Customer Reviews

Hasidic Responses to the Holocaust in the Light of Hasidic Thought

This excellent book really deserves to be much better known than it is. I didn't find it until nine years after publication, and now that I have, I'm recommending it to everyone I know who is interested in the Holocaust. Pesach Schindler does an excellent job of presenting a perspective that, until now, has mostly been overlooked by secular Holocaust scholars. This pioneering historical study gives us the Hasidic side of the story, which challenges some commonly-held misconceptions about how Orthodox Jews reacted to Hitler.

In the popular mind, Hasidic Jews (and Orthodox Jews in general) are often seen as cowards who did not fight back, and are usually written off as "useless" or "obsolete" by the Zionist movement for not having grabbed guns to kill the Nazis. But in "Hasidic Responses," the reader learns that many Hasidic Jews *did* resist the Nazis -- not with guns, but by drawing on the inner strength of Hasidic teachings about the ultimate goodness of God, the honor and privilege or martyrdom, and the value of sanctifying every moment of life through Torah and mitzvot. Hopefully, this book will help change the common misconception that the Orthodox "went like sheep to the slaughter."

The author presents a variety ways that Hasidic Jews actively responded to the Holocaust, and explores some of the moral and theological reasons they acted as they did. He points out that many Hasidim resisted through non-violent non-cooperation and refusal to obey Nazi decrees, because to do so would mean to violate the laws of their faith. For example, there is no record of any Orthodox Jew ever being a "capo" or overseer in the concentration camps. The Hasidim took very seriously the commandment to love their neighbors as themselves, and therefore felt it was immoral and forbidden to curry favor with the guards at the expense of their fellow prisoners.

When the round-ups first began, the Hasidic Jews actively refused to name fellow Jews or give away their hiding places -- and many paid with their lives for that refusal. Others simply decided not to register with the Nazis at all, and went into hiding, refusing to wear the yellow star or show up for "selections." These underground Hasidim continued to study Torah, wear Hasidic garb, and practice their faith even though it was now forbidden. Yes, they understood that they would be killed if discovered, but they also understood that everyone dies sometime, and that it's better to die with one's integrity intact than to survive at the expense of human decency.

As a Hasidic Jew myself, it is my hope that readers of this book will come to understand that the Hasidim who died in the Holocaust -- many by taking stands for their faith and refusing to be dehumanized -- were true martyrs, not the helpless victims they are so often portrayed to have been. I my opinion, this book should be required reading for anybody involved in Holocaust studies. I would give it ten stars if I could!