ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts a systematic inquiry into the manifold dimensions of the meaning and import of the Holocaust's effect upon survivors. It focuses on religious questions, ultimate questions, Jewish questions, some as interesting as these, others probably less so, but not less important. The chapter concerns how surviving European Jews construed and interpreted their Holocaust experiences and how they were affected religiously, in their faith and practices, by what they had undergone. The Holocaust is a fiend who refuses to make way, descending again and again like a persistent, indefatigable incubus upon the few who un-accountably were overlooked and to scourge their offspring and loved ones for the survivors' temerity to have escaped the earlier roundup. In certain respects, the Israeli Holocaust survivor who keeps Jewish practices, attends synagogue regularly, and professes belief in God is behaving contrary to the more widely held norms of society and consequently must be making a genuine, conscious religious decision.
