Sources: Elie Wiesel, Night (1956) and The Trial of God (1979); Richard Rubenstein, After Auschwitz (1966); Eliezer Berkovits, Faith After the Holocaust (1973); Emil Fackenheim, God’s Presence in History (1970) and The Jewish Bible After the Holocaust (1990); Irving Greenberg, Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire (1977); Ignaz Maybaum, The Face of God After Auschwitz (1965).

The Holocaust poses the most severe theodicy challenge in Jewish history — and potentially in the history of any theistic religion. Six million Jews murdered by a modern European state using industrial methods. The theological responses divide into several distinct positions: (1) Traditional theodicy (Haredi) — the Holocaust was divine punishment for the sins of assimilation, Zionism, or Reform Judaism; promoted by some ultra-Orthodox authorities (the Satmar Rebbe’s Va-Yoel Moshe) and widely rejected as morally monstrous; (2) Death of God theology (Richard Rubenstein) — after Auschwitz, the God of history who rewards and punishes is simply not believable; Judaism must be rebuilt on other foundations (community, peoplehood, this-worldly meaning); (3) Hester Panim / Hidden Face (Eliezer Berkovits) — God hides His face (Deut 31:17–18) to allow human freedom, including the freedom to commit genocide; God’s hiddenness is the price of genuine human agency; (4) The 614th Commandment (Emil Fackenheim) — Jews are forbidden to give Hitler posthumous victories; to abandon God, Torah, or the Jewish people after the Holocaust is to complete Hitler’s work; the commanding voice from Auschwitz is: survive, remember, transmit; (5) Protest theology (Elie Wiesel) — God is put on trial and found guilty; yet the accuser continues to pray; faith persists as defiant argument rather than submissive acceptance; (6) Voluntary covenant (Irving Greenberg) — after the Holocaust, the covenant can only be voluntary; no one can be commanded to be part of a covenant whose fulfillment cost this. The Holocaust also generated significant Christian theological response, particularly regarding the church’s silence and anti-Jewish theology’s role in creating the cultural preconditions for genocide — addressed by Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate (1965) and subsequent Catholic-Jewish dialogue.