Holocaust and Return to Zion: A Study in Jewish Philosophy of History

In Holocaust and Return to Zion Shubert Spero traces the efforts of medieval and modern Jewish thinkers to account for the major events of their times in theological but also historical terms, and then presents his own innovative attempt to explain the recurrent upheavals of Jewish history--the destructions of the Temples, the expulsion from Spain, and the Holocaust--in terms of both Jewish and world history. In Spero's view, the long exile of the Jewish people should be viewed not as a punishment, but as reflecting the slow, progressive development of three elements: the physical location and demographic increase of the Jewish people; Torah literature as both philosophical worldview and code of conduct, and the development of international structure based on law and order, the spread of democracy, and the doctrine of human rights. All these reflect providential guidance in making possible the reestablishment of the Jewish State of Israel.