An anthology of articles and excerpts from books, many of which deal with the concept of the uniqueness of Nazi antisemitism and of the Holocaust. See especially the sections: Radical Evil and Auschwitz as Unprecedented Event (119-156); The Exposure to Auschwitz and the 614th Commandment (157-183); Jewish-Christian Dialogue (235-254); Antisemitism (255-285); The Idea of Humanity after Auschwitz (306-329); Was Hitler's War Just Another War? A Post-Mortem on Bitburg (365-368).
"This subtle and nuanced study is clearly Fackenheim's most important book." —Paul Mendes-Flohr " . . . magnificent in sweep and in execution of detail." —Franklin H. Littell In To Mend the World Emil L. Fackenheim points the way to Judaism's renewal in a world and an age in which all of our notions—about God, humanity, and revelation—have been severely challenged. He tests the resources within Judaism for healing the breach between secularism and revelation after the Holocaust. Spinoza, Rosenzweig, Hegel, Heidegger, and Buber figure prominently in his account.
Emil Fackenheim's Post-Holocaust Thought and Its Philosophical Sources engages with the philosophers who made the greatest impact on the thought of Emil Fackenheim.
"Emil L. Fackenheim: Philosopher, Theologian, Jew" is a scholarly tribute to Fackenheim's memory. Fackenheim's combination of erudition and generosity served to inspire a lifetime of philosophical inquiry, and a number of his students are represented in this volume. The volume, in order to provide a forum through which to introduce his thought to a broader audience, covers a wide spectrum of Fackenheim's work including biographical, philosophical, and theological aspects of his thought that have not been addressed adequately in the past. Elie Wiesel, a close personal friend to Fackenheim for over 30 years, has provided the Foreword for the volume.
If, in content and in method, philosophy and religion conflict, can there be a Jewish philosophy? What makes a Jewish thinker a philosopher? Emil L. Fackenheim confronts these questions in a profound and insightful series of essays on the great Jewish thinkers from Maimonides through Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Leo Strauss. Fackenheim also contemplates the task of Jewish philosophy after the Holocaust. While providing access to key Jewish thinkers of the past, this volume highlights the exciting achievements of one of today's most creative and most important Jewish philosophers.
Fackenheim's Jewish Philosophy explores the most important themes of Fackenheim's philosophical and religious thought and how these remained central, if not always in immutable ways, over his entire career.
A presentation of both an introduction to Judaism and an analysis of its essence in the light of the Holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel, written by a contemporary American philosopher. It begins with the religious situation of the contemporary Jew, and covers topics such as anti-Semitism, Zionism, and the relationship between Judaism and other religions.
The impact of technology-enhanced mass death in the twentieth century, argues Zachary Braiterman, has profoundly affected the future shape of religious thought. In his provocative book, the author shows how key Jewish theologians faced the memory of Auschwitz by rejecting traditional theodicy, abandoning any attempt to justify and vindicate the relationship between God and catastrophic suffering. The author terms this rejection "Antitheodicy," the refusal to accept that relationship. It finds voice in the writings of three particular theologians: Richard Rubenstein, Eliezer Berkovits, and Emil Fackenheim. This book is the first to bring postmodern philosophical and literary approaches into conversation with post-Holocaust Jewish thought. Drawing on the work of Mieke Bal, Harold Bloom, Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, and others, Braiterman assesses how Jewish intellectuals reinterpret Bible and Midrash to re-create religious thought for the age after Auschwitz. In this process, he provides a model for reconstructing Jewish life and philosophy in the wake of the Holocaust. His work contributes to the postmodern turn in contemporary Jewish studies and today's creative theology.
