Leo Baeck Werke 5: Nach der Schoa -- Warum sind Juden in der Welt: Schriften aus der Nachkriegszeit (review)

The fifth in a six-volume series presenting the writings of Leo Baeck, Nach der Schoa offers twenty-four of Baeck's essays, lectures, and publications from the period between his 1945 release from Theresienstadt, after which he emigrated to London, and his death in 1956. The selections in this volume, presented thematically, not chronologically, include twelve works in German and twelve in English, each introduced by an editorial note in German.

Leo Baeck (1873–1956), the leading rabbi in Berlin in the late imperial, Weimar, and early Nazi years, leader of liberal German Jewry, and head of the German Rabbi Association and of the German B'nai B'rith, wrote prolifically on the nature of Judaism (sometimes in response to polemical assaults by Christian writers) during the first four decades of the twentieth century, and continued his intellectual productivity in the aftermath of the war. Friedlander and Klappert argue that Baeck's work cannot be divided into periods, that his later thought grew organically out of his earlier thought, that the old lives on in the new. The editors see a central theme of the postwar work of Baeck as the hope and strengthening of the people in the face of threat, together with Jewish pride before people and humility before God.

The volume is divided into four sections: "Re-encounter with God" (four works, all in German); "Discoveries and Epochs of Jewish history" (eight selections, some in German, some in English); "Bridges between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam" (six writings, all in German); and "The Mission of Judaism in the World" (six essays, all in English).

The first essay in Part 1, "Reflections on Two Dead," uses the lives and deaths of two individual German Jews to reflect on the fate of German Jewry in the Nazi era. In the second essay, "The Meaning of History," Baeck argues that, in turning to spiritual values, one can find justice, salvation, and a future. In the third essay, "Judaism on Old and New Paths," focusing on the role of Jewish mysticism in times of historical persecution, Baeck maintains that the oppression of the Jews was just one example, albeit of the worst order, of the oppression of the weak, and the emancipation of the Jews just one part of the greater liberation of the enslaved. In the fourth essay, "Israel and the German People," addressing the question of peace between Jews and Germans, Baeck contends that Germans must truly listen to challenges posed by Jews, but must also come to know themselves, to moral self-knowledge. Only then, as the German people re-create themselves, and in genuine encounter between Germans and Jews, can they attain peace with one another.

In the first essay in Part 2, "The Task of Progressive Judaism in the Post-War World," Baeck maintains that the task of progressive Judaism is to play the role of the living conscience of Judaism, rousing the conscience of humanity and speaking out stubbornly for justice. His second essay, "Individuum Ineffabile," is a protest against the Nazis' reduction of people to mere numbers and a plea for inviolable human individuality, which Baeck describes as an ethical task. The third, fourth, and fifth essays discuss the relationships between Judaism and science, Judaism and philosophy, and Judaism and ethics. The sixth essay is on "Maimonides: The Man, His Work, and His Impact." The seventh essay is entitled, "From Moses Mendelssohn to Franz Rosenzweig: Types of Jewish Self-Understanding in the Last Two Centuries." The eighth essay is a 160-page reprint of a small book, "Epochs of Jewish History," focusing on the biblical era.

The first four works in Part 3 are entitled, "The Pharisees," "Haggadah and Christian Doctrine," "The Belief of Paul," and, "Some Questions to the Christian Church from the Jewish Point of View." In the fifth selection, "B'nai...