Our text this week is Wiesel’s 1964 The Gates of the Forest, first published in French and translated to the English in 1966. This novel, set at the beginning of World War II, follows the struggle of a seventeen-year-old Hungarian Jew, Gregor, who is hiding from both Nazi and Hungarian forces in a cave in the forest. Gregor meets a mysterious stranger, Gavriel, who saves his life. He eventually leaves the cave and hides in the village below, posing as a deaf-mute; and, later, seeks refuge among the Jewish resistance fighters. Although woven together as a single narrative, the work is episodic, with each symbolic encounter or scene revealing the identity crisis that Gregor (and by extension, the Jew, in particular the surviving Jew) is now faced with. The passages we will share this week reflect the lessons that that Gregor learns: from the ghosts of his past, from Gavriel, and from his own survival.

Passage #1:

Wiesel prefaced his novel with this famous Hasidic tale to which he added a coda:

When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov
Saw misfortune threatening the Jews
It was his custom
To go into a certain part of the forest to meditate.
There he would light a fire,
Say a special prayer,
And the miracle would be accomplished
And the misfortune averted.

Later when his disciple,
The celebrated Magid of Mezritch,
Has occasion, for the same reason,
To intercede with heaven,
He would go to the same place in the forest
And say: “Master of the Universe, listen!
I do not know how to light the fire,
But I am still able to say the prayer.”
And again the miracle would be accomplished.

Still later,
Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov,
In order to save his people once more,
Would go into the forest and say:
“I do not know how to light the fire,
I do not know the prayer,
But I know the place
And this must be sufficient.”
It was sufficient and the miracle was accomplished.

Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn
To overcome misfortune.
Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands,
He spoke to God: “I am unable to light the fire
And I do not know the prayer;
I cannot even find the place in the forest.
All I can do is to tell the story,
And this must be sufficient.”
And it was sufficient.

God made man because he loves stories.

Passage #2:

Suddenly he fell silent; winner or loser, Gregor didn’t know. He could still see his grandfather’s lips moving as they said, “Don’t be afraid, my child. Madmen are just wandering messengers, and without them the world couldn’t endure. Without them there would be no surprise; they surprise even the Creator because they escape from Him and regard Him with pity. Their mission on earth? To persuade us that we don’t know how to count, that numbers deceive or trap us. Are you listening?” And heavy-heartedly Gregor answered, “Yes, Grandfather, I’m listening. I think I’ve lived only for this encounter and for this night.” He could hardly hear him whispering, “That, my child, is true of all encounters, of every night.” (14)

Passage #3:

Gavriel’s feverish voice was silent. He panted like a man choking to death, then managed to catch his breath and go on: “You mustn’t forget laughter either. Do you know what laughter is? I’ll tell you. It’s God’s mistake. When God made man in order to bend him to his wishes he carelessly gave him the gift of laughter. Little did he know that later that earthworm would use it as a weapon of vengeance. When he found out, there was nothing he could do; it was too late to take back the gift. And yet he tried his best. He drove man out of paradise, invented an infinite variety of sins and punishments, and made him conscious of his own nothingness, all in order to prevent him from laughing. But, as I say, it was too late. God made a mistake before man made his. What they have in common is that they are both irreparable.” (21)

Passage #4:

Spring continued; the war too: they complemented each other perfectly, the one accentuating the other, each prolonging the other’s life. Cold weather isn’t suitable to murder; it slows it down. As a conscientious artisan the killer prefers to work in the sun: brave and free, knowing no fear, loving hard work and good health, relaxed in his movements and guiltless in the eyes of his fellow men, the killer knows that he is following the right way. “We’re doing it for the good of mankind,” said the philosophers of murder, waiting for the rest of the world to congratulate them. (61)

Passage #5:

“Just the same you must admit it’s strange,” said Lieb. “It took a war to make our paths cross again.” His eyes blazed in the dark, and Gregor was once more a schoolboy.

“That’s the purpose of war.” said Gregor, concealing his emotion. “It intensifies and underlines everything strange. War broke out in order that our paths might cross. War has fun; it overturns law and order, shakes the trees, and says to men: Get yourselves out of this mess. Suddenly children are older than their parents, and war says to them both: Go on, look each other in the face, and we’ll see what happens. But nothing happens. Fathers and children are content to look each other in the face, and they die without having understood the game they have been playing. Then war laughs. Why not? It has every right to. It plants you in front of a stranger and says, Love him, kill him, humiliate him, and you obey without asking yourself whether it is right. An hour later you will be loved or killed or humiliated in your turn. At bottom we know all this, but we play the game as if it were for fun. That’s what’s strange.” (121-122)

Please join us for the next week of selected passages at our Facebook!

Our last BUJS Forum of the year took place on April 27 in the Elie Wiesel Center library. Our speaker, Dr. Rachel Gordan, joined us to speak about how Judaism rose to prominence as a major American religion in the 1950s and 1960s, even becoming known as “America’s third faith.” The forum was titled after her forthcoming publication, How Judaism Became an American Religion. In her lecture, she argued that “middlebrow culture” played a considerable role in the growth of the cultural understanding and prominence of Judaism during this post-war period.

After the war, due to the devastation of the Holocaust and the fact that many American towns had a small population of Jews, there was a common misconception that Judaism was “no longer a living faith.” Middlebrow American literature worked against this misconception by simultaneously presenting Judaism as a living American religion and educating Americans about Jewish culture. “Middlebrow” writing, which was generally understood as “white, middle-class, and conservative in its values,” became a vehicle for this conversation.

Gordan noted that “the term ‘middlebrow’ did not appear until after 1920,” and came to mean “something blandly conventional.” However, in the earlier part of the 20^th Century it developed as a distinct social strata of professionals, managers, and cultural workers. Most scholarship has examined the “highbrow” contributions of writers such as Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, and Bernard Malamud. Middlebrow authors such as Herman Wouk and Laura Z. Hobson have received comparatively little notice despite, Gordan explained, the ability of middlebrow culture to “announce Judaism to a mainstream public.”

Although Gordan mentioned a number of authors whose work could be considered middlebrow writing, she focused primarily on the work of Wouk and Hobson. In 1955, Wouk published a bestselling novel titled Marjorie Morningstar, which tells the story of a Jewish woman who was portrayed, remarkably, as an “American every-girl.” Natalie Wood and Gene Kelly starred in a movie adaptation three years after its publication. In the movie and the book, the American public witnessed Jewish holidays and events, such as a Passover Seder and a bar mitzvah, depicted as both American and middle class. Similarly, Hobson’s 1947 novel Gentleman’s Agreement clearly attempts to depict Jewish characters as “normal” Americans, combatting the common caricature of Jews in media as dishonest or scheming figures. Hobson’s vision, Gordan argued, suggested that “simply knowing someone was of Judeo-Christian origin was sufficient reason for respectful treatment.” Although such a standard is outdated by today’s understanding, it was an “imaginative leap toward integrating Jews into America’s national project” at the time of publication.

What role did maps that depict the Holy Land and other biblical locations play in constructing spaces construed as “Jewish”? This is the question that drove our second BUJS forum of spring semester on February 13. Our speaker, Professor Jeffrey Shoulson (University of Connecticut), described his exploration of early maps as he tried to find an answer, examining the development of maps and the understandings of Jewishness, in “Mapping and Unmapping Jewish History in Early Modern Bibles.”

