L’historiographie orthodoxe et la Shoah

Abstract

The article is dealing with different aspects of the orthodox historiography and the Holocaust research. It first exposes the principles of orthodox writing that fundamentally differ from the academic principles. This text aims at exposing an alternative narrative in order to establish the heritage of the past as an ideal and a model when it does not have to stand up to the level of authentication required by the standards of the modern research. In light of the formal and content-related elements inherent to this genre, the main texts written by the orthodox researchers about the Holocaust are presented according to the principal issues that interested them in the past, such as the guilt and responsibility of the Zionist leadership for the failure of rescuing the European Jews during the Holocaust and the recognition of keeping a religious Jewish life as an act of alternative heroism more important than the Ghettos’ uprisings. At the same time, both the major development that started to affect these writings these last years and their limitations are exposed. Alongside these writings are also introduced texts that were written by Israeli scholars on the Orthodox Jewish life during the Holocaust, taking into consideration the sparse publications on the religious life during the Holocaust. In conclusion, the article emphasizes the potential possibilities for the research of orthodox historiography and the Holocaust as well as the importance of authentication, confrontation and cooperation among the researchers belonging to different circles.