Auschwitz is the center of the twentieth century, its dark core, yet, in the postwar years in America few intellectuals dared to come to grips with the horror and the suffering. Jewish theologians too were slow to respond until, in the turbulent years of the sixties and beyond, a small number of Jewish thinkers came to realize that the survival of Judaism and continued Jewish life require first and foremost confronting Auschwitz; looking into the abyss had become unavoidable. In this book, Michael Morgan tells the story of these theologians, and offers the first comprehensive overview of post‐Holocaust Jewish theology. He gives an account of the encounter with the death camps in the postwar writings of figures such as Hannah Arendt, Elie Wiesel, and Primo Levi and describes the role of the Six Day War in 1967 on the development and reception of post‐Holocaust Jewish thought. In chapters on each of the central thinkers (Richard Rubinstein, Eliezer Berkovits, Irving Greenberg, Arthur Cohen, and Emil Fackenheim), he analyzes the way they have struggled with the dialectic of history and identity, and with the threat of radical rupture. Throughout the book, the intellectual developments are set in their historical context and there are chapters on the reception of post‐Holocaust Jewish thought and its legacy for today. This is a book of philosophical and theological analysis as well as a work of intellectual history and will interest a wide spectrum of readers.

Chs. 7 and 8 (pp. 79-110) discuss how the Holocaust has changed Jewish thought, especially on ethics and theology. In keeping with the principle of historicism of Judaism, contends that the Holocaust generated a set of new imperatives, including the importance of Jewish existence as a response to the Holocaust. Regards Rabbi Ephraim Oshry from Kovno as the first halakhic authority who began to alter Jewish ethics in the period of the Holocaust. Divides contemporary Jewish thinkers between those who recognize that the Holocaust was a unique event, and hence justify amendments in Jewish ethics and theology (e.g. Emil Fackenheim), and those who do not recognize it (e.g. Eliezer Berkovits); an intermediate attitude is held by Irving Greenberg.