At the heart of Shoulson’s lecture was the history of maps—and how maps affect and reflect the conflicts of the culture and societies that surround and create them. By looking at ancient maps, such as the Madaba mosaic map (circa 550 CE) and the progression of maps included as supplements in editions of the Bible, Shoulson proposed that there was a quiet “desacralization” of the Holy Land. This process “rendered Israel as past” and allowed Christian readers to visualize and supercede that past with their own cultural understanding.

In order to examine this process and the cultural anxiety associated with spaces identified as Jewish, Shoulson pairs a literary and historical approach. He looked to the recurring notion of Zion as a land that continues to retain importance and be contested and searched for representations of that space. He found that physical depictions are overwhelmingly found in early vernacular Protestant bibles. Jewish religious writings of the same time period did not show the same interest in representing the Holy Land. Additionally, the emergence of maps notably intersects with a major shift of ideologies triggered by the Reformation, and also with technical developments for the mass reproduction of maps and books.

Shoulson argued that maps of the Holy Land have much to say about the intersection of cultural and ideology of this period. We can unlock this complex relationship by looking at how each map chooses to depict the geographic space and its religious context, where the maps appear, and where they are notably absent.

Elie Wiesel’s A Beggar in Jerusalem, originally published in 1968 as Le Mendiant de Jérusalem, explores the experiences of David, a Holocaust survivor, who visits Jerusalem after the Six-Day War.

In A Beggar in Jerusalem, Wiesel weaves together a complicated understanding between the past and present as well as the spiritual and physical. He reveals these themes through individuals on the fringe of society: beggars and madmen. As we have seen through our retrospective of Wiesel’s works, both beggars and madmen appear often throughout his stories: In Dawn a beggar teaches the protagonist something that changes his perspective for life; in The Gates of the Forest, he calls madmen “messengers.” Additionally, although we did not share passages from the particular section, Wiesel’s memoir, And the Sea is Never Full, includes a chapter on “Of Madmen and Visionaries.”

Passage #1:

The other postwar period, the one in Europe, was different. Survivors we were, but we were allowed no victory. Fear followed us everywhere, fear preceded us. Fear of speaking up, fear of keeping quiet. Fear of opening our eyes, fear of shutting them. Fear of loving and being rejected or loved for the wrong reasons, or for no reason at all. Marked, possessed, we were neither fully alive nor fully dead. People didn’t know how to handle us. We rejected charity. Pity filled us with disgust. We were beggars, unwanted everywhere, condemned to exile and reminding strangers everywhere what they had done to us and to themselves. No wonder then that in that time they came to reproach us for their own troubled consciences. (29)

Passage #2:

Somewhere in the world, Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav used to say, there is a certain city which encompasses all other cities in the world. And in that city there is a street which contains all other streets in the city. And on that street stands a house which dominates all other houses on the street. And that house has a room which comprises all other rooms in the house. And in that room there lives a man in whom all other men recognize themselves. And that man is laughing. That’s all he ever does, ever did. (40)

Passage #3:

We who had taught the world the art and necessity of survival were to be betrayed by that world once more. And this time I for one would not submit to the event as spectator or witness.

[Lieutenant Colonel] Gad knew me too well not to read my thoughts. “Two days ago,” he said, “a young volunteer from overseas arrived at my camp. He was what you would call a nice Jewish boy. Clever, sincere, and burning with love for his people. I asked him a simple question: what had moved him to leave the safety of his home and come here. He answered with baffling frankness: ‘The wish to die with you.’ He was expecting congratulations, and received insults instead. I was beside myself with rage. I literally chased him out of the office: ‘It is extremely kind of you to wish to participate in our death, except that our national funeral―if I may say so―will not take place. Not now, not ever.’ Do you hear me? Don’t turn away!” (75)

Passage #4:

The rabbi nodded with understanding and turned to me. Stroking his graying beard, he questioned me about my studies, wanting to know where I was in the Talmud and how I felt about Rashi and other commentaries. He radiated such kindness that despite my timidity I was able to answer without getting confused, without stammering. But I was incapable of answering his last question: “Your mother wants you to grow up to be a good Jew. Tell me, what is a good Jew?”

“I don’t know, Rebbe.”

“Do you think I do?”

“Yes, Rebbe. I am sure you do.”

“Well let’s put it this way: a good Jew is someone who, thinking of himself, says: I don’t know.”

I waited for some further explanation, but he must have thought he had said enough. (81)

Passage #5:

“I” had remained over there, in the kingdom of the night, a prisoner of the dead. The living person I was, the one who I thought myself to be, had been living a lie; I was nothing more than an echo of voices long since extinguished, nothing more than a shadow stumbling against other shadows whom I was cheating and betraying day after day, as I forged ahead. I thought I was living my own life, I was only inventing it. I thought I had escaped the ghosts, I was only extending their power. And now it was too late to retrace my steps. (159-160)

Please join us for the next week of selected passages at our Facebook!

Elie Wiesel’s A Jew Today originally appeared as Un Juif Aujourd’hui in 1978. The book is a collection of essays, stories, diary entries, portraits, and dialogues written between 1971 and 1978. These short pieces describe an evolving understanding of Jewishness woven out of current events, history, and memory. Wiesel writes about a wide variety of topics, including Israel in the aftermath of the wars of 1967 and 1973, global conflicts, and the Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Each essay reflects Wiesel’s passionate political views and personal philosophies, and we hope our selected passages this week will inspire thought and discussion.

Passage #1:

From “To be a Jew”:

I knew what it meant to be a Jew in day-to-day life as well as in the absolute. What we required was to obey the Law; thus one needed first to learn it, then to remember it. What was required was to love God and that which in His creation bears His seal. And His will would be done.

(…)

With the years I learned a more “sophisticated,” more modern vocabulary. I was told that to be a Jew means to place the accent simultaneously and equally on verb and noun, on the secular and the eternal, to prevent the one from excluding the other or succeeding at the expense of the other. That it means to serve God by espousing man’s cause, to plead for man while recognizing his need of God. And to opt for the Creator AND His creation, refusing to pit one against the other. (6-7)

Passage #2:

From “To be a Jew”:

Of course, man must interrogate God, as did Abraham; articulate his anger, as did Moses; and shout his sorrow, as did Job. But only the Jew opts for Abraham―who questions―AND for God―who is questioned. He claims every role and assumes every destiny: his is both sum and synthesis. (7)

Passage #3:

From “Zionism and Racism,” written in response to the UN Resolution 3379, adopted in November of 1975, which “determine[d] that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” The Resolution was revoked in 1991. Wiesel wrote:

We are told that this is not about Jews, but about Zionists. That, too, is hardly new. They try to divide us, to pit us one against the other after having pitted us against the world.

There was a time when the Jews of Germany were told: We have nothing against you, our resentment is directed solely against the Jews of Poland, who refuse to be assimilated. Later the Jews of France were told: You have nothing to fear, our measures are aimed only at German Jews, they are too assimilated. Later the Hungarian Jews were reassured: We are not interested in you but in your coreligionists in France; they are making trouble there…

It was all a lie, and now we know it. They meant all of us, everywhere and always. (42)

Passage #4:

From “Dodye Feig, A Portrait”:

One day, without a word to anyone, without thinking it over, I set out on foot to see him―I missed him so much. After an exhausting march of several hours I entered his farm, out of breath, and sank into a chair.

