Theology and the Palestinian Uprising: a Jewish Perspective (original) (raw)
Zionism and the Holocaust, 2024
Unexamined 2024 supplement to 2004 Doctoral Thesis on Cultural Representation of the Holocaust by Alan Polak
, 144 pages, $21.95. \Mpn John Mc0ain was finally forced to reject publicly Reverend John l-lagee's support, he explicitly cordemned some of the Clristian leader's most provocative views. Among them was F.lagee's professed belief that tle prophet Jererniah (of ancient lsrael, rnt Chicago) warred of Hitler's destrr.rction of Ewopean Jsrry, arrd tl'et the Holocaust was a recessary prehde to the creation of lsraelas well as a punishment to the Jews, for tleir deafress toward the Zionists' exlprtations from the late 19th century on, to abardon Europe for the Holy Land. McCain may lnve been advised to distarce himself from l'bgee for fear of alienatirg conservative Jewish voters, Yet variations of these very same ideas-characterized by Mc0ain as "cra4y arrd unacceptable"-have been bandied about ard debated by some of tl'e world's most infltaential Orthodox rabbis for decades, and are fervently held by myriad religious Jews to this day. A central tenet of the violerrtly anti-Zionist ttreology of Satmar Rebbe JoelTeitelbaun was tMt the Fblocar.rst was a pnishrnent for the Zionists'secular perfidy ard impr.rdent impatierce with tle tanyirg messiah. On ttae other hand, Teitelbaum's theological nemesis, sçer-Zionistic Rabbi ZviYehtda Kook, the spiritrnlfather of the Gush Emunim settlers' movement, preached that the Holocaust, as tlae dark side of a grand apocalyptic DMre plan, was the horribly holy, bü recessary, "cleansing" (his exact term) of the Jews from the imprrities of tl're gah.rt (exile), and ttn-s the precorrdition for the irgatherirg of tl're exiles ard the creation of the State of lsrael. More recently, the former Sephardic chief rabbi of lsrael, Owdiah Yosef, pontificated on lsraeli radio that the l-blocaust was a punislrnent for the sins of the maskilim, the secularized European Jews in the modern period, and-in explaining its million martyred children-for the transgressiors of their mn-Ortl'rodox ancestors whose souls had been reirrarnated to possess their othenrvise irurocent little bodies. ii is io sirch iireologiârg-shai'ed by an assoÉmeiii of evargelical Ci-,ristiai,s "unitêd for lsrael," Orthodox Je.,t,ish Zionists and l-hsidic anti-Zionists-tfnt the first section ("Prayer During the Holocaust") of Rabbi David Weiss Halivni's powerfulcollection of essays, "Breaking the Tablets: Jewish Theobgy after the Shoah," is largely directed. This essay was originally commissioned by lsrael's Yad Vashem Holocawt lnstitrle as an introdrrction for the publication of the personalmanuscript transcribed from memory by the Satmar l:erzrrn,l.laftali Stern, to lead services in the Nazi labor camp at Wolfsberg for Rosh l-lashana 57OS (1944), at which Flalirnriwas present. ln it, he reminisces about the trarsformatile effects of tfut experienee, br.rt also offers a compellirg, scholarly repudiation of Yosef's sr-ggestion that the mass murder of Jewish children somehow reflected the will of the God of lsrael. Despite its su{rtitle, this rclurne offers both less ard mr,tch more than a "Holocarst theology." lt presents instead a grand, if concise, summation of the masterful contribüions, over more than a half-centuny, to both biblicaland rabbinical text studies, ard Jewish religious tholglrt, of one of today's greatest talmr.rdic scholars. The book consists of four essays by Fhliwri, all prefaced by commentaries by Peter Ochs, tlat sharply syrtl'esize his life's work, from the earÿ, bold critical textual str.rdies of the Talmud, in his multiroh.rne masterpiece, " Mekorot u-Masarot'("Sources and Traditions," 1968-2007), to his movirg 1996 memoir, "Tl'p Book ard the Sword: A Life of Learning in the Shadow of Destrrction"' hüp:/lwww.torward.corUarbclesl I J):Ji \ t\) 4l"lîl)fios 1.o? pl\l
2003
Introduction At a conference of an association called “Judaism from a Different Angle,” Rabbi Mordechai Neugershal, of the “Lithuanian” Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) camp, said in a lecture he gave on the Holocaust: After one of the newspapers ran an article about the Holocaust in the fashion of the remarks to be made here, a Holocaust survivor approached the author of the article, trembling from head to toe, and said, “How can you people speak? Who has the right to speak? How can these events be discussed at all?” The author of the article replied, “You’re right. The natural response after the Holocaust should be like that of Aaron [the Biblical High Priest]: ‘And Aaron was silent.’ [We should] sit on the ground, cry, rend our clothing, and be silent. But as long as there are people who will talk and attempt to explain that the events of the Holocaust contradict the faith and the Bible—we’ll speak out, too. And when we’ll speak, we’ll have what to say.”