Abstract
Jewish Law — halakhah — has been in continuous use for two, if not three thousand years. As such, it has been applied in countless situations and employed to adjudicate numerous conflicts.1 The multitude of legal decisions rendered by scholars and courts over the past two millennia regulate all areas of human activity — religious, as well as what today would be called civil — and lie at the very core of Jewish life and vitality through the ages. Jewish law maintained communal order, promoted economic welfare, guided development, and contributed to the sense of peoplehood and unity that insured Jewish survival.
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Notes
For a brief survey of Jewish legal literatures, see David M. Feldman, “The Structure of Jewish Law,” in his Marital Relations, Birth Control, and Abortion in Jewish Law (New York: Schocken Books, 1977), pp. 3–18.
Solomon B. Freehof, The Responsa Literature (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1959), pp. 193–223; Bernard D. Weinryb, “Responsa as a Source for History: Methodological Problems,” in Essays Presented to Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie ed. H.J. Zimmels, J. Rabbinowitz, and I. Finestein (London: Soncino Press, 1967), pp. 399–417.
For the use of responsa as a source for Jewish history in the Middle Ages, see, for example, Irving A. Agus, Urban Civilization in Pre-Crusade Europe 2 vols. (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1965); and Isidore Epstein, The “Responsa” of Rabbi Solomon Ben Adreth of Barcelona (1235–1310) as a Source of the History of Spain (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1925); for the modern period, see the frequent citations of such literature in Azriel Shohat, Im Hilufei Tekufot [With the Changing of Eras] (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1960).
Two of the major sources of such material are the collected responsa of Rabbi Jacob Jehiel Weinberg, Seridei Esh [Remnants of the Fire], 4 vols. (Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 1961–1969); and Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, She’elot u-Teshubot mi-Ma’amakim [Responsa from the Depths], 3 vols. (New York: p.p., 1959–1969). Rabbi Weinberg (1885–1966) was a Lithuanian scholar who emigrated to Germany, received a doctorate from the University of Geissen, and joined the faculty of the Orthodox Hildesheimer Seminary in Berlin. He served as rector of the seminary and was considered one of the leading rabbinic authorities in Western Europe before the war. He was expelled from Germany before the outbreak of the war and lived in Switzerland until his death. His responsa deal with many of the prewar problems and issues that will be discussed below. Rabbi Oshry (b. 1914) was one of the last rabbinic authorities in the Kovno Ghetto. From 1941 to 1944 he answered hundreds of questions for the inhabitants of the ghetto, keeping records on bits and scraps of paper. He survived the war and currently resides in New York City.
Much of the rabbinic literature dealing with the Holocaust has been summarized and made available to the English reader in the works of H.J. Zimmels, The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust in Rabbinic Literature (New York: Ktav, 1977), and Irving J. Rosenbaum, The Holocaust and Halakhah (New York: Ktav, 1976).
Cf. Weinrvb, Responsa as a Source for History pp. 404–06.
Zimmels, The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust p. 1, proposes dividing the prewar period into two stages, reflecting the increased hostility and persecution that began with the expulsion of the Polish Jews and Crystal Night — from 1933 to October 1938 and from October 1938 to the outbreak of the war.
Weinberg, Seridei Esh II, no. 24; responsum of Rabbi Barukh Kunstadt of Fulda, in Sefer ha-Zikaron le-Kevod ha-Rav Ya ‘akov Yehiel Weinberg [Memorial Volume in Honor of Rabbi Jacob Jehiel Weinberg] (Jerusalem: P. Feldheim, 1969), pp. 41–50.
She ‘elot u-TeshuvotAhiezer III (Vilna: F. Garber, 1939), no. 34.
Weinberg, Seridei Esh II, no. 12.
Cf. Zimmels, The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust pp. 7–9.
Weinberg, Seridei Esh II, no. 21. The reference is to a Talmudic expression found in Pesahim 116a.
For a general discussion of the boycott, see M. Gottlieb, “The First of April Boycott and the Reaction of the American Jewish Community,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 57 (1968): 516–56. The article does not refer to the episode cited here.