Concealing his surprise, he simply inquired whether my mother knew. “No? And your father, not he either?” He frowned. “Fine. First of all we shall send a message with the first coachman returning to town; then you and I shall talk.”

And at dusk, after prayers and the meal, he made me sit before him. “Do as I do,” he told me. “When I stand before my Rebbe, I remove my veils and tell him everything, it does me good. Tell me everything, it will do you good.” Without humiliating me or scolding me, he questioned me about the reasons for my escapade. I answered as best I could: “I missed you, Grandfather.” ― ”Is that the real reason, the only one?” ― ”Yes, Grandfather, the only one.” (78)

The stories I most like to tell are the ones I heard from my grandfather. I owe him my love of tradition, my passion for the Jewish people and its unfortunate children. And he, who never read a novel, is a presence in my novels. My old men often bear his features, sing the way he did and, like him, disarm melancholy with the magic of words. (80)

Passage #5:

From “The Scrolls, Too, are Mortal.” A conversation with a scribe:

“Memory,” he says, “yes, it sometimes lets itself be devoured by the imagination. I like both, but separately.” He reaches for a pen, hesitates, sets it down again. “One must not trust memory too much; it is faithful only to the extent that we are faithful to it.”

The last sentence makes me jump: I had heard it before, long ago. “Memory,” he had added then, “memory is our real kingdom.” (85)

Please join us for the next week of selected passages at our Facebook!

Elie Wiesel received Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. His acceptance speech and related lecture, “Hope, Despair and Memory,” which was delivered in Oslo the day after his acceptance speech, are amongst his most well-known public addresses. This week we revisit his famous words by looking at particularly evocative passages so that we can reflect upon Wiesel’s call to action against indifference in the face of hatred.

If you would like to explore this historic moment, here are some helpful links:

• Watch the acceptance speech at the Nobel Prize website.
• Read the acceptance speech.
• Read “Hope, Despair and Memory.”

Passage #1:

From The Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech:

I remember he asked his father: “Can this be true? This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?”

And now the boy is turning to me. “Tell me,” he asks, “what have you done with my future? What have you done with your life?” And I tell him that I have tried. That I have tried to keep memory alive, that I have tried to fight those that would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.

And then I explain to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Passage #2:

From The Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech:

As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.

Passage #3:

From “Hope, Despair, and Memory”:

We thought it would be enough to tell of the tidal wave of hatred which broke over the Jewish people for men everywhere to decide once and for all to put an end to hatred of anyone who is “different”―whether black or white, Jew or Arab, Christian or Moslem―anyone whose orientation differs politically, philosophically, sexually. A naive undertaking? Of course. But not without a certain logic.

We tried. It was not easy. At first, because of the language: language failed us. We would have to invent a new vocabulary, for our own words were inadequate, anemic.

And then too, the people around use refused to listen; and even those who listened refused to believe; and even those who believed could not comprehend. Can you understand, can anyone understand how a nation of such culture, of such power, could all of a sudden invent death camps, death factories, and mobilize its entire industry, its science, its philosophy, its passion, to kill Jewish people?

Passage #4:

From “Hope, Despair, and Memory”:

Let us remember Job who, having lost everything―his children, his friends, his possessions, and even his argument with God―still found the strength to begin again, to rebuild his life. Job was determined not to repudiate the creation, however imperfect, that God had entrusted to him.

Job, our ancestor. Job, our contemporary. Everything in our tradition tells us that Job was not a Jew, but his suffering concerns us. It concerns us so much that we have taken his language into our liturgy. His ordeal concerns all humanity. Did he ever lose faith? If so, he rediscovered it within his rebellion. He demonstrated that faith is essentially a rebellion, and that hope is possible beyond despair but not without it. The source of his hope was memory, as it must be ours. Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.

Passage #5:

From “Hope, Despair, and Memory”:

The lesson, the only lesson that I have learned from my experiences, is twofold: first, that there are no plausible answers to what we have endured. There are no theological answers, there are no psychological answers, there are no literary answers, there are no philosophical answers, there are no religious answers. The only conceivable answer is a moral answer. This means there must be a moral element in whatever we do. Second, that just as despair can be given to me only by another human being, hope too can be given to me only by another human being. Mankind must remember also, and above all, that like hope and whatever hope signifies, peace is not God’s gift to his creatures. Peace is a very special gift―it is our gift to each other.

Please join us for the next week of selected passages at our Facebook!

Sages and Dreamers collects twenty-five years of lectures delivered by Elie Wiesel at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, connecting the heroes of the past both in scripture and in Jewish tradition with the present. Each figure, according to his 1991 preface, “stands for an epoch and its problems, conflicts, and aspirations which are often surprisingly close to our own, in this distant century” (14). Wiesel directly engages these stories, which range from biblical history into the First World War, and their many interpretations and challenges with the reader in order to make the history of the Jewish people more personal. The passages we’ve chosen this week highlight the connections between past and present that make Wiesel’s scholarly work so engaging.

Passage #1:

I read and reread the story of Noah and experience a joy and an anguish which are not just my own: we have repeated certain sentences so often in four thousand years that they have become immortal.

That is the profound beauty of Scripture: its characters are not mythical; their adventures are not imaginary; they vibrate with life and truth, and thus compel those of us who approach them to enter their lives and search for the meaning. (21)

Passage #2:

From his exile, Ezekiel speaks to all generations, and particularly to ours, for, more than his own contemporaries, we have witnessed the frailty of social structures and the irresistible power of spiritual courage and dreams.

For once upon a time some of us did see a deserted land covered with dry bones.

And yes, we could testify to man’s ability to transform memories of tragedy into necessary hope.

Indeed, no generation can understand Ezekiel as well―as profoundly―as ours. (82)

Passage #3:

As a child I loved to study Talmud but did not really understand it. I thought―or rather, my poor teachers thought―that it was enough to learn a certain number of passages by heart. We were lead to believe that all these laws and arguments and discussions were remote from life and its everyday problems―mine and those of my friends. The issues raised and the solutions offered belonged to another land, another age–not to ours. The only possible reward for studying Talmud was that, with some luck, you could become a melamed (teacher of Talmud). So―why bother?

Today I know that the study of a Talmudic text is an adventure not unrelated to literary endeavour: a three-sentence legend often possesses the suggestive power of a lyrical poem. A discussion on a remote subject often contains more descriptive elements than a historical narrative.

Today I know it would be wrong to look only for the past in Talmud. The Talmud is eternally present. Nothing in it is ever lost. The sages continue their eternal debates and the children continued to be imbued with their fervour. The holiness of Shabbat is still celebrated and, right there, the Temple is burning. And we who read the corresponding passages burn with the Temple―and perhaps for the Temple. (160)

Passage #4:

What [Rabbi Ishmael] told us―what he taught us―is as follows: Yes, I could destroy the world, and the world, ruled by cynicism and hatred, deserves to be destroyed; but to be a Jew is to have all the reasons in the world to destroy, and not to destroy. To be a Jew is to have all the reasons in the world to hate the executioners and not to hate them. To be a Jew is to have all the reasons in the world to mistrust prayer and faith and humanity and power and beauty and truth and language―and yet not to do so. To be a Jew is to continue using words when they heal, and silence when it redeems mankind. (223)

Passage #5:

The Talmud has no end―I mean, no official end. Rav Ashi concluded the editing of the Babylonian Talmud but refrained from sealing it, and he did so on purpose: to allow us to continue. Every one of us may, while exploring its complex Sugyot and illuminating tales, link our soul to its own.

