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Zachary Braiterman. (God) After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. 208 pp.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2003

Robert Eisen
Affiliation:
George Washington University Washington, D.C.
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Extract

This is a superb study of post-Holocaust theology, perhaps the best study of its kind since Steven Katz's Post-Holocaust Dialogues. Zachary Braiterman focuses on three of the most important post-Holocaust theologians—Richard Rubenstein, Eliezer Berkovits, and Emil Fackeheim—in an attempt to demonstrate that all three thinkers share a common discourse rooted in a theological sensibility which Braiterman identifies as “antitheodicy,” a term he has coined. Antitheodicy refers to a position which rejects theodicy—that is, any attempt to justify God in the face of catastrophic suffering or to see redeeming value in it, even if one continues to believe in God. Braiterman also makes use of postmodern insights to explore the dynamic of how the three post-Holocaust theologians reread or misread the traditional sources in order to catapult antitheodic discourse from the margins of Jewish thought into its center.

Type
BOOK REVIEWS
Copyright
© 2002 by the Association for Jewish Studies

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