Software is too expensive to build cheaply...

You should never throw any exception out of a static code block (aka static initializer). Not even a runtime exception.

Why? Static initializers are called when the class definition is loaded (e.g. by invoking Class.forName("foo.bar.Xyz")). Any exception thrown by the static initializer will be passed through to the invoker, which in many cases will log it and move on - not abort the JVM.

However - the class is still loaded. Future attempts to refer to it result in a very-hard-to-diagnose ClassDefNotFoundException - these can easily swamp your logs so that the original exception can not be located. By throwing the exception out, you've actually made it a lot harder to pin down the cause.

It's much better to not throw the exception then, but check to see if the class initialized properly when needed (e.g., inside the constructor, or inside static methods) and throw a meaningful exception (runtime or otherwise) at that point. Even better still, if you can swing it, would be to defer the initialization to that point. This helps avoid side effects caused by the class definition being used in a different way (e.g. being examined via reflection inside of a debugger).