To Redeem History: Real-Time Orthodox Responses to the Holocaust

How did orthodox Jews during the Holocaust give meaning to their tragic fate and continue to believe in God?

"Why? What was our sin that the punishment is so severe? We debated this question more than once in Belsen. Philosophizing Jews attempted to delve deeply into the truth and grasp the course of events. All the debates ended with an ancient conclusion: God’s ways in running the world are inestimably beyond anything a mortal can understand." Ephraim Londner, postwar.

The harrowing events of the Holocaust were a stark confrontation between Nazi perpetrators and their Jewish victims. As the catastrophe unfolded, thinkers from different streams of Orthodox Judaism grappled with its meaning, offering profound theological interpretations to unimaginable suffering.

To Redeem History gives voice to these Orthodox rabbinic authorities, tracing how they responded as events progressed. How did Orthodox thinkers react to the unprecedented persecution witnessed before the war? Did their views shift as conditions worsened? And how did they interpret the Holocaust in its painful aftermath? Drawing from each Orthodox stream’s distinct beliefs and traditions, their interpretations were shaped by key recurring themes: the ancient enemy Amalek, ideas of self-sacrifice and martyrdom, hopes of redemption, and the roles of silence, blame, and divine judgment.

Opening a window into the spiritual world of the past, To Redeem History reveals the depth and resilience of faith that sustained Orthodox Jews during this dark chapter. In doing so, it not only preserves and commemorates these powerful religious responses but also offers the possibility of reawakening this spiritual legacy for generations to come.

Prof. Gershon Greenberg teaches philosophy and religion at the American University in Washington D.C. since 1973 (full professor since 1995). He holds a B.A. from Bard College and a Ph.D. in religious philosophy (1969) from Columbia University/Union Theological Seminary. He has served as visiting professor in the departments of Jewish thought and philosophy at Hebrew, Bar Ilan, Haifa and Tel Aviv Universities in Israel and serves as consultant to the International Archives Division of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. He has done research at the Oxford University Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, the Institute for Holocaust Research at Bar Ilan University, Hebrew University, and the Free University of Berlin. He is the author of three definitive bibliographies of religious thought and the Holocaust, and numerous articles on German-Jewish philosophy, history of Jewish thought in America and religious responses through the Holocaust.