium described him as best known for “The Mitzvah of Genocide in the Torah.”[2] Sprinzak's 1985 study placed the view attributed to Hess at the extreme end of the spectrum it examined and called his position isolated.[4] Another archival essay described the explicit identification of Palestinians with Amalekites as coming from a minority position.[5] In the available sources, Hess's later reception centers chiefly on his Bar-Ilan role, his halakhic writing, and debate over the 1980 essay.

Later sources did not present Hess's reported interpretation as representative of Jewish religious thought. Sprinzak called the position isolated and the most extreme in the spectrum he examined, while another archival essay said that the explicit identification of Palestinians with Amalekites came from a minority.[4][5] Yoffie likewise wrote that it would be wrong to suggest that all or most members of Israel's Orthodox community supported such ideas, even as he criticized the lack of protest after the article appeared.[3] The sources thus frame Hess's reported claims as an isolated or minority interpretation rather than a mainstream or widely accepted halakhic ruling.