During the periods when they were suffering under the Nazi regime, religious Jews turned to their traditional leaders — the Jewish scholars. The body of legal literature produced by rabbis responding to questions on Jewish law during the Holocaust, known as “rabbinic responsa” — or she’elos u’teshuvos — is unique. It reveals profound faith in a transcendent code of conduct that sustained believing Jews then, and continues to do so today. The responsa highlight both the intellectual creativity and the deep sensitivity of Jewish spiritual leaders during a catastrophic time.
AUSTRIA
THE LOOMING STORM
RABBI MORDECHAI YAAKOV BREISCH
AUSTRIA
Someone was informed, well over a month after it happened, that his father had been murdered and cremated by the Germans: The Germans had stored the ashes in an urn, as it was their practice at the start of the war to send the ashes for burial to the family of the victim. He asked me, in light of this, when does his year of mourning begin. I replied that it begins from the moment when it became known to him that his father had passed away.
Death and Burial
Cremation is forbidden by Jewish law, which inculcates a deep respect for the dead. When the Nazis would send ashes they claimed belonged to murdered Jews to their relatives, this raised painful questions about Jewish burial. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kirschenbaum writes of the laws concerning the ashes of victims, January 1939:
1. It is not necessary for one to guard the ashes so that they are not disturbed by rodents, unlike the rule concerning a recently deceased human body.
2. If someone is informed by the government offices of the death of a relative, he must begin shivah [the traditional seven days of mourning] immediately.
3. The urn containing the ashes should be carried on a stretcher for the honor of the deceased.
4. The urn should be buried in a regular coffin, or at least in a small chest. If this is not possible, it should be buried in the packaging in which the family received it.
5. The urn should be wrapped in a tallis [prayer shawl] and draped with regular shrouds.
6. When there is no coffin available and the urn is being buried in the package in which it arrived, the shrouds too should be placed in the package. Some board or stone should be placed over the shrouds so that they will not become soiled.
7. The family members must sit in mourning for the duration of the day of the funeral, although in these circumstances the burial takes place almost invariably after the week of shivah and usually after the entire month of mourning.
8. If the family members already rent their clothing when they were informed of the tragedy, they do not need to do so again on the day of the funeral.
9. At the funeral, the passages of Tzidduk Ha-din [a sacred text] should be recited. Those attending should line up for the mourners to pass by, just as is done at every funeral.
10. It is not necessary to have a special meal for seudas havra´ah [traditional post-funeral repast] after such a funeral.
11. The mourners must don tefillin [phylacteries] even on the day of the funeral, unless the mourner learned of his relative´s passing on that very day. In that case, he is subject to the halachah [Jewish law] of someone who learned of his relative´s passing more than thirty days after it happened, in which case he would not don tefillin on that day.
12. The yahrtzeit [anniversary of the death] is reckoned according to the actual day of the passing.
POLAND
LIFE OR DEATH
RABBI SHIMON EFRATI
POLAND
Question: In a bunker in a hiding place [probably Warsaw], an entire community of Jews sat… And at the time that the evildoers [the Nazis] had set up searches to find these unfortunate people, an infant who was among those hiding began to cry, and there was no way to silence him. Were his voice heard outside, all would have been discovered and killed. The question was asked whether it was permitted to place a pillow in the mouth of the infant in order to silence him. In this situation, there was a worry that the child would be smothered. During the course of the discussion, one individual got up and put the pillow over the mouth of the infant. And after the cursed evildoers had left, the community approached to remove the pillow and saw, to their consternation, that the child had been suffocated.
And the question was, therefore, whether it had been permitted to place the pillow in order to save the rest of the people. Or if there was no justification for this, and the man who had done so, even by accident, was required to repent for his sin to be absolved.
Answer: The action was correct
LIBERATION
DEATH AND BURIAL
RABBI YITZHAK ISAAC HERZOG
RABBI MOSHE FEINSTEIN
LIBERATION
The two teshuvos below concern one especially sensitive topic: agunos (presumed widows prohibited by Jewish law from remarrying because their husbands´ deaths had not been verified). After the Holocaust, women married prior to the war could not find their husbands, and questions involving agunos proliferated. These resolutions helped Jews rebuild their lives.
