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.

Explains the Holocaust by invoking the classical theology of the "suffering servant" preached by Isaiah. By way of the Holocaust, the Jewish people had to become a vicarious atonement for the nations in the image of the "suffering servant". This modern crucifixion of the Jewish people was required in order for Judaism to communicate with and effect a change in the character of Christian civilization. The Holocaust marked the end of the medieval epoch, the termination of the era of religious authoritarianism, religious persecution, and theocratic oppression; Nazism was the final manifestation of the medieval worldview. Afterwards, the world moved with finality from medievalism to modernism.

Expounds a wide spectrum of problems of post-Holocaust theology: Christianity and Nazism; psychoanalytic interpretation of the connection between religion and the Final Solution; the religious meaning of the Holocaust; the Auschwitz convent controversy. Argues that Nazism as theory and practice was neither the ultimate expression of atheism nor a kind of neo-paganism; on the contrary, it was a monotheistic "anti-religion" which emerged as a rebellion against Christianity, but greatly used its ideas and images, especially that of the "mythological Jew", "Judas". Reveals the religiomythic element in the Holocaust (e.g. the perpetrators fulfilled a religious mission), which singles out this phenomenon from the other cases of genocide. ǂc (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism).

The first full-length feminist dialogue with Holocaust theory, theology and social history. Considers women's reactions to the holy in the camps at Auschwitz.

A Powerful, Life-Affirming New Perspective on the Holocaust Almost ninety children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors—theologians, scholars, spiritual leaders, authors, artists, political and community leaders and media personalities—from sixteen countries on six continents reflect on how the memories transmitted to them have affected their lives. Profoundly personal stories explore faith, identity and legacy in the aftermath of the Holocaust as well as our role in ensuring that future genocides and similar atrocities never happen again.

When first published in 1966, After Auschwitz made headlines and sparked controversy as Jewish "death-of-God" theology. But as the first work by a respected modern theologian to define the Holocaust in religious as well as demographic terms, its greater importance gradually emerged. Today it ranks as a seminal work of modern Jewish thought and culture. In this substantially revised and expanded edition, Richard L. Rubenstein returns to old questions and addresses new issues with the same passion and spirit that characterized his original work. With the first edition of After Auschwitz, Rubenstein virtually invented Holocaust theology. He argued that Jews (and Christians) who accept the traditional belief that God has chosen Israel and acts providentially in history must either interpret that Holocaust as divine punishment or as the most radical challenge ever to traditional belief. Unable to defend traditional faith, Rubenstein turned to psychoanalysis, sociology, and history to defend religious institutions and ritual. The discussion he originated continued unabated. The revised After Auschwitz remains as much a book about the human condition as a book about God. While retaining essential material from the 1966 edition, Rubenstein offers his latest thinking on the issues of belief and tradition after the Holocaust. He also deals extensively with events making headlines and shaping contemporary Jewish thinking and theology, such as the Palestinian question and Judaism in post-communist Eastern Eurpe. Facing the threat of Holy War and future Holocaust, questioning the possibility of genuine peace, exploring mysticism and other religions, this After Auschwitz is as challenging—and may provde as controversial—as the original.

Hans Jonas, a pupil of Heidegger and a colleague of Hannah Arendt at the New School for Social Research, was one of the most prominent phenomenologists of his generation. This carefully chosen anthology of Jonas's shorter writings - on topics from Jewish philosophy to philosophy of religion to philosophy of biology and social philosophy - reveals their range without obscuring their central unifying thread: that as living, biological beings, we are also beings who die, and who must consider the implications for current and future ethical and social relations.