Is Anne Frank in hell?

David Wolpe

Named the No.1 Pulpit Rabbi in America by Newsweek magazine, Wolpe is the Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and currently teaches at UCLA.  ALL POSTS

 

 ... It means Anne Frank goes to hell. It means Elie Wiesel will go to hell. It means Maimonides and Rabbi Akiba and my father are all in hell. With as much respect as I can muster, I reject this as a perverse doctrine, one that is an affront to what I understand to be moral and true.

 

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The apparent cruelty of such a doctrine notwithstanding, the implications for treatment of others matters even more. Judaism reiterates that “the righteous of all nations have a place in the world to come.” As a result, one need not be Jewish to be saved, whatever salvation may mean...

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I treasure - no exaggeration or irony - the goodness and sweetness of many of my Christian brothers and sisters. I don’t think they mean the meanness of this view. But for me Reverend Bell is pointing a way to a Christianity that is marked by moral sanity. Wherever Anne Frank is, that is where I would want to end up. Hers is the company to keep. I cannot imagine a faith that would not wish, somewhere deep in its soul, to proclaim the same.

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