c. 2003 Religion News

Philosopher Emil Fackenheim Dead at 87

JERUSALEM (RNS) Rabbi Emil Fackenheim, a prominent Jewish philosopher who postulated that Judaism and Jewish life must continue and flourish after the Nazis slaughtered 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, died in Jerusalem on Sept. 19. He was 87.

A prolific writer whose books included “God’s Presence in History” and the much-lauded “To Mend the World,” Fackenheim was best known for creating what he called Judaism’s “614th Commandment,” _ an addition to the 613 God commanded the Jews to follow in the Bible.

Fackenheim’s 614th Commandment stated: “Thou shalt not award Hitler any posthumous victories.”

“Behind that seemingly simple statement,” said an obituary in The Jerusalem Post “lay a life of work examining how Judasim and Jewish existence could remain meaningful in the shadow of the death camps.”

Born in Gemany in 1916, Fackenheim experienced the Nazi regime first-hand. The Nazis arrested him on Nov. 9, 1938, on Kristallnacht _ the Night of Broken Glass _ during which they destroyed Jewish homes, synagogues and businesses throughout the country.

He was briefly imprisoned at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp but released in 1939. After becoming a rabbi he fled Germany and made his way to Britain. After World War II British officials accused him of being an enemy alien and later sent him to Canada.

A longtime philosophy professor at the University of Toronto, where he received his doctorate, Fackenheim moved to Israel in 1984 and became a lecturer at the Hebrew University.

He is survived by four children.

_ Michele Chabin

DEA END RNS