Jewish Theology Faces the 1970's

Abstract

Jewish theology in recent years seems to have broken with its custom of following the current trend in Protes tant theology. The movement to secularize Christianity has had little effect upon Jews, for they came through the alliance with secularity some time ago. God-is-dead theology had spe cial appeal because the problem of theodicy has been an un- healed wound for Jews ever since the revelation of Hitler's slaughter of European Jewry. Yet, there has been an almost complete rejection of God-is-dead Judaism. That is traced to the fact that the new atheism would validate Auschwitz, and the Jewish community cannot tolerate that. By contrast, it has felt itself commanded, as a matter of ultimate importance, to keep the people of Israel alive. It has also sensed in the survival of the State of Israel the positive presence of God. A new intellectual leadership seems to have emerged, one which operates with a sort of Jewish existentialist theological con sensus. However, the younger generation seems less interested in theory than in experimentation to find more meaningful forms of living Judaism.