Midrash in Emil Fackenheim's Holocaust Theology

Abstract

In his recent book on post-Holocaust Jewish thought in America, Michael L. Morgan claims that among Jewish Holocaust theologians, Emil Fackenheim's thought is “the richest and most developed.”Michael L. Morgan, Beyond Auschwitz: Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 155. One can only endorse this assessment. Fackenheim is by far the best-trained philosopher among Jewish Holocaust thinkers, and his reflections on the Holocaust are therefore unparalleled in their philosophical subtlety and sophistication. He has also outstripped his rivals in the sheer quantity of material he has produced on the Holocaust. He has authored nine books and scores of articles, most of which are devoted to his reflections on this one subject.A good deal has been written about Fackenheim's Holocaust theology. The following are some of the more important discussions: Steven T. Katz, Post-Holocaust Dialogues: Critical Studies in Modern Jewish Thought (New York: New York University Press, 1983) 205–47; Louis Greenspan and Graeme Nicholson, eds, Fackenheim: German Philosophy and Jewish Thought (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), which also contains a complete bibliography of Fackenheim's writings up to 1992; Zachary Braiterman, (God) After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998) 134–60; Morgan, Beyond Auschwitz, 155–95.