Rabbinic Responsa: Life-For-Life Questions in the Holocaust
Harvey Berman, PhD, MPH, Professor Emeritus, University at Buffalo
This short talk will discuss Rabbinic Responsa, a collection of rabbinic answers to questions posed by Jews in the concentration camps and ghettos of Nazi Europe. The practice of Judaism touches every aspect of a religious Jew’s life, from arising in the morning, washing, eating, working, and prior to sleep at night. It is not surprising therefore that the obstacles placed upon Jews in the camps and ghettos caused uncertainty as to how a Jew was to practice his religious faith without Tallit, Tefillin, Siddurim, kosher food, sabbath candles, all the while being forced to violate laws of Sabbath and holy days.
Rabbinic Responsa differ from other branches of Holocaust history in placing focus on the victims rather than the perpetrators. As described by Ephraim Oshry, Rabbi of the Kovno ghetto in Lithuania, such responsa provide “an insight into the spiritual concerns that engaged religious Jews” during their imprisonment in Nazi Europe.
Example of such questions:
Does a ghetto home require a mezuzah?
May Jews use the clothing of other Jews who were killed?
Is is permissible for a Jew to pose as a gentile to escape identification as a Jew?
These are remarkable and nuanced questions asked by those living in extremis. Yet, there is among the Responsa a class of questions, reminiscent of medical triage, concerning life-for-life, as Jews were required to determine who shall live and who shall die, obliged to evaluate whose life was more or less worthwhile than that of another.
Was it permissible to bribe a camp guard to save a son from a death camp selection, with the knowledge that another child will undergo selection?
Should one recite the prayer of gratitude — Birkat Hagomel — after having been saved from a selection?
Was it permissible to stifle a baby’s cry if it threatened to expose a group in hiding from the Nazis?
The Rabbinic Responsa are much less well-known than other Holocaust history. But, they are fascinating to consider, and provide unequivocal affirmation of the spiritual resistance by religious Jews of Eastern Europe, demonstrating the profound depth of their Jewish faith, while at the same time withholding from Germans and their collaborators what they most wanted, the dissolution of Judaism and of Jewish identity.
Rabbinic Responsa differ from other branches of Holocaust history in placing focus on the victims rather than the perpetrators. As described by Ephraim Oshry, Rabbi of the Kovno ghetto in Lithuania, such responsa provide “an insight into the spiritual concerns that engaged religious Jews” during their imprisonment in Nazi Europe.
Example of such questions:
Does a ghetto home require a mezuzah?
May Jews use the clothing of other Jews who were killed?
Is is permissible for a Jew to pose as a gentile to escape identification as a Jew?
These are remarkable and nuanced questions asked by those living in extremis. Yet, there is among the Responsa a class of questions, reminiscent of medical triage, concerning life-for-life, as Jews were required to determine who shall live and who shall die, obliged to evaluate whose life was more or less worthwhile than that of another.
Was it permissible to bribe a camp guard to save a son from a death camp selection, with the knowledge that another child will undergo selection?
Should one recite the prayer of gratitude — Birkat Hagomel — after having been saved from a selection?
Was it permissible to stifle a baby’s cry if it threatened to expose a group in hiding from the Nazis?
The Rabbinic Responsa are much less well-known than other Holocaust history. But, they are fascinating to consider, and provide unequivocal affirmation of the spiritual resistance by religious Jews of Eastern Europe, demonstrating the profound depth of their Jewish faith, while at the same time withholding from Germans and their collaborators what they most wanted, the dissolution of Judaism and of Jewish identity.