Ahiezer Kovetz Iggerot [Collected Letters], vol. 1 (Bnei Brak: Netzah, 1970), pp. 296–97.
For a discussion of this and several other sources, see Zimmels, The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust pp. 16–20 and 253–58.
Leon Poliakov, Harvest of Hate (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1954), p. 12. See also Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933–1945 (New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1975), pp. 188–89.
Rabbi Isaac Jacob Weiss (Weisz), Minhat Yitzhak III (London: n.p., 1962), no. 101.
Rabbi Mordekhai Ya ‘akov Breisch, Helkat Ya’akov II (London: Mahzikei ba-Dat, 1959), no. 4. The responsum is dated 5715 (1955), but see Zimmels, The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust pp. 29–31.
Weiss, Minhat Yitzhak, I (London: n.p., 1955), no. 23.
Tziyun le-Menahem ed. J. Rubenstein (New York: Makhon le-heker ba’ayot ha-yahadut ha-haredit, 1965), pp. 363–65.
Oshry, Mi-Ma’amakim, I no. 19. Cf. Zimmels, The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust pp. 39–40. In another recorded case the commandant of a labor camp forced the Jewish internees to remove their beards with a chemical on the Sabbath. See Joseph Safran, “She’elot Halakhah be-Yemei Sho’ah ve-Hurban” [Legal Questions in Days of Holocaust and Destruction] Sinai 64, no. 6(1968–1969): 191.
Oshry, Mi-Ma’amakim II, no. 12.
Ibid., I, no. 17. Cf. Rosenbaum, The Holocaust and Halakhah pp. 101–08.
Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Meisels, Mekadeshei ha-Shem, I (Chicago: n.p., 1955), no. 70. Responsum no. 71 deals with a similar question involving the proper time for immersion in a ritual bath (mikvah).
Zimmels, The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust p. 48. Rosenbaum, The Holocaust and Halakhah p. 113, reports another case where the Nazis tempted Jews with food on the fast of Yom Kippur. While some of the starving prisoners succumbed, others resisted temptation and did not break their fast until nighttime.
Oshry, Mi-Ma’amakim II, no. 11. Cf. Rosenbaum, The Holocaust and Halakhah pp. 50–56.
Meisels, Mekadeshei ha-Shem, I pp. 11–15.
Rosenbaum, The Holocaust and Halakhah pp. 91–119.
Oshry, Mi-Ma’amakim II, no. 12.
Chaim A. Kaplan, Scroll of Agony trans, and ed. by Abraham I. Katsh (New York: Macmillan, 1965), p. 130.
Weinberg, Seridei Esh, I no. 1.
“She’elot u-Teshuvot bein Hamburg le-Berlin” [Responsa between Hamburg and Berlin], Beit Ya’akov 22 (Adar, 5721/1961): 22–23.
Oshry, Mi-Ma’amakim II, no. 1.
The anecdote is related by Mavis Gallant in a review of Herbert R. Lottman, The Leftt Bank (Boston, 1982) in The New York Times Book Review 4 April 1982, p. 3.
Rosenbaum, The Holocaust and Halakhah pp. 35–46. Cf. A. Guttman, “Humane Insights of the Rabbis, A Chapter in the History of the Halakhah,” Hebrew Union College Annual 46 (1975): 433–55.
Zimmels, The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust pp. 215–43; Safran, “She’elot Halakhah,” pp. 195–97.
Oshry, Mi-Ma’amakim I, 31; Zimmels, The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust pp. 160–69. The refusal of some Christians to return their Jewish charges after the war led to several famous cases, including that of the Finaly children in France (Zimmels, The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust p. 167).
Rosenbaum, The Holocaust and Halakhah pp. 143–55.
Zimmels, The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust pp. 150–60, 169–75; Safran, “She’elot Halakhah,” pp. 192–93.
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Helfand, J.I. (1983). Halakhah and the Holocaust. In: Braham, R.L. (eds) Perspectives on the Holocaust. Holocaust Studies Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-6864-7_7
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