Jews throughout the world will be relieved that the gunman (far better not to mention his name, just his crime) who killed eleven congregants at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue, was found guilty of this terrible crime.

However, they should not be pleased that he was given the death penalty. We may feel he deserved the greatest punishment possible, and has forfeited his own right to life eleven times over, but it is not in keeping with Jewish tradition.

The death penalty may have been suggested for various crimes in biblical times, but by the first century, the rabbis deemed it no longer to be appropriate.

Many people - Jews and non-Jews alike - may quote the injunction in Exodus to take “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (21.24) and claim this points to a measure-for-measure approach, therefore justifying taking the life of someone who took the life of others.

However, they are unaware that the rabbis interpreted it as “an eye’s worth for an eye, a tooth’s worth for a tooth”, meaning fiscal compensation rather than direct retribution.

Even when death was specifically laid down for a particular misdemeanour, the rabbis hedged it with so many conditions that it became impossible to enact.

Thus death is the sentence for adultery, but the rabbis said that only applied if two witnesses had warned the couple before the act, another two had witnessed it happening and a third pair had heard the sinners discuss it afterwards.

There are many couples who commit adultery, but none so foolish to do so with six witnesses before, during and after the act. Thus the death penalty became impossible to administer and other penalties were imposed instead.

While some rabbis did express the opinion that the threat of capital punishment would be a deterrent and prevent many crimes being committed, no less a figure that Rabbi Akiva said he would condemn any Sanhedrin or Jewish court that handed it down (Makkot 1.10).

Of course, by that stage, it had become an academic argument as Jews lacked the power to authorise capital punishment from Roman times onwards. In later times, some Jewish communities were given those powers by rulers, but this was rare.

When the State of Israel was established, the death penalty was allowed in theory for crimes by the Nazis and also for treason, but not implemented.

Even when members of the Japanese terrorist group, the Red Army, killed twenty-six people at Lod (now, Ben-Gurion) airport in 1972, they were only given life sentences.

The one exception was the execution of Adolf Eichmann in 1962 for his personal responsibility in enabling mass genocide, which was felt to be a crime so heinous that no other verdict was possible.

This long-standing opposition to capital punishment should influence us today. We would be imitating the ways of the gunman if we allow the State to take his life. It may be legal in the USA, but it is not right in Jewish eyes. We would be allowing him to cause us to deviate from our own moral compass. He should not have such power.

What is more, it could be argued that it would be a much more effective punishment to let him wither away in prison for the rest of his life, rather than have a quick death.

It might also mean he comes to regret what he has done, both to others and to himself. That might be an over-optimistic hope, but his self-condemnation would be an added punishment, as well as a lesson to others who share the same horrendous mindset,

There is also another, more practical aspect to preferring life imprisonment to the death penalty. It avoids making a martyr of him. It stops there be a shrine for fellow sympathisers at his grave. It prevents any warped accusations that could arise that Jews were responsible for his death (by calling for it, tampering with the jury, influencing the judge – choose whichever possibility is the most devious).

We should deny him both his freedom and his martyrdom. Jews around the world, should petition the judge in the case to change the death penalty to a full life sentence.

The call should be led by the Jews of Pittsburgh, whose suffered the most and whose voice will carry the most weight.

And let the name of the gunman remain unmentioned. Just as we remember the names of loved ones, through calling their name out at Yizkor or naming our children after them, the converse should apply to him. He may not be killed, but his name should be. That, too, is part of the punishment.