Abstract
Theodor Adorno observed that after Auschwitz the metaphysical capacity is paralysed.2 However, the present chapter is written in the conviction that some sort of talk is possible about the Shoah3 (Holocaust), that it is the duty of theologians and philosophers of religion to engage in such talk, and that at least part of this talk may be shared by Jews, Christians, and even by those, such as Adorno, who accept no traditional religious commitment; after all, notwithstanding his remark, Adorno himself reflected voluminously and productively on the Shoah.
Other versions of this chapter have appeared as Jewish Responses to the Holocaust, Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations no. 4 (Birmingham: Centre for the Study of Judaism and Jewish-Christian Relations, 1987), and ‘Does the Shoah Require a Radically New Theology?’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Oxford: Pergamon), VI (1991).
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Notes
Theodor W. Adorno, Negative Dialektik (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1966) p. 336.
Julie Heifetz, Oral History and the Holocaust (Oxford: Pergamon, 1985).
Vahakn N. Dadrian, ‘Towards a Theory of Genocide Incorporating the Instance of Holocaust’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, v (1990) 129–43.
Yehuda Bauer, ‘Is the Holocaust Explicable?’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies v (1990) 145–55.
Emil L. Fackenheim, To Mend the World: Foundations of Future Jewish Thought (New York: Schocken Books, 1982) p. 12.
See Gill Seidel, The Holocaust Denial (Leeds: Beyond the Pale Collective, 1986), for an analysis of the phenomenon of right-wing Holocaust denial.
Robert Kirschner, Rabbinic Responsa of the Holocaust Era (New York: Schocken, 1985) p. 11.
Ephraim Oshry, Responsa from the Holocaust Y. Leiman (New York: judaica Press, 1983) p. ix. The Hebrew volumes (vol. v appeared in 1978), under the title Min ha-Ma amaqim are published by the Brothers Gross, New York.
Gershon Greenberg, ‘Orthodox Theological Responses to the Holocaust’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, III (1988) 439.
See for instance Benjamin Maza, With God’s Fury Poured Out (New York: Ktav, 1984);
David Krantzler, Thy Brother’s Blood (New York: Artscroll, 1987).
See Ben Zion Bokser, Abraham Isaac Kook (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), for an English translation of some of Kook’s smaller works. See also the discussion of ‘commencement of redemption’ in section 6.3.4 above.
S. Zuker and G. Hirschler, The Unconquerable Spirit (New York: Mesorah, 1980) p. 27ff.
Ignaz Maybaum, The Face of God after Auschwitz (Amsterdam: Polak and van Gennep, 1965) p. 35.
Martin Buber, ‘Dialogue between Heaven and Earth’, in At the Turning: Three Addresses on Judaism (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1952) pp. 47–62.
E. Berkovitz, Faith after the Holocaust (New York: Ktav, 1973).
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Viking, 1963).
Barry Clarke, ‘Beyond the Banality of Evil’, British Journal of Political Science x (1980) 417–39.
W. V. O. Quine, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, From a Logical Point of View, 3rd edn (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980) p. 42.
Lionel Kochan, ‘Towards a Rabbinic Theory of Idolatry’, Jewish Law Annual, viii (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990) 112.
Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism (New York: Schocken Books, 1971) pp. 35–6.
Irving Greenberg, ‘Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire’, in E. Fleischner (ed.), Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era? (New York: Ktav, 1977).
Richard L. Rubenstein, After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966).
Harold S. Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (London: Pan, 1981).
Marcia Sachs Littell (ed.), Liturgies on the Holocaust: An Interfaith Anthology (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986).
Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959). The work was first published in Austria under the title Ein Psycholog erlebt das Konzentrations lager.
In Shaul Esh, ‘The Dignity of the Destroyed’, in Y. Gutman and L. Rotkirchen, The Catastrophe of European Jewry (Jerusalem: Yad Vas-hem, 1976) p. 355.
Josef Bor, The Terezin Requiem (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963).
Joza Karas, Music in Terezin: 1941–1945 (New York: Beaufort Books, 1985) p. 197. Much of the information in this paragraph comes from Karas’s book.
Dow Marmur, Beyond Survival (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1982).
Robert Gordis, Judaic Ethics for a Lawless World (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1986).
Marc H. Ellis, Toward a Jewish Liberation Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987). See his contribution and the discussion in the dedicated issue of Christian Jewish Relations on the Jewish-Christian dialogue and liberation theology (xxi, Spring 1988).
Robert Michael, ‘Theological Myth, German Antisemitism and the Holocaust: The Case of Martin Niemoeller’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 11 (1987) 105.
Christian works calling for a radical revision of Christology on this basis include R. R. Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (New York: Seabury Press, 1974).
This was subjected to searching criticism in Alan T. Davies (ed.), Antisemitism and the Foundations of Christianity (New York: Paulist Press, 1979).
A. Roy Eckardt, Jews and Christians: The Contemporary Meeting (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986) p. 16.
Arthur A. Cohen, The Tremendum: A Theological Interpretation of the Holocaust (New York: Crossroad, 1981).
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© 1991 Norman Solomon
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Solomon, N. (1991). Shoah and Theology of Suffering. In: Judaism and World Religion. Library of Philosophy and Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12069-7_7
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