The impact of technology-enhanced mass death in the twentieth century, argues Zachary Braiterman, has profoundly affected the future shape of religious thought. In his provocative book, the author shows how key Jewish theologians faced the memory of Auschwitz by rejecting traditional theodicy, abandoning any attempt to justify and vindicate the relationship between God and catastrophic suffering. The author terms this rejection "Antitheodicy," the refusal to accept that relationship. It finds voice in the writings of three particular theologians: Richard Rubenstein, Eliezer Berkovits, and Emil Fackenheim. This book is the first to bring postmodern philosophical and literary approaches into conversation with post-Holocaust Jewish thought. Drawing on the work of Mieke Bal, Harold Bloom, Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, and others, Braiterman assesses how Jewish intellectuals reinterpret Bible and Midrash to re-create religious thought for the age after Auschwitz. In this process, he provides a model for reconstructing Jewish life and philosophy in the wake of the Holocaust. His work contributes to the postmodern turn in contemporary Jewish studies and today's creative theology.

Excerpt from Jewish Emancipation: The Contract Myth One common argument against Zionism, which those who employ it think particularly effective, is the contention that the very profession of Zionism is both a breach of faith by Jews and a peril to Jews. It is a breach of faith, they say, because it repudiates the fundamental principle by virtue of which the grant of civic equality was made to Jews in those countries where such a grant has been made. It is a peril because it deprives the emancipated Jews of their title deeds to civic liberty and equality, while it renders powerless the one instrument which could open the gates of freedom to those Jews who are still unemancipated; What, according to this contention, is that fundamental principle upon which the Jewish emancipation of the past rested and the Jewish emancipation of the future must rest ? It is easier to ask that question than to get a precise answer to it, but, so far as may be gathered from the vague formulation of the critics of Zionism, this is their thesis: - The Jews were conceded emancipation as a sect and because they were a sect. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.