Wednesday, February 23, 2005

THE PULSA DE-NURA CURSING RITE is in the news again:
Woman held for sending pulsa denura to Shaul Mofaz (Ha'aretz)
By Roni Singer


A Bat Yam woman known to have harassed media figures and politicians was also behind a letter that suggested a religious edict of execution against Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, police have discovered.

The letter implied that religious authorities had issued a pulsa denura, a ruling allowing Jews to assassinate Mofaz over his support of the disengagement plan.

[...]

UPDATE: Reader Joshua Waxman e-mails:
the haaretz article excerpt you recently posted contains a glaring inaccuracy. the pulsa denura is NOT "a ruling allowing Jews to assassinate..." The ceremony, for those who believe in it, is a curse and a call for *God* to cause the untimely death of the person.

It is not a ruling allowing people to assasinate an individual. Perhaps the author confused this with din rodef, which is something else entirely. In other articles, they write that the pulsa denura was assosiated with the assassination of Rabin, so perhaps this is where the author gets the misconception.

True, although after the assassination of Rabin, some evidently took his murder to have resulted from the rite. Legally, enacting it against someone may count as incitement to murder. So the implications of the ritual are open to a range of interpretation. (Follow the first link above for more information.)

UPDATE: Bad link fixed.

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