Original scientific paper
Religious life during the Holocaust- a spiritual resistance. Interpretation of selected examples from the responsa literature
Kotel DaDon
orcid.org/0000-0002-3542-3754
; Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb
Abstract
In this article the author is exposing the existence of Jewish spi- ritual resistance during the Holocaust. The author bases his resear- ch on the behavior of ordinary religious Jews in the horrific time of the holocaust, behavior which is well documented in the Rabbinical Responsa literature written during that time. In his work, the aut- hor is first explaining the Responsa literature, its history, its status in Jewish Rabbinical literature and its uniqueness in Jewish law, as well as in comparison with other legal systems. The central part of this article is a few Responsas selected by the author after rese- arching rare literature, a few books of Responsa written by Rabbis who survived the Holocaust. The questions were asked by ordinary Jews during their miserable life in the holocaust. The author is brin- ging both the question and the answer of the respondents and is analyzing them through many sources of rabbinical literature, from the Talmud time through the middle ages to modern times, litera- ture that the author translates for the first time from Hebrew and Aramaic into Croatian language.
Keywords
Responsa; Halaha; question; answer; Rabbi; resistance
Hrčak ID:
161297
URI
Publication date:
6.7.2016.
Visits: 1.448 *