ABOUT THIS LECTURE: One of our basic democratic principles is that everyone deserves equal treatment under the law. In religious law, however, there tends to be a privileging of those who are members of the faith over those who are not. While this makes sense in matters of ritual, it would seem deeply unfair, indeed unethical, to apply such distinctions to matters of civil and criminal law. In this lecture, we will see how halakha initially gave warrant for unequal treatment of non-Jews and how over time, due to changing circumstances and attitudes, a number of major halakhic decisors minimized or eliminated these distinctions.
LEARNING MATERIALS: bit.ly/2J3KnUg
