Eliezer Berkovlts

Background

Berkovlts, Eliezer was born on September 8, 1908 in Oradea, Nagyvarad, Hungarian Transylvania, now Romania.

Education

Ordained, Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary, 1934.

Career

Rabbi. Berlin. 1934-1938. Leeds. 1940-1946; Sydney, 1946-1950. Boston, 1950 8; Chairman, Department of Jewish Philosophy, Hebrew Theological College, Chicago, 1958-1975.

Emigrated to Israel, 1975.

Views

In his writings Berkovits contrasts secular Zionism with Jewish religious tradition. He examines the non-Jewish origins of much of Martin Buber's work, as well as defending Judaism against those he considered as unsympathetic, such as Arnold Toynbee. His Faith After the Holocaust (1973) has been particularly influential, especially among exponents of the Modern Jewish Orthodox position. The fact that much of his work was translated into Hebrew in the last two decades of the twentieth century, and that he has become the subject of PhD theses, confirms Berkovits’s importance as a major Holocaust thinker. His concerns with the role of women within the religious tradition and his desire to interpret the lialakhah, or practice of Jewish Law, generally in a flexible manner have influenced major late twentieth-century thinkers, such as Rabbis Irving Greenberg and David Hartman.

Interests

• Orthodox Jewish philosophical response to nonOrthodox Jewish and anti-Jewish philosophies. Holocaust philosophy. Philosophy of hulakhah (Jewish Law).