That is why we study Talmud with such passion; and that is why our enemies have, throughout generations of suspicion and bad faith, hated it and us with a similar passion. They envied us the Talmud more than the Bible. The Talmud filled them with fear: they sensed in it our most tangible reason for our survival in exile. That is why they tried to ridicule it, even burn it.

For us, the Talmud represents a possibility of transcending the present and extending its boundaries; we repeat an ancient discussion and we become participants; we study the interpretations of old laws and customs, and they commit us anew. (314)

Please join us for the next week of selected passages at our Facebook!

In 2013, at the age of 82, Elie Wiesel unexpectedly had to undergo emergency open heart surgery. The procedure was successful and afterwards Wiesel explored his experience in a lecture that became this week’s text. It was to be his final book. The slim volume, Open Heart, provides an intimate portrait of Wiesel’s personality and family life in his later years. The selections we chose to share this week reveal his sense of humor in addition to his gift for poetic reflection.

Passage #1:

As soon as he receives his colleague’s message, my primary care doctor, a cardiologist, reaches me at home. On the phone, he appears to be out of breath; he speaks in a tense, emphatic voice, louder than usual. I have the feeling that he is trying to contain or even hide his nervousness, his concern. Clearly, he is unhappy to have to give me this bad news that will change so many things for me…

“I expected a different result,” he explains. “But now the situation requires some further tests immediately.”

“Yes?”

“Please come to Lenox Hill Hospital right away. I am already there.”

I protest: “Why? Because it’s the heart? Is it really that urgent? I have never had a problem with my heart. With my head, yes; my stomach too. And sometimes with my eyes. But the heart has left me in peace.”

At that, he explodes: “This conversation makes no sense. I am your cardiologist, for heaven’s sake! Please don’t argue with me! You must take a number of tests that can only be administered at the hospital. Come as quickly as you can! And go to the emergency entrance!”

On occasion, I can be incredibly stupid and stubborn. And so I nevertheless steal two hours to go to my office. I have things to attend to. Appointments to cancel. Letters to sign. People to see―among others, a delegation of Iranian dissidents.

Strange, all this time I am not really worried, though by nature I am rather anxious and pessimistic. My heart does not beat faster. My breathing is normal. No pain. No premonitions. No warning. (5-6)

Passage #2:

Marion is still here, and in a flash I relive our life together, the exceptional moments that have marked it.

I recall our first meeting, at the home of French friends. Love at first sight. Perhaps. Surely on my part. I thought her not only beautiful but superbly intelligent. Hearing her discuss with great passion some Broadway play, I became convinced that I could listen to her for years and years―all my life―without ever interrupting her. I invited her to lunch at an Italian restaurant across from the United Nations. Neither of us touched the food.

Her background? Vienna, then fleeing from place to place; being imprisoned in various camps, including the infamous Camp de Gurs; eventually finding freedom in neutral miracles of adaptation, survival and extraordinary encounters. For years now I have been advising her―begging her, in fact―to write her memoirs. In vain.

We were married in Jerusalem by the late Saul Lieberman, in the Old City (then recently liberated), in the heart of an ancient synagogue, the Ramban, for the most part destroyed by the Jordanian army.

Since then, I cannot imagine my life, my lives, without her. (13-14)

Passage #3:

A great journalist, a friend, in a televised conversation, asked me what I would say to God as I stood before Him. I answered with one word: “Why?”

And God’s answer? If, in His kindness, as we say, He actually communicated His answer, I don’t recall it.

The Talmud tells me: Moses is present as Rabbi Akiba gives a lecture on the Bible. And Moses asks God, “Since this master is so erudite, why did You give the Law to me rather than to him?” And God answers harshly: “Be quiet. For such is my will!” Some time later, Moses is present at Rabbi Akiba’s terrible torture and death at the hands of Roman soldiers. And he cries out, “Lord, is this Your reward to one who lived his entire life celebrating Your Law?” And God repeats His answer with the same harshness: “Be quiet. For such is my will!”

What will His answer be now, to make me quiet?

And where shall I find the audacity and the strength to not accept it? (65-66)

Passage #4:

One day at the beginning of my convalescence, little Elijah, five years old, comes to pay me a visit. I hug him and tell him, “Every time I see you, my life becomes a gift.”

He observes me closely as I speak and then, with a serious mien, responds:

“Grandpa, you know that I love you, and I see you are in pain. Tell me: If I loved you more, would you be in less pain?”

I am convinced God at that moment is smiling as He contemplates His creation. (70)

Passage #5:

Please join us for next week’s tributes to Professor Wiesel at our Facebook!

11/15/10 1:19:26 PM — Boston, Massachusetts
Boston University 11/15/10 Elie Wiesel teaches a class on Literature of Memory (CAS RN 571)
Photo by Kalman Zabarsky for Boston University Photography

In the days leading up to the In Memory of Elie Wiesel: A Day of Learning and Celebration tribute event, we are expanding our analysis of Wiesel’s work and legacy by sharing thoughts by those who knew Wiesel and his work best. Our messages come from faculty and colleagues from Boston University, public servants and community leaders. We hope that these messages will convey Professor Wiesel’s impact beyond just his written work.

#1  Our first tribute comes from our Center Director, Professor Michael Zank.

“The last time I met with Elie Wiesel, about a year before his passing, I showed him a book I had found on my mother’s shelf. The title was ‘Gezeiten des Schweigens.’ Elie thought it was the German translation of LA NUIT, but it was actually the translation of LA VILLE DE LA CHANCE (1962), which appeared in English with the title THE TOWN BEYOND THE WALL. I don’t remember when I first read NIGHT but when I recently re-read it in Marion Wiesel’s translation, I could not but hear Elie’s voice in it, a voice Marion had completely internalized. The text is stripped of all didacticism, all philosophical rumination. But it is not a mere memoire either. Wiesel poses questions. His observations are questions. Most readers pick up on the scene about the hanging of a child where one prisoner asks the others, ‘where is God?’ But this question finds an answer. ‘He is here, hanging at the gallows.’ (I am quoting from memory now.) The more disturbing question, in my opinion, is one that finds no answer. It is one he asks of himself. It is the question of whether he failed his father. His father, Eliezer, is a constant presence in NIGHT.  It is a book, in my reading, about a son and a father. Did Wiesel become Wiesel because he felt he had failed his father? What about us? Would we have acted more courageously? In my view, the book is Wiesel’s lament for his father, but also for his own innocence. No wonder Wiesel remained preoccupied with the story of the Akedah, to which he returned time and again.”

#2 Dr. Michael Grodin, Director of the Project on Ethics and the Holocaust and Professor of Jewish Studies here at BU.

