Patterson reveals how the Nazi regime undertook an assault on God, who, in Jewish tradition is known as the Name. He explores the implications that this assault had/continues to have on Jewish thinking and about Jewish identity in the post-Holocaust era. The core of his argument shows that an assault on the Name is an assault on the very identity of the Jew. Wrestling With the Angel examines the history of anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust and how Jew hatred manifested itself during it - as an assault on God and on Israel, and what the Jewish people can do about it in the aftermath of the Holocaust.