Michael Zoosman, at The Blogs

Apr 26, 2024, 6:01 PM

On Psychological Torture: Counting the Omer Until Missouri’s Shavuot Execution

The American execution and Jewish liturgical calendars will once again collide later this spring in another unintended, yet telling synchronicity that highlights the inherent psychological torture of capital punishment. At sunset on June 11th, the festival of Shavuot (the...

Apr 20, 2024, 7:41 PM

‘Never Forget!’ The Jews Against Gassing Coalition’s Passover Action

The Louisiana Jewish community’s newly-minted Jews Against Gassing Coalition stands poised this upcoming Passover to fulfill one of that holiday’s most important lessons: namely, to never forget. This coalition is comprised of the members of Louisiana’s Jewish community who...

Apr 11, 2024, 11:04 PM

Confronting Blind Spots: A Call for Constructive Dialogue on Israel/Palestine

Note: This article was first published in the Jurist on April 11, 2024 under the title: "Confronting Blind Spots: A Call for Constructive Dialogue on Israel’s Response to Hamas" Cantor Michael Zoosman Edited by: Ingrid Burke Friedman | JURIST Editorial Director As pressure...

Mar 28, 2024, 9:00 PM

A letter to my chaplain colleague Imam Sohaib Sultan, z”l, of blessed memory

Wassalamualaikum/Shalom Aleichem Sohaib, I cannot begin to imagine what you would say in the wake of all the death and horror that the world has witnessed in Israel and Gaza since October 7th. How can I forget that summer you and...

Mar 22, 2024, 4:08 PM

‘Eye for an Eye’ and Israel’s Blind Spot

The author, a Jewish cantor and death penalty abolitionist, argues that while the impulse for retribution following terrorist attacks is natural, Israel's disproportionate military response in Gaza, fueled by a desire for vengeance, ultimately perpetuates a cycle of violence...

Mar 14, 2024, 10:17 PM

From ‘Uncle Tom’ to Willie Pye: Abolishing the Death Penalty’s Racist Legacy

Georgia is poised to execute Mr. Willie Pye, a Black man, on March 20th, the very same day that Harriet Beecher Stowe’s seminal antislavery work Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in book form, to global acclaim, in 1852. Many...

Feb 28, 2024, 8:42 AM

Rethinking ‘an eye for an eye’: A journey towards death penalty abolition

Note: This article, edited by Ingrid Burke Friedman | JURIST Editorial Director, was originally published in the Jurist on February 27, 2023 and can be found here. At its core, the death penalty feeds one of the basest desires known...

Feb 10, 2024, 8:46 AM

Too Much Doubt: Ivan Cantu and Maimonides on the Burden of Proof for Execution

On February 28th, Texas plans to put to death Mr. Ivan Abner Cantu, the longtime penpal of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty,” an international group of over 3,200 members that I co-founded. Mr. Cantu has been found guilty...

Feb 7, 2024, 11:21 PM

The Unconscionable Nazi Legacies of Executions by Gas and Lethal Injection

Alabama’s experimental use of gas to torture to death Kenneth Smith on January 25th — like all executions by lethal injection — has perpetuated a horrific Nazi legacy in the United States and is a traumatizing affront to many in the...

Jan 26, 2024, 11:01 PM

Observing Holocaust Remembrance Day on the Heels of Alabama’s Gassing Execution

Edited by: Ingrid Burke Friedman | JURIST Editorial Director I am an ordained Jewish cantor, a former Jewish prison chaplain, a third-generation Holocaust survivor, and co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty. I write these words on the...

About Me

Cantor Michael Zoosman is a Board Certified Chaplain with Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains (NAJC) and received his cantorial investiture from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 2008. He sits as an Advisory Committee Member at Death Penalty Action and is the co-founder of “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty.” Michael is a former Jewish prison chaplain and psychiatric hospital chaplain. Currently, he is a multi-faith hospital chaplain at a federal research hospital, the National Institutes of Health - Clinical Center. His comments here represent his own opinions.