Emil Fackenheim

Emil Ludwig Fackenheim, philosopher, theologian (b at Halle, Germany 22 June 1916; d at Jerusalem 19 September 2003). Educated at the University of Halle, and ordained a rabbi in 1939, he fled Germany after a short imprisonment in a concentration camp. He studied at the University of Aberdeen and then at the University of Toronto (PhD, 1945), where he taught from 1948-84. Profoundly affected by the anti-Semitism and genocide of the Nazi era, he developed, from interests in 19th- and 20th-century European thought, particularly on questions of religion and history, a Jewish response to the Holocaust and to Western culture in general. He discusses God's presence in history and maintains that, since Auschwitz, there is a divine command to the Jews to survive and to struggle for justice. Fackenheim's writings include Metaphysics and Historicity (1961), Quest for Past and Future (1968), The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought (1968), God's Presence in History (1970), The Jewish Return into History (1978) and To Mend the World (1982). Since 1986 he had been a fellow of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University, in Jerusalem. In 1998 he was the subject of a Vision TV series Emil Fackenheim: A Spiritual Declaration.