A Popular Dictionary of Judaism
(Hebrew ‘Shoah’). The destruction of the European Jewish community between 1933–1945. The Nazi government of Germany was committed to *anti-Semitic policies. Until the declaration of war in 1939, Jews were systematically excluded from public office and the intellectual and cultural life of the time. After 1939 emigration was no longer possible.
Jews were then herded into *ghettos and finally transported east and slaughtered in concentration camps (see *AUSCHWITZ). Six million Jews are estimated to have died in the holocaust. Nisan 27 is kept as the Holocaust Memorial Day and *Yahrzeit is observed for the unknown dead on Tevat 10. The holocaust finally destroyed the *shtetls and *yeshivot of Eastern European Jewry and persuaded the world community that the *Zionist hope of a Jewish homeland must become a reality. The state of *Israel was created in 1948. The holocaust has underlined the religious problem of reconciling human evil with the existence of a loving *God.
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