Examines how Jews have had to suffer to maintain their religious identity throughout the ages.
The Jewish community as a whole has suffered immensely in the course of its persistent belief and the practice of its religious percepts. From the earliest period, when the first Temple was destroyed, to the Holocaust during the Second World War, the Jews have been subjected to terrible forms of suffering. This paper studies the history of Judaism in context of the sufferings that Jews have had to undergo in different periods of time in their efforts to uphold their religious beliefs.
“The worst and the most shocking suffering came in the form of the holocaust. It was an entirely unprecedented level of human brutality and atrocity. This harrowing experience has in effect put a stop to all presumptions regarding suffering as a retributive justice of god. More than 6 million Jewish people were mercilessly killed. Hitler held the Jews responsible for the economic depression in Germany “The Jew has never been a nomad, but always a parasite, battening on the substance of others” [Hitler, 261].”