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After Auschwitz: History, Theology, and Contemporary Judaism (Johns Hopkins Jewish Studies) Paperback – May 1, 1992
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When first published in 1966, After Auschwitz made headlines and sparked controversy as Jewish "death-of-God" theology. But as the first work by a respected modern theologian to define the Holocaust in religious as well as demographic terms, its greater importance gradually emerged. Today it ranks as a seminal work of modern Jewish thought and culture. In this substantially revised and expanded edition, Richard L. Rubenstein returns to old questions and addresses new issues with the same passion and spirit that characterized his original work.
With the first edition of After Auschwitz, Rubenstein virtually invented Holocaust theology. He argued that Jews (and Christians) who accept the traditional belief that God has chosen Israel and acts providentially in history must either interpret that Holocaust as divine punishment or as the most radical challenge ever to traditional belief. Unable to defend traditional faith, Rubenstein turned to psychoanalysis, sociology, and history to defend religious institutions and ritual. The discussion he originated continued unabated.
The revised After Auschwitz remains as much a book about the human condition as a book about God. While retaining essential material from the 1966 edition, Rubenstein offers his latest thinking on the issues of belief and tradition after the Holocaust. He also deals extensively with events making headlines and shaping contemporary Jewish thinking and theology, such as the Palestinian question and Judaism in post-communist Eastern Eurpe. Facing the threat of Holy War and future Holocaust, questioning the possibility of genuine peace, exploring mysticism and other religions, this After Auschwitz is as challenging―and may provde as controversial―as the original.
- Print length384 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherJohns Hopkins University Press
- Publication dateMay 1, 1992
- Dimensions5.75 x 0.96 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100801842859
- ISBN-13978-0801842856
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2018While I disagree with Rubenstein's argument about the Death of God and his radical theology, I applaud his attempts
to understand the Holocaust deaths, philosophically and why God would permit this. The book is written with much clarity for the educated readers. The second edition is better than the first edition. A striking contrast to other Jewish philosophers such as E. Fackenheim and M Buber.
I recommend it but some readers may find it depressing or too somber
.Its intended to shock and disturb.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2005Professor Rubenstein was my most fascinating and challenging professor at FSU during the 1970s. His range of intellectual inquiry makes him a "Renaissance" man. He has written numerous provocative and important books.
This 1992 edition includes contemporaneus information and revisions to his views when the book was originally published in 1967.
This book is likely his best and most challenging for Jews and Christians in particular.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2002To say that this text is one of the most influential works of theology in general, and on Judaism in particular, is no understatement. With the publication of this book's first edition in 1966, the author single handedly created the discipline of "holocaust theology" and began a debate among Jews and Christians about the causes of this catastrophe and it's processes, that continues to this day.
The most widely commented and controversial assertion in the book was that the Holocaust proved that "God is Dead" or more accurately that the traditional notion of God as a loving, caring protector of the Jewish people, was in the light of the catastrophe, no longer tenable. This idea, eventually lead the author to experiment with and praise Buddhism, for it's notion of God as "empty", an idea which is also found in Jewish mysticism, known as the Kabbalah.
The author demonstrates great personal and theological courage in articulating the true issues concerning the Holocaust, and also in revising his original text a generation later, with the issuance of this superb second edition. This book covers all the developments in Israel, the U.S. and Europe between 1966-92 that the first edition could not foresee, and provides the "theological jumping off point" for those theologians, such as this writer who followed him.
That "jumping off point" is his assertion, that the Holocaust is only comprehensible in dumstruck silence as a mystery. or as traditional Jewish theology would have it, as a punishment. He finds the first course preferable to the second, since he states he would be unable to believe in a God who would punish millions of innocent Jews so horribly, for a cause he cannot or does not identify.
However, for this writer Rubenstein's inability to answer the dilemna he raises, is a critical issue, for answering this question well, and articulating it properly, are at the heart of whether it is possible to remain a Jew in this day and age. For my part, I was able to identify culpable Jewish behavior, words, thoughts and actions which could very well, from a mystical standpoint, have precipitated the Shoah as it is known in Hebrew.
My discussions of these issues occurs in my recent book, "Jewish History and Divine Providence: Theodicy and the Oddyssey" available here on Amazon.com. However, if all this writer did was to answer Rubenstein's conundrum, "Jewish History" would have only been half finished. I also work to explain the processes of divine providence which operate behind Jewish history, and how the Jewish poeple can avoid the pitfalls which lead to such massive destruction.
Rubenstein's 1992 edition of After Auschwitz is first rate popular and academic scholarship, but essentially it ends with a question. Post-Holocaust writers such as this reviewer, are as much if not more content, with answers than more questions.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2015I was familiar with the first edition of the book, and as I wasn't paying attention I didn't realize I was ordering the second edition, where some of his revolutionary opinions were "toned down". Those familiar with the first edition will want to be sure to order that one.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2023Back in college, I took a religion class on "Radical and Existential Theology" with a well-meaning Christian Professor of Religion. He mentioned this book as what he considered to be the only important book of Jewish theology after Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption and Buber's I and Thou. After college, I picked up a copy. The book asks precisely the wrong question. The book asks how the victims can go on believing in god "After Auschwitz." But the author has the inquiry ass-backwards. The real question is how can the vile, cruel, inhuman murderers and those who stood by and did nothing--that is, those of Christian faith--continue to believe in god and continue to believe in the Jewish son of their god? The real question is: "With the blood of the Jewish people on their hands, how can Christians hold up their heads and continue to believe? How can they live with themselves and make amends?" But that isn't the question that this book asks.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2022Excellent


