Rabbinic literature after the Holocaust
The Holocaust led to the annihilation of substantial numbers of Jewish religious books and manuscripts, as well as the deaths of many rabbinic writers and scholars. In the decades that followed, the reemergence of rabbinic writings and the rescue, editing, and reprinting of pre-Holocaust texts became an essential part of postwar Orthodox Jewish renaissance.
Isaac Hershkowitz and Lea Zanbar identified the reasons why rabbinic scholars engaged in the post-Holocaust literary renaissance. Their findings included that the main reasons behind the literary activity were creating new content and saving and continuing the legacy of the past writings and books, as well as rebuilding the canon. Motives such as commemoration, as well as coping with the personal and collective bereavement, underlay the post-Holocaust literary renaissance in Judaism.
They documented a substantial expansion in Jewish religious book publishing during the postwar decades. According to the bibliographic data they examined, the number of titles published increased from approximately 3,322 in 1945–1954 to 10,124 in 1985–1994, although technological and economic developments also contributed to this growth.
