page_title: Mnachem Risikoff
section_title: Risikoff's responses to the Holocaust
hierarchical_section_title: Mnachem Risikoff / Life and work / Risikoff's responses to the Holocaust
caption_attribution_description: English: Presentation of two manuscripts by Rabbi Mnachem HaKohen Risikoff to the U.S. Library of Congress, Hebraica Division, June 7, 2010. In the photo: Dr Peggy Pearlstein, Head, Hebraica Section, African and Middle Eastern Division, Library of Congress, accepts manuscripts. Pictured with her are Risikoff's grandson and great-granddaughter, Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff, and Malka Sarit Resnicoff.
context_page_description: Mnachem HaKohen Risikoff, was an orthodox rabbi in Russia and the United States, and a prolific author of scholarly works, written in Hebrew. Risikoff used a highly stylized and symbolic pen-name, יאמהדנונחהים, made up of the Hebrew letters of his first name, the Hebrew word for Lord, and the Tetragrammaton, one of Judaism's terms for God. It is not clear whether this pen name was used in conversation, or whether it was used only in his writings.
context_section_description: Another area in which Risikoff's writings represented ideas ahead of his time was the subject of religious responses to the Shoah, an area that would only much later be referred to as Holocaust theology.  He fervently believed that redemption would come for humanity, but never turned a blind eye to suffering, struggling with the existence of evil, its meaning, and the question of human response to it.  His writings showed his sorrow and horror at the anti-Jewish attacks in Hebron, Jerusalem, and Safed, in 1929, and when Rav Kook died in 1935, Risikoff—with "a presentiment of the catastrophe" yet to come—published a eulogy in which he put forth his belief that Kook might have been taken early to spare him from even worse times to come, based on the Biblical verse (Isaiah 57:11), "The righteous is taken away from the evil to come."
  In 1938, with the outbreak of violence that would come to be known as Kristallnacht, Risikoff wrote about keeping faith, and yet taking action in religious ways that would include worship, liturgy, and both concrete and internal responses of teshuva/repentance. He wrote that Levites, members of the Levitical tribe—and especially Kohanim, the family dynasty of Jewish Priests within that tribe—must play a special role. In his writings, especially in his book, HaKohanim vHaLeviim, The Priests and the Levites, he stressed that members of these groups exist in the realm between history (below) and redemption (above), and were called upon to take a leading role in a call to prayer, repentance, and action that would help bring an end to suffering. He wrote, "Today, we also are living through a time of flood, Not of water, but of a bright fire, which burns and turns Jewish life into ruin. We are now drowning in a flood of blood...Through the Kohanim and Levi'im help will come to all Israel.
  His writings reflected a combination of what has been called meta-history (ultimate redemption) and history, including the idea that part of the problem on earth was dishonesty not only among individuals, but also among nations. For example, with a keen eye to developments in politics and current events, he wrote that governments of a number of nations had promised Austria and Czechoslovakia that they would come to their defense if the need arose, but they ultimately broke their promises.
  On the other hand, when he wrote the words, "Nazis", "swastikas", and "Mussolini", he spelled their names backwards as a way, linked to mystical traditions and beliefs, to obliterate those names, and the existence of those represented by the names. This ability to deal with two worlds was noted by one scholar who wrote that Risikoff "distilled metahistory into history with his program for priestly action to mediate redemption."
  Risikoff's ability to deal with practical questions, rooted in reality, even as he kept faith in the promise of ultimate redemption, was clear in his response to the question as to whether Jews in Europe during the Holocaust should "accept martyrdom" for their faith, or escape if they could, to preserve their lives. He responded that it was clear in many Jewish sources that there were times to accept death for the sake of our faith (Mesirut nefesh al kiddush Hashem: submitting the soul in sanctification of God’s name), but that Hitler was not out to crush the Jewish faith, since (unlike some earlier enemies of the Jews) Jews were not given the option of conversion or abandoning their faith in order to live.  Instead, Hitler's goal was to destroy the Jewish people, and therefore the responsibility to preserve life (individual life and the life of the people) became paramount so that Jews could continue to perform God's commandments, and flight was therefore one valid option.
  A 1942 article in "The Brooklyn Daily Eagle" noted that Risikoff believed that fighting against evil was also a valid option:
  A proud man is Rabbi Mnachem Resnicoff  [sic] of 691 Lafayette Ave, one of the borough's scholars of Hebraic law and the Talmud, for his three sons have dropped their civilian duties to fight for the preservation of
caption: Dr. Peggy Pearlstein, Head, Hebraica Section, African and Middle Eastern Division, U.S. Library of Congress, accepts two unpublished manuscripts written by Risikoff on behalf of the Library. Pictured with her are Risikoff's grandson and great-granddaughter, Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff and Malka Sarit Resnicoff. June 7, 2010.
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