“Elie was a mentor, teacher, collaborator and dear colleague.  His support of my own scholarship on the role of medicine and ethics during the holocaust has resulted in the establishment of an International Center on Ethics, Medicine and the Holocaust.  He was always available to add insight, encouragement and passion.  He, along with my dearest Rebbe Rabbi Joseph Polak, implored me that no matter what my work in academics entailed that I must continue to maintain my clinical role as a psychiatrist working with survivors.  This sage advice has allowed me to listen to the stories and hear the memories.”

#3 Dr. Steven Katz, former director of the EWCJS and currently chair of Jewish Holocaust studies.  

“It is a great honor to say a few, very inadequate words about my close friend and colleague for nearly 45 years, Elie Wiesel.  Others will no doubt write about his extraordinary political and humanitarian accomplishments, and still others about his massive list of publications, including NIGHT.  But here I want to offer just a few personal remarks. It was not easy to be Elie Wiesel. He was never free from his past, and in the lived present he was often overwhelmed by the evil that continues to be so appallingly evident in our world.  One of my most intense memories is the 50th Commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz.  Elie and I were both part of the official visitors delegation.  After the ceremonies we walked through the camp with the elderly Chief Rabbi of Poland who was also a camp survivor.  He told us how he would get up early each morning to run to a nearby hut to trade a portion of his bread ration for a chance to put on a pair of tefillin that had been smuggled into the bunk.  Elie and I were both profoundly moved by the story and Elie, in particular, became very quiet and sad. And so we walked for quite a while in silence. On other occasions, when we learned of new and horrific tragedies all over the globe and tried to digest their implications, he would say in private conversation, “We have learned nothing.”  But he took great consolation from his family, the State of Israel, and his teaching.  He was a consummate teacher who was sincerely concerned with his students, and they adored him.  Awed initially, they came to see in him a mentor who was interested in them beyond the exams and seminar questions.  In a quiet way he did many kindnesses for his students, especially his graduate students.  He also always welcomed and helped young scholars who were seeking his advice wherever they came from. Inside and outside the university world he was sought after day and night by all sorts of (non-student) individuals and groups, as a result of which he was very cautious about strangers.  He once told me that he received at least ten invitations and requests every day.  These included, after his exceptional encounter with President Reagan, regular meetings with American presidents.  He would frequently sit with Hillary Clinton at her husband’s “State of the Union” address, and was invited to the White House by George W. Bush, and then by President Obama.  The latter asked him to lunch one day when he was having difficulties with the American Jewish community over issues related to Israel.  The next day I asked him what it was like to have lunch at the White House.  He replied: ‘You cannot eat while the President is talking, and you can’t eat while you are responding, so it’s not much of a lunch.’ There were those who were critical of him, and many who did not understand the good reason for his reserve and reticence. And there were those who were jealous.  In Israel, in particular, there was consistent criticism, driven first and foremost by his decision to live in America, while among survivors there were those who resented his success.  But if he knew you, if he trusted you, if he respected you, he was a remarkable, generous and caring friend.  His willingness to help was unlimited.  No matter where he was in the world he would return a phone call, answer a question, write a letter, help raise funds — though, in fact, he hated fundraising. He was curious about all things Jewish, a great listener when one had information or a tale to tell.  Whenever I returned from the regular meetings of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, that he had played a major role in creating at the invitation of the Prime Minister of Sweden, he was always eager to hear my reports of what took place, where difficulties had arisen, and the way forward that had been decided.  He always offered advice and help if needed.  He had strong opinions on who the “good guys” and who the “bad guys” were, and was always willing, if he felt it necessary, to make the good fight. He knew everyone.  He was close to Kofi Anan, the General Secretary of the United Nations, and I remember an interesting dinner we had together one night in New York City.  The connection to Kofi he used wisely, but very carefully, to advance Jewish and Israeli interests at the U.N.  He was close to Vaclav Havel (President of Czechoslovakia) and was thoughtful enough to send Havel a note introducing me to him when I was due to be in Prague for a meeting dealing with Holocaust reparations.  Then, too, the leaders of the political world called regularly.  I remember being in the midst of conversations in his office at Boston University when, on a number of occasions, his secretary would interrupt to tell him that there was a call from Angela Merkel, or Benjamin Netanyahu, or Vaclav Havel, or the Swedish Prime Minister. His archive at Boston University contains nearly one million items, including tens of thousands of personal letters.  This represents, I am told, a larger archive than David Ben-Gurion left in Sde Boker.  He was wonderful company wherever we were together around the world.  He always strongly conveyed the sense that you mattered to him and he valued your friendship.  He will be greatly missed—by myself and many, many others.”

#4 Roger Brooks is President and Chief Executive Officer of Facing History and Ourselves, and is the Elie Wiesel Professor in Judaic Studies (emeritus) at Connecticut College.  

“Wiesel’s Mirror.

One of my formative literary images is found at the end of Elie Wiesel’s memoir NIGHT. ‘One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength; I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.’ That image could never leave any of us. After the Shoah, all history is a broken-mirror image; it absorbs our entire being. As Jews we cannot help it. We think of the Holocaust daily, we question God’s absence constantly. Perhaps, as the post-modernists suggest, God has died. And we humans? We were thought in Genesis to be created in the image and likeness of God; but if God has died, has something in us died too? This death of self, this identity-loss is not a personal matter, but one of religious community. We no longer ask much about Judaic life. We are too busy living in the here-and-now: asking how to act politically, how to survive existentially, but not how to live with the inheritance of so many generations. For that chain of tradition, once broken, is set aside; it seems no longer able to support the structures it once held. Post-modern theologian Mark Taylor, like Elie Wiesel, ends his book Erring with a mirror image. Where Wiesel did not recognize himself, Taylor sees only an empty mirror: ‘The longer one reflects on this reflection, the more puzzling it becomes…. We ourselves seem to have disappeared in a play of mirrors….The far-reaching implications of this empty mirror are not fully realized until the emergence of the radical departures that characterize much of twentieth-century art. Distortion and disappearance, first of the human face and then of the entire human form in cubist and abstract painting, reflect the absence of the individual….’ All of us can respond to the post-modern empty mirror by simply ceasing to look. Far better, I think, to do what Elie Wiesel suggested through his life: treat the empty mirror as a canvas, and re-make ourselves so as to create a new reflection.”

#5 Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts.

“In Boston, we know the great Elie Wiesel as our adopted son, making the Commonwealth his home as he taught at Boston University. He came to Boston the same year I was first elected to the United States Congress, and his words and presence have guided me on the path of public service ever since. In his classes at Boston University, he taught students how to think, how to bear witness, how to learn from the past with compassion, and how to use that understanding to make a better future for all of us. Elie Wiesel spent thirty-five years teaching history and philosophy to our young people because he believed that, “Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.” Throughout my time in Congress, I have looked to Elie Wiesel as a guiding light– pointing ever forward toward a more just and fair future. I strive every day to serve Massachusetts and the country by making sure that the laws of this land hold us to the venerable and aspirational ideals that Elie set forth. Elie lives on in all of us who remember the values and lessons he shared during his decades in Boston. I carry Elie in my heart every time I speak on the Senate floor and every time I cast a vote for a better world. May his memory continue to be a blessing to us all.”

Our community participation continues this week, with more messages about Elie Wiesel’s impact in the lives of so many.

