European Judaism

Ignaz Maybaum

1966

Christianity and the cult of Mithras were once in a competition which made the outcome a fifty-fifty chance. Both appealed equally to the Roman soldier who had to fight the endless wars of the Roman Empire. The cross won, because of its message to a world of constant war. The message to the living was: somebody had to die that others may live. In…

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Creator Bio

Ignaz Maybaum

1897–1976

Born in Vienna, Ignaz Maybaum was a rabbi and influential theologian of post-Holocaust thought. A disciple of the philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, Maybaum received his rabbinical ordination in 1926. In 1935, he was arrested by the Gestapo and spent several weeks in prison, which led him to emigrate to the United Kingdom. He is best known for his controversial contributions to post-Holocaust theology. In his most widely read work, The Face of God after Auschwitz (1965), Maybaum theorized the Holocaust as a sign of the Jewish people’s covenant with God, arguing that the Divine used European Jews as a sacrificial atonement for the sins of the rest of the world.

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