"Marc Ellis is a brilliant writer, a deeply thoughtful and courageous mind. . . . He is a man to be listened to with respect and admiration."---Edward Said "Marc Ellis stands in a deeply honored and disturbing Jewish tradition of prophetic thought and action."---John Gladwin

In this disturbing book Marc Ellis, whom Rosemary Ruether has described as perhaps the most important contemporary Jewish theologian, examines the way in which religion has often been associated with violence, repression, war and vengeance. The book begins with the massacre in Hebron in 1994, perpetrated by a religious Jew, and the assasination of Yitzhak Rabin casts a long shadow over it. The first chapter enters into dialogue with these facts and trevals the world of Holocaust thought and theology. The second chapter explores the evolving world of Christianity after the Holocaust as a possible response to suffering in the contemporary world. Then two chapters join the search in Holocaust theology and liberation theology which seek to renew the core of Judaism and Christianirt, or alter that core through feminist and indigenous insights. Chapter five seeks to find a path beyond atrocity. The topic of this book is one which Marc Ellis has wrestled with for most of his adult life, and he has spent many years working with and travelling among the poor, most often in the company of committed Christians in different areas of the world. This lends his writing enormous power and conviction, and this work is not one that will easily be forgotten. Marc H. Ellis has taught at Maryknoll School of Theology and Florida State University, and was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University.

"Beyond the immediate issues of politics and economics lie the larger and deeper realities of history and fidelity. As a Jew I am asking in these essays traditional religious questions in light of our present circumstances: What does it mean to be Jewish after the Holocaust and the consolidation of our empowerment in Israel/Palestine? Coming from a situation of oppression, what does it mean for Jewish history and theology to continue oppressing the Palestinian people? Has our empowerment in Israel brought us the freedom we so urgently needed, or has our abuse of power in Israel brought us a new enslavement and ghettoization which we did not seek, but now pursue almost blindly? Can we be healed of our trauma of Holocaust by finalizing the trauma of the Palestinian people which we as Jews have inflicted? At the lighting of the Shabbat candles, shall we bless our endeavor and thank God for making us into a warrior people?"--