III.3. Hans Jonas et la Shoah : « L’engagement, l’antisémitisme et la possibilité de la foi »

Résumé 0

In this article, we first review the personal and political life of philosopher Hans Jonas, looking at his opposition to Nazism in what he termed a bellum judaicum. Jonas, a German Jewish philosopher from Mönchengladbach, lived through the rise of Nazism and anti-Semitism. He experienced the difficulties of emigration and above all, the tragedy of his mother’s deportation and assassination. However, he did not specifically devote any major works to the issues of anti-Semitism, the Shoah or Nazi totalitarianism. Instead, he developed a critique of metaphysical anti-Semitism in his work on ancient Gnosis. He went on to direct this critique at his former professor, Martin Heidegger, whose anti-Semitism was metaphysical in nature. The second part of the article examines the understanding of this original concept. Lastly, we review his famous work, The Concept of God after Auschwitz : A Jewish Voice, which examines the conditions for the possibility of faith after the Shoah and the major theological problem of a powerless God.