Language:
English
Year of publication:
2000
Titel der Quelle:
Theoretical Inquiries in Law
Angaben zur Quelle:
1,2 (2000) 341-367
Keywords:
Pikku'aḥ nefesh
;
Holocaust and Jewish law
Abstract:
Asks whether Jewish law (halakhah) did or could have provided a guide during the Holocaust for questions of risking one's own life to rescue another's and of handing over a person requested by the Nazi authorities in the knowledge that the person will be killed. After considering talmudic discussions on these two issues, and a continuing debate in later rabbinic writings, suggests that the legal discussions of Eastern European rabbis during the war, in the wake of the mass murder of Jews, might have served as a more appropriate model or context for discussion of such issues (e.g. concerning Kasztner's actions in Hungary). For the most part, rabbinical writings during the Holocaust rejected cooperation with the Nazis; but on the matter of pitting one life against another they were silent. Concludes that, given the singularity of the Holocaust, no laws, including Jewish ones, were effective.
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