https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/interviews-and-profiles/americas-forgotten-posek/2013/03/24/
He was the Gadol haDor in the United States prior to Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l. And, unfortunately, his rulings and his seforim have, by and large, been completely forgotten.
Walk into any shul or Seforim store and you will be hard-pressed to find a sefer written by Rav Yoseph Eliyahu Henkin zt”l. Open up a contemporary Halachic work and you will rarely find a ruling quoted in his name.
The rules of Rodef, however, apply even in the absence of a Sanhedrin (Rambam Hilchot Rotze’ach 1:6-13 and Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 425). In fact, the Rama applies the Halacha of Rodef to one who engages in forgeries. Government authorities in the past imposed severe collective punishments (including executions) upon the Jewish communities in which a Jewish forger resided. Thus, the forger endangers the community and is treated with the severity of a Rodef.
Rabin’s assassin had no Halachic basis to shoot Prime Minister Rabin. Professor Schochetman notes that the shooting caused grave damage to the opposition to the Oslo process. Moreover, it caused a profound Chillul Hashem whose impact we experience even nine years after the shooting. Professor Schochetman (paraphrasing Teshuvot Chavot Yair 138) correctly describes the shooting of Yitzchak Rabin as "an foreign, evil, and bitter act." It is foreign to the Jewish people, it has no Halachic basis, it is morally reprehensible, and it has had bitter ramifications for Israeli society.
https://www.jpost.com/jewish-world/judaism/ask-the-rabbi-the-right-to-self-defense
Equally significantly, Rabbi Yehuda Henkin (Bnei Banim 3:33) and Prof. Eliav Schochetman (Techumin 19) have compellingly argued (after the Yitzhak Rabin assassination) that rodef cannot be applied to democratically elected government officials, even if one deems their policies to be misguided and dangerous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosef_Eliyahu_Henkin
Henkin vigorously opposed Zionism, but once the State of Israel was established he declared the need to support its continued existence, and denounced those who tried to undermine it. In 1959 he wrote:
Rav Henkin openly challenged the anti-Zionist position of Neturei Karta and the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Yoel Teitelbaum, ztz”l. He wrote (1959 / 5719):
I was shocked to read in Chomoteinu of Cheshvan 5719 the slanderous notion
that we are required to give our lives (limsor nefesh) to frustrate and
resist the efforts of the State of Israel in its struggle against those
who would rise up against them. This was stated as a p'sak din based on
what we learn that Israel is restricted from rebelling against the nations
(Ketubot 111a).
This opinion is clearly not in keeping with halacha [and which can result] in
imminent dangers for millions of Jews. True, Chazal admonished subsequent
generations about such a rebellion because it would entail danger to Jewish
life, but once done, though the admonition was ignored, we are required to
support them with our mesirat nefesh.
In fact this is precisely what occurred before the destruction of the
second Beit haMikdash when Chazal warned the populace not to revolt
against the Romans. Even the king (sic.) of Israel did not favor a
rebellion. However, once the rebellion broke out and the war endured, the
Sages of Israel assisted the rebels in their war. This is as the Midrash
states that Yaakov and his sons did not want to go to war against Shechem.
Once the deed was done (by Shimon and Levi) he reasoned: Shall I allow my
sons to fall into the hands of the enemy? And so, he took sword into hand
and went against them.
Now all the rabbis who were opposed to Zionism and the establishment of a
state took up that position until the time that it was officially founded.
Once the state was declared, anyone who plays into the hands of the nations of
the world even where there is no imminent danger, is clearly a moseir and
rodeif. All the more when there is danger to destruction of life in so
doing... Surely, those who recently emigrated must be very weary of the
state's efforts to strip them of their Torah way of life, but to proclaim that
anyone who aids the state is a rodeif, well such talk is the severest form of
redifa.
Such a sin derives from yet another transgression that they pre-judge all
Zionists, Mizrachi and Agudah members and their rabbis, as heretics and
apikorsim...
I call upon all the sagacious leaders who identify with this position to
repudiate this stand immediately because the Arabs and their cohorts are using
this material to strengthen their propaganda against Israel…
I have already written elsewhere that with vulgar protests we will not succeed
with the powers that be. Such tactics make things worse. What has to be done
is to get into the government and the Knesset to internally save what can be
saved and to strengthen Torah and its adherents.
Those essays I wrote before the advent of the state (many of which have been
reprinted in my book Leiv Ivra) will testify to the fact that I am not a
chassid of the government, I objected to the entire idea of a state. (It is
for this reason I am not a member of Agudah so that I not be judged
incorrectly as one who agreed with their position in the founding of the
state.) But now it is our obligation that we all support the state in the face
of its external enemies and then go on to guide it in the ways of Torah.
