What role did the Jewish religion play after the Holocaust?

Answer 1

To a some extent they never have recovered. I don't think anyone can say the European Jewish community has 'recovered'.

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How can a community, a people recover from something as traumatic and horrific as the Holocaust? There's a phrase used in connection with the Armenian Holocaust that springs to mind: "the abomination of desolation" - the feeling of being unwanted and hated, and for no good reason. Worse still, there is a feeling that in some sense "the world let it happen". Obviously, I know that once it was under way, there was little or nothing that the Allies could have done to stop it. However, one should also remember the unwillingness of many countries to admit refugees or more than a handful in the years before the outbreak of World War 2. Britain admitted about 70,000 refugees, the U.S about 250,000 - a drop in the ocean but of course better than, say, Turkey, which admitted about 1,000. New Zealand didn't even admit 1,000.

Answer 2

~World Jewry was devastated by the Holocaust. Just under half the Jews on the planet were exterminated; one million of them were children. Once the camps were liberated, those Jews that had managed to survive, and not been starved to death, were left to try and desperately locate any living relatives. In many, many cases, survivors would find that their entire families had been murdered. Those Jews that still lived had nothing, as all their possessions had been taken from them. Many of them tried to get to Palestine, where Palestinian Jews had been living for 3000 years, and had irrigated the land and transformed a bit of the region into a viable and lovely place to live. But tragically, the British, who controlled Palestine, blocked the Jews from getting there. Some of them were even sent back to internment camps in Germany, which was inhumane and almost intolerable for Jews who had just spent years in the death camps. Both the Holocaust survivors, and Jews in Palestine and also in the Arab nations, had to come to terms with what had happened and the fact that there was so much irrational hatred towards them. It was now even more vital to establish an official Jewish homeland in the region of Palestine, as Jews had dreamed of doing for thousands of years. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Answer 3

Depends entirely on which Jews you are talking about, and where they went after the war. Some Jews were able to return to their homes and families (in some places in Western Europe, and in Italy), but most returned to decimated communities (Eastern Europe) or even hostile local communities (Eastern Europe). Many Jews were stateless and unable to leave Europe even though they wanted to (neither the U.S. nor the British in Palestine would allow them to immigrate) and were stuck in "displaced Persons" (D.P.) camps for years after the war.

In terms of their faith: many Jews were already secular and assimilated before the war and continued this path after the war, in some case (re) marrying non-Jews and so forth. In some cases, they lived active Jewish cultural lives, but were not interested being part of religious communities. Many previously observant Jews lost their faith, while a small group became more observant.

In terms of their psychological welfare - they received no help the first few decades after the war, no one wanted to hear about what had happened to them.

Answer 4

After the holocaust the Jewish religion was and still is considered more of a culture, just like it was during the Holocaust. About 6 Billion people make up the worlds population and from that there are only 4 million Jews (a very small amount). There would be a bigger Jewish population if 6 Million+ Jews were annihilated during the Holocaust.

Answer 5

With smaller numbers, increased urgency, vitality and determination, they crafted and created Israel.