8. Judaism today
Keyword(s):
No religion has emerged unchanged into the 21st century. Increasing secularization of Western governments has undermined the power of religious leadership and people’s values have changed. Lots of people have abandoned organized religion. ‘Judaism today’ examines the impact of postmodernist thinking in recent times on Judaism. World Jewry has found itself at the centre of two 20th-century events that have affected it in unique ways: the trauma of the Shoah, or Holocaust, and the establishment of the State of Israel. Four areas in which Jewish thought has developed since the Second World War are considered: Zionism, Holocaust theology, God, and Feminism.