Rethinking Jewish Faith: The Child of a Survivor Responds

by Steven L. Jacobs

Overview

This book addresses the faith of a member of the "Second Generation"-the offspring of the original survivors of the Shoah. It is a re-examination of those categories of faith central to the Jewish Religious Experience in light of the Shoah: God, Covenant, Prayer, Halakhah and Mitzvot, Life-Cycle, Festival Cycle, Israel and Zionism, and Christianity from the perspective of a child of a survivor.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781438407715
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	02/01/2012
Series:	SUNY series in Modern Jewish Literature and Culture
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	151
File size:	436 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Steven L. Jacobs serves as the Rabbi of Temple B'nai Sholom in Huntsville, Alabama and teaches Jewish Studies at Oakwood College and Mississippi State University. He is the author of Shirot Bialik: A New and Annotated Translation of Chaim Nachman Bialik's Epic Poems; Not Guilty? Raphael Lemkin's Thoughts on Nazi Genocide; and the two volume set Contemporary Jewish and Christian Religious Responses to the Shoah. He serves as an Educational Consultant to the Center on the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights in Philadelphia.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Zev Garber

Foreword by Alan L. Berger

Introduction: Why? The Genesis of My Own Thinking

1. The Problem with God

2. Covenant: Involuntary? Voluntary? Nonexistent?

3. The Crises of Prayer

4. Halakhah and Mitzvot: Law and Commandments—
The Heart of the Matter

5. Rethinking the Jewish Life Cycle: From Birth to Death

6. Rethinking the Jewish Festival Cycle:
The Calendar in Question

7. Israel and Zionism in the Post-Shoah World

8. Rethinking Christianity: An Outsider's Perspective

9. Summarizing: Is Such Even Possible?

Appendixes

Appendix I: "[If] There Is No 'Commander'?...
There Are No 'Commandments'!"

Appendix II: "Rethinking Jewish [and Christian?] Faith
in Light of the Holocaust:
The Response of the Child of a Survivor"

Notes and Bibliography

Glossary

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

Rabbi Jacobs' book bears witness to the anguish of the child of a Holocaust survivor wrestling with the key elements of his faith. Jacobs prods, provokes, insists: we simply cannot return to 'business as usual' in light of the fact that a Holocaust has occurred. His very personal sounding of this call to rethink one's relation to Judaism is perhaps the major strength of this book.

As Jews we are asked to reevaluate our relationship with God, the Covenant, prayer, divine commandments, life-cycle events, holidays, and Zionism-nothing remains as it was, he argues, although the commitment to participate fully in the life of the Jewish people remains solid. Christians are also challenged: what must a post-Holocaust Christianity say about the mission of Christians and relationship between the two faiths? Jacobs' work occupies a central place in post-Holocaust theology and Second Generation literature."— Leonard Grob, Fairleigh Dickinson University"

From the Publisher

Philosophical and theological investigation into the post-Holocaust era by a sensitive Rabbi who is also the child of survivors. Keyed to the religious questions raised by members of the so-called second generation, the book suggests new ways that Judaism remains relevant after Auschwitz. While he posits that Jews cannot return to a simple form of the status quo ante in their relationship with God, he also argues forcefully that any rejection of the divine is a flight from communal and relgious responsibilities.

Jewish Book World