And for the one who hears such vilification as was published in Chomoteinu and
does not protest it is nearly certain that he will be ensnared in the foul
invective....
https://www.bhol.co.il/news/1294471
חרי שגדולי הדיינים יצאו נגד פסק דין תקדימי של בית הדין הרבני בתל אביב שקבע על ביטול קידושין במקרה סבוך במיוחד, חזרו בהם דייני ההרכב המיוחד ופסקו כי האישה היא אשת איש ואסור לה להינשא ללא גט. כל הפרטים על הסערה שנחשפה בפרסום ראשון ב'בחדרי חרדים'
https://www.israelhayom.co.il/judaism/judaism-news/article/5467246/
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/07/us/missing-teen-hand-gesture-asheville-trnd/index.html
A missing teenager from North Carolina was rescued by Kentucky police after she signaled for help by using a hand gesture known on TikTok to represent violence at home, according to police.
One year after losing the 2020 presidential election to current Democratic President Joe Biden, former Republican President Donald Trump is still asking Arizona and other states to "decertify" Biden's win.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/intermarriage-conservative-judaism/533637/
The question of Jewish pluralism becomes even more complicated in a global context. Increasingly, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders do not recognize the validity of liberal, American forms of Judaism, including some aspects of Conservative Judaism. In the last month alone, the Knesset, or parliament, has signaled plans to move ahead with a bill which would give the Orthodox rabbinate sole authority over conversions in Israel. The rabbinate helped quash a long-standing plan to create a gender-mixed worship space at the Western Wall, a sacred site in Jerusalem which is currently divided into men’s and women’s sections. And it recently released a list of rabbis who performed conversions that were later challenged, which included several dozen American rabbis and prominent Orthodox clergy. Outraged critics in America have referred to it as a blacklist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complicity
Complicity is the participation in a completed criminal act of an accomplice, a partner in the crime who aids or encourages (abets) other perpetrators of that crime, and who shared with them an intent to act to complete the crime.[1]: 725–804 A person is an accomplice of another person in the commission of a crime if they purpose the completion of a crime, and toward that end, if that person solicits or encourages the other person, or aids or attempts to aid in planning or committing the crime, or has legal duty to prevent that crime but fails to make an effort to prevent it properly.[2]
Some one keeps insisting that Soros was complicit in confiscating Jewish property with the Nazis\
This obscene claim regarding a Jewish child who to save his life posed as the non-Jewish son of the goy who did the confiscation and was present. Did he encourage or help the Nazi - no!
Don't know any legal system outside of the right wing conservative haters of Soros who would make such a claim
Some also suggest he must be at least as sociopath for not feeling guilty about staying alive in this manner. He also claims I am a liar for denying this nonsense claim because of his misunderstanding what Soros said in the interview
A similar nonsense claim is that anyone who gives aid in any manner to anti-Israel groups has the status of rodef. Such a claim led to the assassination of Rabin. I also heard it applied to Meir Kahane. Basically if you don't support the right causes or support the wrong causes you are a rodef. Is Bennet a rodef according to your definition, was Begin or Ben Gurion?
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/breakaway-hassidic-leader-greeted-joyfully-in-us-684389
The head of a breakaway faction of the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Gur hassidic community has been greeted rapturously in America, where he is currently visiting, with thousands lining the streets to greet him and participate in celebrations about his visit.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/316544
A Sephardic Jewish woman in Brooklyn got the shock of her life when she discovered that her new husband, who studied at a Chabad yeshiva and claimed to be a Lebanese Jew, was actually a Muslim of Palestinian Arab descent, Haredi media reported.
Before the wedding, the groom, who went by the name Eliya, had studied for seven years at a Chabad center in Texas. He spoke fluent Hebrew and did not arouse any suspicion.
According to sources involved in the affair, when the young man was asked about his family, he always had 'stories' as to why they were not involved in his life - and why they did not come to his wedding either.
For years, members of the Bukharian Jewish community, who trace their roots back to the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, heard whispers about Rabbi Michael Aminov.
The Phoenix, Arizona-based rabbi was widely believed to have signed off on quickie conversions to Judaism, in exchange for hefty fees of up to $50,000.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/316533
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Monday revealed the threats sent to him and his wife, Lehi, in light of coalition chairman Idit Silman's claims she was attacked near a gas station.
"I do not know if you saw the article about Amit, the child from Rishon Lezion who was abused at school," the foreign minister said, referring to eeports about a boy who was beaten at his school. "Months of beatings, cursing, humiliation. Do you really think it is unrelated? Our children see us and hear us. Whoever grows up in poison and violence will be a toxic and violent person."
