ABSTRACT
FACKENHEIM, Emil b. 1916. Canadian theologian. Fackenheim was born in Halle, Germany and received rabbinic ordination from the Berlin Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums. He left Germany in 1939 and attended the Universities of Aberdeen and Toronto, where he subsequently became a Professor. Since 1983 he has taught at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Among Fackenheim’s books are God’s Presence in History (1972), The Jewish Return into History (1978), To Mend the World (1982.) and Quest for Past and Future (1988). In pondering the event of the Holocaust, he rejected all theological explanations. Instead he famously maintains that out of Auschwitz, God has issued a six hundred and fourteenth commandment-namely that ‘Jews are forbidden to hand Hitler posthumous victory’.
