The 1966 publication of the first edition of “After Auschwitz” assured Richard L. Rubenstein’s place in Jewish theology.
Written 21 years after the liberation of the camps and 18 years after Israel’s creation, the issues raised in “After Auschwitz” were so remarkably simple, his points so basic, that they could not be ignored.
Rubenstein, who died in Bridgeport, Connecticut on May 16 at age 97, argued that Jewish theology would have to respond to the twin revolutions of modern Jewish history: The Holocaust and the rise of the state of Israel. These two events had transformed the Jewish people demographically, physically, geographically, and psychologically.