As we have seen, there is a well-developed discussion in Jewish philosophy about the role of evil and suffering in a world created by God. This discussion received new impetus after the Holocaust, but the nature of the topic changed. Many philosophers argued that the Holocaust was not just a more recent disaster to be classified along with previous disasters affecting the Jewish people. The Holocaust was often taken to be a unique event, requiring very different approaches as compared with preceding tragedies. This leads to the suggestion that only a radically different form of explanation for that evil will do. The Holocaust is taken to represent a break in history, in the sense that the hermeneutical categories which were employed up to that event no longer function afterwards. This claim will be considered here, together with the implication that only an entirely new way of expressing oneself will do in the changed situation of post-Holocaust existence. More traditional approaches to accounting for the evil of the Holocaust have also been pursued by some thinkers, and it is useful to relate these to the earlier tradition of Jewish philosophy in this area.

There are two huge difficulties in analysing the topic of the Holocaust. One is trying to write dispassionately about such horrifying and comparatively recent events. In addition, many writers who themselves suffered directly during the Holocaust write movingly about it, yet with more emphasis upon finding an emotional modus vivendi within Judaism than with really providing arguments as to how to classify the event. A good example of this approach is to be found in the work of Elie Wiesel, who is largely responsible for the creation of the term ‘Holocaust’ as a conceptual category.