On June 22, 2026, JD Hall appeared on the Tucker Carlson Show and claimed that Jews believe killing Gentiles is a form of atonement — a substitution, he said, for animal sacrifice after the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE.

Every word of it is false.

The sanctity of life

The sanctity of human life sits at the absolute center of Jewish ethics. Every person — Jew and Gentile alike — is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), and Genesis 9:6 makes the prohibition against murder universal, binding on all humanity.

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 37a) teaches that whoever destroys a single soul destroys an entire world. And the principle of Pikuach Nefesh — that preserving life overrides nearly every other commandment — applies to Jews and non-Jews alike.

Proverbs 24:17 says “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls.” The Midrash adds that when the Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea, God rebuked the angels for singing: “My creatures are drowning and you sing songs?”

The Passover Seder removes drops of wine — diminishing our joy — for each plague that struck Egypt. Even enemy suffering is not celebrated.

Shabbat can be violated to save any life. The rabbis derived this from the verse “live by them” (Leviticus 18:5), meaning the commandments exist to protect life, not end it.

The sanctity of life is also why the Torah explicitly, repeatedly, and vehemently forbids human sacrifice. Leviticus prescribes the death penalty for anyone who sacrifices a child to Molech, and promises God will cut off any family that does so. Deuteronomy calls it an abomination that God hates. The prophets — Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others — repeatedly denounce it with horror as something God never commanded and never conceived. The idea that Jewish law substituted human sacrifice for animal sacrifice inverts the entire moral thrust of the Torah.

The theology is invented

The Torah never made blood sacrifice the only path to forgiveness. Leviticus 5:11-13 explicitly permits a flour offering as a substitute for animal sacrifice and calls it atonement. If blood were the non-negotiable requirement Hall implies, that verse wouldn’t exist.

The prophets said the same thing centuries before the Second Temple fell. Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah all declared that God prefers repentance, justice, and mercy over sacrifice. Psalm 51 calls a broken spirit the truest offering of all.

So when the Temple fell and the rabbinate elevated prayer, fasting, and charity as the paths to atonement, it was following a biblical tradition that predated the Temple’s destruction by hundreds of years. Yom Kippur works today through confession and fasting, consistent with the very Scripture Hall is misinterpreting.

There is no teaching in the Talmud, the Code of Jewish law, Jewish liturgy, or two thousand years of mainstream Jewish theology that identifies war — or the killing of Gentiles — as a spiritual act of atonement. None. 

The law forbids it

Hall’s theory actively contradicts Jewish law.

The prohibition against murder appears three times in the Torah — Exodus 20:13, Deuteronomy 5:17, and Genesis 9:6. Maimonides, the 12th-century legal authority whose rulings still govern Orthodox practice, was explicit: “Whenever a person kills a human being, he transgresses a [biblical] commandment.” Authoritative interpretations confirm this includes Gentiles.

The rabbinate cannot rescind a biblical commandment. That’s the foundation of the entire Jewish legal system Hall pretends to understand.

The only killing Jewish law permits is self-defense — and the Talmud (Sanhedrin 72a) applies it universally: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” Jew or Gentile. Victim or aggressor. The protection runs in both directions.

If killing Gentiles were genuinely the path to atonement, two thousand years of Jewish literature would say so somewhere.And if it were permitted, normative Jewish communities across the world would practice it. But they don’t.

The history is backwards

Hall’s deeper point was that Israel starts wars because Jews want to kill non-Jews. That’s also false.

Every war Israel has fought was defensive:

• 1948: Five Arab armies invaded the day Israel declared independence. 
• 1956: Egypt blockaded Israeli shipping, launched terrorist raids from Gaza, and threatened annihilation. Israel acted to remove the threat. (Notably: Britain and France fought alongside Israel — presumably not for the atonement.)
• 1967: Egypt expelled UN peacekeepers, massed troops on the border, closed the Straits of Tiran, and formed a military alliance with Jordan and Syria while issuing public threats of destruction. Israel struck first against an attack that was already coming.
• 1973: Egypt and Syria launched a surprise invasion on Yom Kippur — the holiest day of the Jewish year, when observant Jews are fasting and praying, not preparing armies. Israel fought for its survival.
• 1982: Years of PLO rocket attacks and cross-border terrorism from Lebanon preceded Israel’s operation. The attempted assassination of an Israeli ambassador was the final trigger.
• 2006: Hezbollah crossed the border, killed soldiers, kidnapped others, and rained rockets on Israeli cities. Israel responded.
• Gaza, 2008–present: Every operation followed sustained rocket fire, tunnel incursions, or massacre. The 2023 war began with October 7 — 1,200 killed, hostages taken, atrocities documented in real time.

If Israel were driven by a theological hunger for Gentile blood, it would not have signed the Abraham Accords. It would not have returned the Sinai to Egypt. It would not have repeatedly offered statehood to Palestinians, only to be refused.

Bottom Line

JD Hall’s claim is one of the most grotesque, evidence-free conspiracy theories broadcast in years. It is complete fiction. The Torah never demanded blood for every sin, the Prophets rejected the idea that God needs ritual slaughter over genuine repentance, and no page of Talmud, Maimonides, Code of Jewish Law, or Jewish prayer contains even a hint of this bloodthirsty nonsense. 

Jewish law forbids murdering any human — Jew or Gentile — calling it a direct violation of “You shall not murder,” with self-defense as the sole exception. If killing Gentiles actually atoned for sins, two millennia of Jewish texts and communities would reflect it. They don’t, because the entire theory is a hateful fever dream. Israel’s wars, from 1948’s existential invasion to October 7, were forced defensive fights for survival against enemies who openly sought its destruction — not rabbinic atonement rituals. 

Sources

The Tucker Carlson Show, Genesis 1:27, Sanhedrin 37a, Proverbs 24:17, Yoma 85b, Leviticus 18:21, Leviticus 20:2, Deuteronomy 12:31, Jeremiah 7:31, Jeremiah 19:5, Jeremiah 32:35, Ezekiel 16:20, Leviticus 5:11, Micah 6:6-8, Isaiah 1:11-17, Hosea 6:6, Psalms 51:18-19, Jews for Judaism, The Schechter Institute, Exodus 20:13, Deuteronomy 5:17, Genesis 5:6, Mishneh Torah, Sanhedrin 72a, US State Department, US State Department, Jewish Virtual Library, INSS, Britannica, IDF, IDF, CFR