Yossel Rakover Speaks to God: Holocaust Challenges to Religious Faith

Though the story at the heart of this volume was originally published as fiction in an Argentinian Yiddish daily in 1946, it rang so true that it was mistakenly reprinted in Israel as an authentic document retrieved from the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto.
In the following years Yossel Rakover appeared in French, German, English, and many other languages. It became the subject of intense discussion among both Jewish and Christian thinkers who were attempting to confront the enormity of the Holocaust without abandoning religious faith. But Kolitz, who went on to become a film producer, writer and teacher, was unaware of these developments; indeed, when he finally set about establishing his authorship, he was met with incredulity. Although he eventually managed to prove his claim, the myth took on a life of its own, and many readers still feel that original authenticity which obliterated its fictional origins.
This volume includes the complete text of Yossel Rakover and a related Holocaust story by Kolitz, together with a series of essays about the story and its religious significance. Among the contributors are Emmanuel Levinas, the leading Franco-Jewish philosopher, Catholic theologian Frans Jozef Van Beeck of Loyola University, Prof. Klaus Berger of Heidelberg University, and Dr. Marvin Fox of Brandeis University.