Understanding Human Being

The Jewish philosophy created after the Holocaust finds a great reception, especially its question of people’s existence. Tragedy of the Holocaust hurt each of the Jew to a horrendous degree. People’s suffering is difficult to imagine, people who experienced tearing away humanity, saw torments and death of both their closest family and distant relatives as well neighbours. No wonder that after the Holocaust the Jewish thinkers were lively interested in the anthropological issue and introduced many new interpretations concerning the issues of humanity. In presenting their existence they could not settle for the theories from the past because although they were also created in the context of different suffering of the Jewish nation, they did not help to understand humanity from the perspective of the experience of the Holocaust.

Due to the originality of the Jewish anthropological thought, it arouses great interests which are expressed by publications, conferences, symposiums and seminars devoted to this philosophy and organizedin many scientific centres. One of these conferences took place in the Pomeranian University in Stolp. It was dedicated to the memory of Max Joseph, a rabbi from Stolp (in the years 1902-1936) and a philosopher who in his publications justified the rightness of the demands of political Zionism. Papers presented during this conference became the basis for the texts included in this publication. (Zbigniew Sareło)