One of the most important aspects of modern Jewish life in Europe since the nineteenth century was the development of a variety of Jewish national movements such as Zionists movement. During the late eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, the number of Jews in the world was approximately two and a half million, almost 90% of them living in Europe. The Jewish population was persecuted, massacred, expelled, excluded from public service positions and threatened with physical, spiritual and cultural extinction. Because of this discrimination and maltreatment, the Zionist movement arouses with the help of Theodor …show more content…
The Shoah also was known as the Holocaust, was the most successful attempt in history by anti-Semites to rid the world of both the religion Judaism and the Jewish people. The Nazis destroyed roughly one-third of the world’s Jewish population. Some contemporary Jewish philosophers responded in diverse ways to the tragedy of the Shoah. The theologian Ignaz Maybaum said, “the slaughter of innocents be a kind divinely willing sacrifice, through which the Jews perform an act of vicarious atonement for the sins of the world”. On the other hand, theologian Richard Rubenstein insists that “the random killing of six million Jews challenges Judaism’s belief in a just and benevolent Creator who values every single human life”. He insisted that Judaism’s historic God-concept is dead and that no religious philosophy that is still committed to biblical ideas can withstand scrutiny in an age of genocide and mass destruction. However, for the philosopher and Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, “the mystery of God’s presence in history is deepened by the Shoah, not refuted by it, and ours is not the first generation to reflect on God’s hiddenness or on the terrible consequences of human freedom”. He said that God must restrain himself and allow humans to exercise their moral will, even if the consequences are catastrophic. Moreover, theologian Abraham