© 1988 by United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
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‘Faith, Ethics and the Holocaust’
ORTHODOX THEOLOGICAL RESPONSES TO KRISTALLNACHT: CHAYYIM OZER GRODZENSKY (‘ACHIEZER’) AND ELCHONON WASSERMANN*,
The American University Washington, D.C.
Kristallnacht evokes a theological response on the part of two leading Eastern European rabbis which reasserts the traditional perception of empirical events as functions of the covenantal structure Midrashically interpreted. All history is under divine aegis — the Nazis themselves are God's instruments. Within this context, Achiezer blames Reform Jews and Wassermann blames assimilation, nationalism and denunciation of Torah for the catastrophe. Existentially considered, if Jews reassert Torah then history will be transformed into a positive expression of the covenantal world. Ontically, the catastrophe preludes redemption. Both leaders choose to participate totally in the process. They die al Kiddush Hashem (sanctifying God's name), promoting Torah education and enunciating the apocalypse.
*This is a revised version of the paper presented at the Eighteenth Annual Scholars Conference on the Church Struggle and the Holocaust.
The author is grateful to the staff of the Hebraica Division at the Library of Congress for exceptional help in gathering the texts used in preparing this essay.