#1 Sonari Glinton, Business Desk Correspondent at NPR West, penned this thoughtful and moving piece about his professor Elie Wiesel following his passing. Read his NPR piece here: http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/07/14/484558040/forgetting-isnt-healing-lessons-from-elie-wiesel.

#2 Ariel Burger served as Professor Wiesel’s teaching fellow here at BU from 2003 to 2008. Upon hearing of his passing Burger wrote a moving tribute to Wiesel and spoke of their last meeting together. Read his piece here: http://forward.com/opinion/344194/my-last-meeting-with-elie-wiesel/

#3 Prem Krishna Gongaju, Student Life Advisor at the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts and former student of Wiesel. “Professor Elie Wiesel was my teacher, my mentor during my 3-year study at Boston University School of Theology. I sat at his feet in his Literature of Memory classes, learning to take baby steps upon the ashes and embers of Auschwitz stoked by the searing memory of this man, the Lazarus of our history and humanity; I sat at his soot-stained feet overwhelmed by the stench of human depravity, and I was overjoyed by the bouquet of extraordinary hope exuding from his Hasidic soul. He was gentle, he was kind, he was caring. And a sage. His sublime words nudged the slumbering students to a slow awakening to the past, what’s happening at present, and an informed glimpse into what is to come in this world of human/inhuman affairs. His voice was soothing and reassuring. His delivery of message was achieved effortlessly, without strain in his voice and constraint of his conscience. His was a small, still voice, a sort of suspiration from among the reeds stirred by the flaming flurry of recollection by the riverbed of memory. He taught us to keep the river of memory from turning into the Lethe by man’s apathy and indifference. His face. The whole world knows his face: a face furrowed by the claws of man’s cruelty to man, a face smeared with sadness and sorrow, and yet a face capable of beaming hopes against hope upon the upturned faces of his students. And to the world. But I never saw him laugh in the classroom. Professor Wiesel occasionally called on me in our Literature of Memory class, which was conducted in a somewhat seminar-like fashion, especially when his deep-set eye noticed me in a quandary due to some conflicting nature of the topic in question, putting me in an enviable position among my fellow classmates, for to be called upon by Prof. Wiesel was considered a mark of honor. On one such rare occasion, I had to coach my statement against the accepted political norm of the State of Israel, on the delicate issue of Palestinian homeland. Thus I coached my question in answer to the question of the lesson of the day, as logically and succinctly as I could at the time: How couldn’t there be a Palestine for the Palestinian? For I am a Nepali because there is Nepal, my homeland. Suddenly, a hush fell over the entire class, and I experienced what perhaps might have been one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life during those milliseconds of silence. Then Prof. Wiesel put me and the entire class at ease by not taking me to task for what might have sounded to my younger classmates as an impudent remark. He was sagacious and kind to address the issue in question by delineating the principle of separating the Jewish and Palestinian humanity from the school of prevailing political thoughts as well as the Israeli Government’s stance. To my mind, he thus bore witness to the suffering of the Palestinians sans Palestine. One occasion in particular stands out from among the rest of my teacher-student relatedness with Prof. Wiesel. I had given a satchel full of his books to be made holy by his autograph to his then secretary, Ms. Martha. After a few days she had me make an appointment with Prof. Wiesel for retrieving the said books from his office, and also for a brief tete-a-tete, which he occasioned in order to get to know his students, individually.
Our visit went swimmingly well at first. Handing me back my satchel, he offered to gift me any and all of his books in the future, with a gentle wave of his hand toward the two towering bookcases bulging with his tomes. My joy knew no bounds at his generous offer, for I loved books more than bread. Then I remembered something. During the course of his sharing an anecdote, both poignant and humorous, with the students, he touched on his lean days as a roving reporter. This event occurred in one of the airports in India. He and this Indian gentleman happened to strike up a conversation while waiting to catch their respective flights. At the end of a long confabulation, the Indian gentleman handed him a card with a personal note, who, as luck would have it, turned out to be none other than a big executive officer of a certain airline corporation. Because of the telling instruction on the note, Prof. Wiesel noted with a muted but rare chuckle, he could fly in and out of India on that airline anytime–free of charge. However, in his very next breath he added, “But I flew only when I was hungry.” And I was happy to know later that he got to see Kathmandu, my hometown, on one of his famished flights. Then he touched on something to the class, a salient point of which had been stuck in my craw ever since, but which would remain unsaid in public for the rest of my life. It’s strictly between a teacher and his pupil. After I revealed what was on my mind, Prof. Wiesel got up and so did I. We both slowly fell into each other’s embrace. And we sobbed. Elie Wiesel’s name is writ upon the linings of my lungs. I will remember my teacher as long as I live. And I will never forget his teachings: “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” And “To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”

#4 Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. “Elie Wiesel led by example, both in words and in deeds. When he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, he “swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation,” that “we must always take sides” when faced with injustice, and that “neutrality helps the oppressor” and “silence encourages the tormentor.” Professor Wiesel taught us that we must unequivocally stand up to racism, bigotry, and hate because they are an assault on our collective humanity. He emerged from the pain and suffering that he endured during the Holocaust to inspire us to choose hope over fear, action over indifference, and unity over division. I reflected on the life and work of Elie Wiesel when I visited Yad Vashem, where I wept as I looked up at the faces of the victims of the Holocaust. That powerful moment underscored the need to vigorously combat anti-Semitism. Today, we must be true to Professor Wiesel’s memory and never abandon our responsibility to confront hate in all its forms. Elie Wiesel’s legacy commands us to work tirelessly to bridge our divides and to bring people together, and I will forever be humbled by his extraordinary work and teachings.”

#5 Dr. Menachem Rosensaft, Columbia University Law professor and founding chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, grew up with Professor Wiesel as a friend and mentor. Read his tribute to him here: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/206702/remembering-elie-wiesel-a-tribute-from-a-friend-and-disciple

Our final week of the retrospective includes more messages from those impacted by the work of Elie Wiesel, including words from Mayor Marty Walsh and former President Barack Obama.

