TORONTO, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2015,
8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Canadian Institute for Jewish Research
& Beth Tikvah Synagogue present:
The Annual Sabina Citron International Conference
The Jewish Thought of Emil L. Fackenheim:
Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust, Israel
The commemoration of one of our time’s greatest Jewish philosophers and Holocaust thinkers.
Emil L. Fackenheim (Halle, 1916 – Jerusalem, 2003), studied with Leo Baeck in the Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums (Berlin). Following arrest in Sachsenhausen after Kristallnacht (1938), he narrowly escaped Nazi Germany to Scotland. Subsequently interned by the British in Quebec, he completed his philosophy doctorate at the U. of Toronto after his release. After a long career there, Fackenheim made aliyah to Israel in 1983.
Fackenheim’s ground-breaking texts on modern philosophy and Judaism include The Religious Dimension in Hegel’s Thought (1967) and Encounters between Judaism and Modern Philosophy. A Preface to Future Jewish Thought (1973). After Israel’s miraculous Six Day War victory in 1967, he focused on God’s Presence in History: Jewish Affirmations and Philosophical Reflections (1968), The Jewish Return into History. Reflections in the Age of Auschwitz and a New Jerusalem (1978), and To Mend the World. Foundations of Future Jewish Thought (1982).
