Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Editors and Advisers
- Preface
- Polin
- Contents
- Towards a Polish–Jewish Dialogue: The Way Forward
- Note on Transliteration, Names, and Place-Names
- List of Figures
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I JEWS IN EARLY MODERN POLAND
- PART II NEW VIEWS
- PART III REVIEWS
- REVIEW ESSAYS
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Israel Bartal, Rachel Elior, and Chone Shmeruk (eds.), Tsadikim ve'anshei ma'aseh: Meḥkarim beḥasidut Polin
- S. Bronsztejn, Z dziejów ludności żydowskiej na Dolnym Śląsku po II wojnie światowej
- Abraham David (ed.), A Hebrew Chronicle from Prague, c.1615
- Norman Davies and Antony Polonsky (eds.), Jews in Eastern Poland and the USSR, 1939–1946
- Artur Eisenbach, The Emancipation of the Jews in Poland, 1780–1870
- Barbara Engelking, Na łące popiolłów: Ocaleni z Holocaustu
- Barbara Engelking, Zagłada i pamięc
- Peter Faessler, Thomas Held, and Dirk Sawitzki (eds.), Lemberg–Lwow–Lviv: Eine Stadt im Schnittpunkt europäischer Kulturen
- Darrel J. Fasching, The Ethical Challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima: Apocalypse or Utopia?
- P. Fijałkowski (ed.), Dzieje Żydów w Polsce: Wybór tekstów źródłowych XI–XVIII wieku
- David E. Fishman, Russia's First Modern Jews: The Jews of Shklov
- Joseph Held (ed.), The Columbia History of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century
- Edward H. Judge, Easter in Kishinev: Anatomy of a Pogrom
- Edward Kossoy and Abraham Ohry, The Feldshers: Medical, Sociological, and Historical Aspects of Practitioners of Medicine with below University Level Education
- Mark Levene, War, Jews, and the New Europe: The Diplomacy of Lucien Wolf, 1914–1919
- Steven M. Lowenstein, The Berlin Jewish Community: Enlightenment, Family and Crisis, 1770–1830
- Paul Robert Magocsi, Historical Atlas of East Central Europe
- Jerzy Michalski (ed.), Lud żydowski w narodzie polskim
- Clare Moore (ed.), The Visual Dimension: Aspects of Jewish Art
- Gedalyah Nigal, Magic, Mysticism, and Hasidism
- Magdalena Opalski and Israel Bartal, Poles and Jews: A Failed Brotherhood
- Eugenia Prokóp-Janiec, Międzywojenna literatura polsko-żydowska jako zjawisko kulturowe i artystyczne
- Joel Raba, Bein zikaron lehakheḥashah: Gezerot taḥvetat bereshimot benei hazeman ubere'i haketivah hahistorit
- Marek Rostworowski (ed.), Żydzi w Polsce: Obraz i słowo
- Jean W. Sedlar, East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000–1500
- Jerzy Topolski, Polska w czasach nowożytnych: Od środkowoeuropejskiej potęgi do utraty niepodłegłości, 1501–1795
- Lawrence Weinbaum, A Marriage of Convenience: The New Zionist Organization and the Polish Government
- E. Thomas Wood and Stanisław M. Jankowski, Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust
- Steven J. Zipperstein, Elusive Prophet: Ahad Ha'am and the Origins of Zionism
- Bibliography of polish–jewish studies, 1994
- Notes on the Contributors
- Glossary
- Index
Darrel J. Fasching, The Ethical Challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima: Apocalypse or Utopia?
from BOOK REVIEWS
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Editors and Advisers
- Preface
- Polin
- Contents
- Towards a Polish–Jewish Dialogue: The Way Forward
- Note on Transliteration, Names, and Place-Names
- List of Figures
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I JEWS IN EARLY MODERN POLAND
- PART II NEW VIEWS
- PART III REVIEWS
- REVIEW ESSAYS
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Israel Bartal, Rachel Elior, and Chone Shmeruk (eds.), Tsadikim ve'anshei ma'aseh: Meḥkarim beḥasidut Polin
- S. Bronsztejn, Z dziejów ludności żydowskiej na Dolnym Śląsku po II wojnie światowej
- Abraham David (ed.), A Hebrew Chronicle from Prague, c.1615
- Norman Davies and Antony Polonsky (eds.), Jews in Eastern Poland and the USSR, 1939–1946
- Artur Eisenbach, The Emancipation of the Jews in Poland, 1780–1870
- Barbara Engelking, Na łące popiolłów: Ocaleni z Holocaustu
- Barbara Engelking, Zagłada i pamięc
- Peter Faessler, Thomas Held, and Dirk Sawitzki (eds.), Lemberg–Lwow–Lviv: Eine Stadt im Schnittpunkt europäischer Kulturen
- Darrel J. Fasching, The Ethical Challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima: Apocalypse or Utopia?
