ABSTRACT
The Nazi Holocaust and the reemergence of the Republic of Israel have together radically transformed Jewish responses to the God-of-history and to the meaning of the community of Israel. Richard Rubenstein's rejection of the God-of-history would effectively strip historical Judaism of its role in history and would render meaningless the transformative significance of the Hebrew Bible. An integral part of Judaism and Christianity in Rubenstein's opinion is the natural urge, at least according to psychoanalysis, toward vicarious atonement, which seems to demand a sacrificial victim. In Emil Fackenheim's opinion, the Nazi Final Solution is an epochal event asking that people understand how God is present to his people. Ignaz Maybaum has suggested that God may be signaling the importance of uniting all humanity to achieve a kind of tectonic shift in people culture, which would include expunging antisemitism.
