Karl Barth's attitude to Judaism has been variously interpreted, sometimes negatively. Mark R. Lindsay in his first book, Covenanted solidarity, looked at Barth's views up to 1948. In this clear, balanced analysis of Barth's attitude after that date, he considers whether his views were affected by the Holocaust. After an initial chapter setting Barth's writing in the context of post-World War II developments in Jewish-Christian relationships, he considers Barth's famous Nein! to the possibility of learning about God through the occurrences of ordinary human history. Lindsay argues that whilst it was an understandable reaction to Hitler's propaganda that he was an instrument of providence, this did not mean that in principle nothing about divine purpose could be learned from the course of ordinary human history. Although for Barth biblical history is the only history in which divine revelation can be seen unambiguously, the history of the Bible, like the history of the Church, are signs that can point to this in a special way. So it might be possible for the Holocaust to be in some sense a datum of revelation, as some have argued. However, Lindsay concludes from a study of Barth's heady but incoherent notion of evil, das Nichtige, that the Holocaust did not shape his understanding of evil in any significant way. It is different, however, with Barth's understanding of the State of Israel. Barth had supported the state politically in 1948. Lindsay shows that the theological basis of this support is the miracle of the survival of the Jews down the ages, despite all persecutions, culminating in the Holocaust. This survival, now in the form of a Jewish state, is a special sign pointing to the fact that Judaism and Christianity are bound together for all time. This leads into a final chapter in which the Jewish role in the world's redemption is explored. God is first and foremost the king of Israel and Christians have been elected with Jews ‘to be guests in their house’. Jews, in their whole history, and Christians ‘are two forms and aspects of the one inseparable community’. Although Jesus is uniquely the revelation of God Christians are not to try to convert Jews by special missions, only witness by the authentic beauty of their lives. Whilst fully aware of the negative or clumsy aspects of Barth's views on Jews, Lindsay regards them as outweighed by his very strong affirmation of Israel. In another book he might like to look at the issue of the land, for whilst the providential survival of the Jews might be a special sign how does one understand the promise of the land in the light of Christianity's historic de-territorialisation of the idea? One criticism of Barth which does still stand is that his view of Israel is very much a Christian theological construct. Although, as Lindsay shows, he did have contact with Jews and Jewish scholars, he does not really reflect the reality of post-biblical Judaism in all its variety and real differences from Christianity.