This week U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced that the Department of Justice will seek the death penalty for Dylann Roof, who shot and killed nine people at a Charleston, SC church last year. Whether you believe in the death penalty or not, says Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, decisions around the death penalty should not be driven by politics, but rather “by the awareness of what it means to take another life because the life we are taking has taken yet other lives.”
Brad Hirschfield is the co-founder and co-executive editor of The Wisdom Daily. A rabbi, Brad has been featured on ABC’s Nightline UpClose, PBS’s Frontline, Fox News and National Public Radio. He wrote a long-standing column, “For God’s Sake,” for the Washington Post, and has also written for The Huffington Post and Beliefnet.com. He authored the book, You Don?t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism. Brad also serves as President of Clal, The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a leadership training institute, think tank and resource center in New York City.