#1 Professor Stephen Esposito, Associate Professor of Classical Studies and First Semester Core Curriculum Coordinator at Boston University. “Some 60 years ago, Elie Wiesel, at the age of 28, wrote the following 115 words, which were to become the most renowned and powerful passage in all of Holocaust literature. “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments that butchered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.” (Night, p. 34, trans. Marion Wiesel, 2006) That haunting seven-fold refrain, “Never shall I forget…” was to become the motto of Prof. Wiesel’s life. And so in honor of the dead and the living Elie bore witness. More than anyone in the past generation Wiesel spoke truth to power, and he did so with astonishing results — from Auschwitz and Buchenwald to the Soviet Jews, from the Cambodian Boat People to the victims of violence in Dafur, Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Argentina. I met Prof. Wiesel some 22 years ago and over time we became friends. For over a decade he invited me to teach in his classes and together we studied numerous Greek tragedies that he loved – Antigone, Oedipus, Prometheus Bound. Team-teaching with Elie Wiesel was by far the greatest privilege and joy of my B.U. career. Those classes together also turned out to be the most intellectually stimulating experiences of my life. For over 20 years Prof. Wiesel lectured to students in Boston University’s Core Curriculum –on Genesis, on Exodus, on Job. And then, of course, he held court to thousands of listeners in those remarkable presentations every Fall in the Metcalf Auditorium. Students were always at the center of his world. He loved to question students and to be questioned by them. Somehow I felt especially at home with Professor Wiesel when he invited me to speak to his students about my own specialty, Greek tragedy. Those plays often focus on themes that permeated Wiesel’s life: memory and mystery, suffering and solitude, friendship and ferocity.. In his presence I often felt as if I were being transported to the sacred center of the world, to a place where fierce Nobility and benevolent Blessing stood side by side. The students, too, felt it, especially in those last years—their teacher’s voice ever softer and more oracular, the wisdom of eight decades carved into his face ever more deeply, the wizened eyebrows highlighting the sunken eyes that had seen the unseeable—and survived. Like the ancient figure of Oedipus, whom Sophocles wrote so beautifully about 2,500 years ago, Professor Wiesel spent his life daring to pry open the clenched fist of the past, daring to reveal the wrath, the rage and somehow, through his relentless questioning, to summon forth redemption. Thank you, Elie, for the fierce courage in the face of despair, for the never-ending fight to find the words to tell THE story. Thank you for not surrendering, for remembering your sister, your mother, your father, and your people. Thank you for carrying the torch so bravely, for holding such a steadfast beacon to the smoke-filled darkness of night, for helping us to keep our souls on fire, for teaching us what our children and our children’s children must not forget.”

#2 Mayor Marty Walsh of Boston. “Early in his life, Elie Wiesel experienced the worst of humanity. But through his perseverance, he showed the resilience of the human spirit. I remember reading his powerful memoir, Night, when I was a young student in Boston. Today, I am still moved by his strength and compassion. Elie was a man who dedicated his life to improving the lives of oppressed people all over the world. Between his time spent teaching about the horrors of the Holocaust as a professor at Boston University, and his work campaigning for victims of oppression in places like South Africa, Nicaragua and Sudan, Elie remained steadfast in his commitment to the human rights and freedoms deserved by everyone. I’m proud that Boston was the welcoming home of this great man. As a City and nation founded by immigrants, Boston must continue its work to embody the ideals of compassion and stewardship so well represented in the work of Elie. We continue to strive to match the ideals and virtues modeled by Elie, and I am grateful for he brought, and what he taught, to Boston.”

#3 An excerpt from former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power’s foreword to the commemorative edition of Elie Wiesel’s Night to be published this month by Hill and Wang. “Arguably no single work did so much to lift the silence that had enveloped survivors, and bring what happened in the ‘Kingdom of Night’ out into the light, for all to see. And yet. Injustice was still rampant. Genocide denial against the Armenians, the horrors of his lifetime — Pol Pot, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, Syria in his later years. He lived to see more and more people bear witness to unspeakable atrocities, but he also saw that indifference remained too widespread. Amid all the pain and disappointment of Elie’s remarkable life, how is it that the darkness did not envelop him, or shield him from the sun? How is it that the light in Elie Wiesel’s gaze was every bit as defining as his life’s experiences? ‘What is abnormal,’ Elie once told Oprah Winfrey, ‘is that I am normal. I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life — that is what is abnormal.’ Elie raged against indifference to injustice, to be sure, but he also savored the gifts of life with ferocious zeal. ‘We know that every moment is a moment of grace,’ he once said, ‘every hour is an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them.’ Maybe it was because Elie had such a strong sense of purpose on his journey—to help those who could still be helped. A duty to his neighbor. To the stranger, the stranger that he once was. He called it his 11th commandment: ‘Thou shalt not stand idly by…. You must speak up. You must defend. You must tell the victims,… ‘“You are not alone, somebody cares.’” ….As our nation goes through difficult days, Night is a book that is firmly ingrained in that small canon of literature that kids and young adults read when they are growing up in America. Alongside Atticus Finch and Scout, one of the narrators that will have an early shot at shaping our children’s moral universe is 16-year-old Elie. So, while the void is enormous — above all, for Marion, Elisha, and the rest of the family — and the void is enormous for our world, I too am filled with profound joy knowing that my 7-year-old boy and my 4-year-old girl — like Elie’s grandkids, and their children after them — will wade into big questions for the first time with Elie Wiesel as their guide. That they will be less alone for having Elie with them. That Night will be one of the works that lay the scaffolding for their moral architecture. All because Elie Wiesel was optimistic enough to keep going — and to find the strength to shine his light on us all.”

#4 Professor Abigail Gillman, Associate Professor of German and Hebrew, and last year’s Interim Director of the EWCJS. “What I miss now are the ‘Three Encounters with Elie Wiesel,’ the trio of lectures that I attended at the 92nd Street Y in New York City long before hearing them in Metcalf Hall. What we experienced on those evenings was not studying, but learning: the restless ‘turn it and turn it’ described in the Mishnah.  Each lecture wove together scholarship, wisdom, memory. Professor Wiesel managed to present the Torah and the Talmud as Great Books with universal relevance.  His words drew us into the Jewish textual universe as to a place he had actually visited, whether through anamnesis, or by the power of his imagination; the insights we left with were psychological, ethical, humanistic.  I miss listening to his voice—the musicality, the familiar cadences; the parentheses, humble thank-you’s to his students and to the police officers; the never-ending questions and what ifs; the irrepressible joie de vivre. The good news is that the lectures were recorded. The video recordings can be found on both the 92nd St. Y and the BU Howard Gotlieb Center websites, for anyone to study—and to learn from.”

#5

On October 19th and 20th, Israeli writer Dorit Rabinyan visited Boston University for a two-day residency, where she visited several Jewish Studies classes during the day and gave a public lecture in the evening at the Elie Wiesel Center. At 7pm on the 19th, Ms. Rabinyan spoke about her third novel All the Rivers, which was written following an eight-year hiatus from writing and came to be at the center of a political scandal.

To welcome the audience, Professor Michael Zank gave a few opening remarks to introduce Ms. Rabinyan, thanking Professors Abigail Gillman, Mira Angrist and Nahum Karlinsky who had hosted Ms. Rabinyan in their classes. He introduced her talk as an illuminating reflection on “the agony and exhilaration of writing,” and spoke about how her novel All the Rivers balances a compelling love story with the complexities of politics.

Ms. Rabinyan began the evening by remarking upon the importance of literature in encouraging empathy. “We taste what it is to be someone else,” she said, which we cannot do in a storytelling medium like film or television. She then went on to explain that All the Rivers transformed from a work of art into a political statement when the Israeli Ministry of Education removed the book from high school reading lists.

The love story at the center of the book between an Israeli Jewish woman and an Arab Palestinian man in New York came from Ms. Rabinyan’s own experience in 2002 when she met secular Palestinian artists while living in Brooklyn and formed close relationships that radically changed the way she thought about her home in Israel. Israelis, she argues, are not encouraged to empathize or get to know their Palestinian neighbors, and that this lack of understanding prevents the conflict from ever moving toward peace. Tribalism and isolation helped the Jewish people survive in diaspora, and Ms. Rabinyan respects these instincts while suggesting that Israeli people would benefit from rejecting the fear of losing their Jewish identity. Her book became an immediate bestseller following the controversy in Israel, yet according to Ms. Rabinyan she “would rather trade a stable democracy for more sales of my books.”