Question: On the night of the 26/27 of July 1944, a combat bomber plane of the South African air force flew a mission to drop bombs on the enemy. The plane never returned from this action and the assumption is that it fell into the Adriatic Sea and was destroyed, along with its crew of eight men. One of the crewmembers was a Jewish officer, Second Lieutenant J., who was never heard from again after that night…
One year later, the officer in charge of the military archives informed J.´s family that he saw Nazis lead a man to be murdered in a gas chamber, and also that the man was sick with an illness such that the Nazis would not have permitted him to live in any case. May his wife remarry?
Answer: She is permitted to remarry. (Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac Herzog)
Question: (Dated Tishrei 5706/ September 1946): A witness testified that he saw Nazis lead a man to be murdered in a gas chamber, and also that the man was sick with an illness such that the Nazis would not have permitted him to live in any case. May his wife remarry?
Answer: She is permitted to remarry. (Rabbi Moshe Feinstein)
GERMANY
FAITH IN THE EYE OF THE STORM
RABBI GESCHEIT
RABBI JACOB KATZENSTEIN
GERMANY
The following 1943 exchange of letters between Rabbi Gescheit of Berlin and Rabbi Jacob Katzenstein of Hamburg describes the construction of a Hamburg ritual bath in the depths of wartime Germany.
Rabbi Katzenstein wrote:
To the Rabbi, our Teacher and Mentor, Rabbi Michael Chaim Dr. Gescheit, in Berlin. Herewith I send a copy of a memorial scroll that I composed in honor of the Almighty and in praise of the people who labored and troubled on the building of the new mikveh, which has now been completed with the aid of Heaven, and this scroll has been hidden among the stones of the wall of the mikveh in order to fulfill the commandment “Let the stones cry out from the wall”…
Rabbi Gescheit replied:
To his Honor, the great scholar and outstanding rabbinical authority, Rabbi Jacob Katzenstein in Hamburg. I received your esteemed letter of Thursday in the Week of the Portion Yisro, together with the copy of the memorial document and I am indebted to your honored Excellence for much gratitude, for despite the sad contents I read your beautiful verses with great pleasure. We must assuredly mourn the shrinking of the Hamburg community, but it nevertheless remains a great city in Israel and, despite the very difficult conditions, its leaders carry out their duties as it is commanded. Through this service they will hasten the day when sons will return to the Land, and when you will inscribe on a stone plaque on the wall what you have now hidden between the stones of the wall, in order to tell future generations of the devotion of the spirit and courage of your heart at a time of trial and oppression. It has also been an example for us, for what happened to you happened to us. The building in Raben Street, which housed our mikveh, has been sold, and we may perhaps be able to use its purification water for the present week… and may the Almighty open up for us soon wells of purification and the wells of salvation… Amen.
Your faithful servant,
Michael Chaim Gescheit
HUNGARY
RESPONSE TO DEPRIVATION
HUNGARY
Question: On the extremely important issue that in many places in our country we can no longer find salt, and it is impossible to know what tomorrow will bring, how should we act in the cooking of meat?
Answer: It is permitted to prepare the meat by means of roasting, but only in preparation for the Sabbath and holidays.
Note: The halachically required removal of blood from meat prior to cooking is accomplished by means of salting and rinsing the meat. According to the law, it is permitted to prepare meat by roasting it, even without salt, but the widespread custom is to salt even meat that will be roasted, such as the liver (see Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah, section 67:3). The question here is whether it is permitted to prepare meat to be kosher in some other fashion if there is no salt.
LITHUANIA
IDENTITY CRISIS
RABBI EFRAIM OSHRY
LITHUANIA
A teenaged Jewish boy hidden with a non-Jewish family converted to Christianity, encouraged by his rescuers. Overcome by agonized regret, he soon returned to the ghetto voluntarily, to rejoin his suffering people. Rabbi Oshry writes:
I was asked whether it was permissible to count this young man in a minyan after he had consented to be baptized, and whether he could be called up to the Torah… Furthermore, he was a kohen, and he wished to go up to the duchan to bless the congregation as his father had taught him… I replied that all these things are permissible.