Over the years Jews have had many different views about God. In the Torah, God is a family God to Abraham and his descendants. He is portrayed as a warlike, jealous, punishing and angry God. He destroyed the world with the Great Flood, with the exception of Noah’s ark. He punished the Egyptians with plagues and then hardened Pharoah’s heart so more plagues would be necessary. In the desert, he told the Israelites to wipe out the Amalekites and all they owned, and then punished Moses for an indiscretion and didn’t let him enter the Promised Land.
In later Biblical books, God was constantly punishing the Jews for idol worship and destroyed the First and Second Temples for reasons that are not clear. Then He let the Romans disperse the Jews to the Diaspora for almost 2,000 years. This culminated in the Holocaust, which Orthodox Jews blame on many Jews leading secular lives. Read more »