- P. Fijałkowski (ed.), Dzieje Żydów w Polsce: Wybór tekstów źródłowych XI–XVIII wieku
- David E. Fishman, Russia's First Modern Jews: The Jews of Shklov
- Joseph Held (ed.), The Columbia History of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century
- Edward H. Judge, Easter in Kishinev: Anatomy of a Pogrom
- Edward Kossoy and Abraham Ohry, The Feldshers: Medical, Sociological, and Historical Aspects of Practitioners of Medicine with below University Level Education
- Mark Levene, War, Jews, and the New Europe: The Diplomacy of Lucien Wolf, 1914–1919
- Steven M. Lowenstein, The Berlin Jewish Community: Enlightenment, Family and Crisis, 1770–1830
- Paul Robert Magocsi, Historical Atlas of East Central Europe
- Jerzy Michalski (ed.), Lud żydowski w narodzie polskim
- Clare Moore (ed.), The Visual Dimension: Aspects of Jewish Art
- Gedalyah Nigal, Magic, Mysticism, and Hasidism
- Magdalena Opalski and Israel Bartal, Poles and Jews: A Failed Brotherhood
- Eugenia Prokóp-Janiec, Międzywojenna literatura polsko-żydowska jako zjawisko kulturowe i artystyczne
- Joel Raba, Bein zikaron lehakheḥashah: Gezerot taḥvetat bereshimot benei hazeman ubere'i haketivah hahistorit
- Marek Rostworowski (ed.), Żydzi w Polsce: Obraz i słowo
- Jean W. Sedlar, East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000–1500
- Jerzy Topolski, Polska w czasach nowożytnych: Od środkowoeuropejskiej potęgi do utraty niepodłegłości, 1501–1795
- Lawrence Weinbaum, A Marriage of Convenience: The New Zionist Organization and the Polish Government
- E. Thomas Wood and Stanisław M. Jankowski, Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust
- Steven J. Zipperstein, Elusive Prophet: Ahad Ha'am and the Origins of Zionism
- Bibliography of polish–jewish studies, 1994
- Notes on the Contributors
- Glossary
- Index
Summary
In the last ten years a growing number of scholars have wrestled with the theo - logical and ethical challenges of Auschwitz and Hiroshima—historical events that have come to symbolize the modern danger of valuing efficiency and accomplishment over human dignity and rights. Elucidating for readers ways in which a wide variety of theologians, ethicists, political theorists, and social critiques have responded to these challenges, Darrell Fasching focuses his work on the problem and the solution, as he understands them. To do so, he draws upon the biblical story of Babel and the contemporary lessons that it offers.
Once, the story tells us, everyone on earth spoke the same language (Gen. 11: 1 ff.). Living close to one another, talking and working with each other, human beings came to recognize the ability and power they possessed. Consequently, ‘to make a name for [themselves]’, they began to build a city, and within it a tower which, when completed, would reach up to the heavens. Yet, unhappy with these efforts, God confused their tongues. Lacking a common language, they could not now complete the tower and were scattered by the Almighty throughout the world. Fasching convincingly suggests that this tale is, in fact, a meaningful parable for our times. Imagining the inhabitants of Babel as modern men and women, attempting to create a perfect city through their technological prowess and ex - pertise, he insists that God did not see their efforts as sinful but as misguided. The point of the story, Fasching tells us, ‘is that utopian transcendence is to be found not in a “finished world” of technological and ideological conformity but in an “unfinished world” of diversity’ (p. 2).
The picture of the future that Fasching presents is frightening, yet clear. Cultural visions that emphasize technology's promises but not its dangers have led us, he warns, on a path from Auschwitz to Hiroshima to the brink of ‘MADness’ (i.e. mutually assured destruction). We have created a secularized myth of human progress without a counter-myth of human responsibility.
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- Jews in Early Modern Poland , pp. 362 - 364Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1997