Her words inspired a lively discussion about how literature and politics collide and about her particular attitude toward the Israeli government’s charges of her book as “dangerous and assimilationist.” All the Rivers focuses on a specific love story between two young people living away from home in the United States, and Ms. Rabinyan discussed why she chose to set her romance far away from the center of the conflict in order to comment on how different one’s country of origin looks when outside of it.

The evening concluded with Ms. Rabinyan signing copies of her book and mingling with attendees over refreshments.

Photos by Lauren Andrea Lucia Hobler

Professor Michael Zank introduce Dorit Rabinyan.

Professor Abigail Gillman poses a question about Ms. Rabinyan’s storytelling.

Ms. Rabinyan signs copies of All the Rivers following her lecture.

Copies of All the Rivers for sale.

At 3pm on Monday October 2, a group of students, faculty, and scholars from a variety of disciplines met in the library of the Elie Wiesel Center for the first forum in the 2017-2018 iteration of the Modern Mediterranean Identities series. After some socializing over refreshments, EWCJS Director Michael Zank welcomed the audience in attendance before introducing the series’ organizer Professor Kimberly Arkin who introduced each member of the panel.

Dr. Naomi Davidson (University of Ottawa) presented her work on “Our Beautiful Algerian Communities,” an analysis of Algerian Jews and how their relationship to the future changed in the decade following Algerian independence in 1962. Her work looked at primary sources, including letters and historical records, with an aim at understanding how Jewish Algerians who immigrated to France understood their relationship to the Jews who remained in Algiers. Dr. Mary Lewis of Harvard offered a response to Davidson’s work, followed by a discussion period where Davidson and Lewis took questions from the audience.

Dr. Abigail Jacobson (Hebrew University) shifted the topic from Algerian Jewish communities to Jewish peoples living on the West Bank, specifically the communities of Sephardi and Oriental Jews living in Haifa throughout the 20^th century. Her work observes the immigration of members in these communities during periods of unrest, and how these communities interacted with other Jews as well as Muslims throughout the Middle East. Dr. Michelle Campos (University of Florida) offered a response to her analysis, and the panel wrapped up that evening with further audience discussion.

The Elie Wiesel Center screened journalist Nir Baram’s documentary The Land Beyond the Mountains, based on his book A Land Without Borders, to a packed audience of students and faculty in CAS 226 on Monday, October 30.

The film follows Baram as he travels throughout the West Bank, meeting people with a variety of opinions about how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He interviews a member of Hamas, Israeli homeowners, Israeli and Palestinian political activists, and even Baram’s own father, a left wing politician. Through these conversations, Baram attempts to get to the truth of what life is like in this contentious stretch of land, which encompasses both beautiful neighborhoods and slum-like housing conditions that coexist along the border wall. While at the beginning of the film Baram seemed to believe in the possibility of a peaceful two-state solution, by the end of the film he questioned whether the conflict could be really be resolved by these means. The Palestinians he spoke with want to draw attention to their displacement in 1948, while Israelis on the whole want to negotiate around the borders designated in 1963. Baram argues that this difference in conversation, and miscommunications between the Palestinian activists and the Israeli government, makes the conflict more difficult to solve. He ends the film highlighting the grassroots work of groups like Two States One Homeland; it is the people of the West Bank organizing and speaking together that will, in his opinion, bring the conflict to an end.

Baram answered audience questions following the screening, discussing how he adapted his written work into the medium of film and how his viewpoint altered over the course of making the film. He also talked about a few of his subjects, including the Hamas member with whom he keeps in touch, and of his optimism that the conversation can be shifted in a way that promotes justice.

Baram answering audience questions following the screening.

The audience at the screening, which included Hebrew Program faculty Mira Angrist, Professor Abigail Gillman of Religion and Professor Michael Zank

This was the first EWCJS event to be streamed live on Facebook. You can watch the livestream of Rabbi Anisfeld’s keynote speech here and the full panel here.

On October 26th, the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies hosted the fourth annual Leo Trepp Lecture at Boston University. The Leo Trepp Lecture Series honors Rabbi Leo Trepp (1913-2010), a revered German-American rabbi and philosopher who was exiled from Germany after brief internment during Kristallnacht. He became a much-beloved advocate of Jewish dialogue and engagement as a rabbi, first in Boston and then in Tacoma, Washington and Berkeley, California. His many publications include History of the Jewish Experience and The Complete Book of Jewish Observance. The Leo Trepp Memorial Lecture is generously supported by Rabbi Trepp’s wife, Ms. Gunda Trepp. This year’s lecture, “Reimagining Rabbis,” featured a panel of professionals who explored how rabbis could best serve their communities in the rapidly changing political and cultural environment of the 21st century. 
Professor Nancy Ammerman, on behalf of the Dean of CAS Ann Cudd, opened the evening with remarks about Boston University’s commitment both to the study of religion and to inclusion and social justice, saying that the evening’s theme of “reimagining” is at the heart of Boston University’s history. Following her opening remarks, Professor Michael Zank took the stage to reflect on how even ancient professions sometimes need opportunities to reinvent themselves as to forge a path for future generations. He then introduced the keynote speaker for the night, Dean of Hebrew College Rabbinical School Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, as an ideal speaker on this topic as she is currently teaching a future generation of rabbis.

Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld set the tone for the following discussion. She started with the analogy that rabbis are “doorways” to Jewish life; therefore, it is imperative for rabbis to realize that how they respond to people seeking connection to Jewish life can either open or close that door. She suggested that rabbis should emphasize authentic, human encounters in their day-to-day relationships in order to foster Jewish life in their communities. She continued by saying that she believes that rabbinic work in 21st century North American context also means retrieving a rich, emotionally resonant Jewish “language” that has been lost. The shared vocabulary, literature, and rituals that link Jewish communities to one another and the past has been diminished in the North American Jewish experience. This “cultural repair” can only occur, she argued, if rabbis have an answer to the question: “Why be Jewish?” Wrestling with this question enables rabbis to establish human connection and to respond with authenticity to their community members.

This theme of relationship-driven change continued into the panel discussion. Maharat Rachel Kohl Finegold (Congregation Shaar Hashomayim of Quebec) started by asking the question, “How do we engage Jewish institutions in the 21st century?” As one of the first Orthodox women to be ordained as a maharat, she spoke from her own experience when she said that Jewish institutions such as the synagogue and the rabbinate itself are rapidly shifting and changing. Although some of these institutions might resist change, she argued that leaders cannot force change. Leaders must first build relationships and trust before change can occur. The second panelist, Rabbi Suzie Jacobson (Temple Israel of Boston), followed by emphasizing that she also prioritizes relationships in her work. She does not position herself as an all knowing repository of knowledge with her community, but rather, as a seeker also wrestling with the questions of the world, including the question posed by Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld: “Why be Jewish?”

Rabbi Elie Lehmann of BU Hillel ended the panel discussion by reflecting on his experience working at a university. He remarked that many of the questions that Jewish undergraduates ask him, on the surface, might not seem like “Jewish” questions. They ask him what classes they should take, what careers they should pursue, or who they should date. Rabbi Lehmann argued that these questions should also be part of their Jewish questions as well, and a rabbi can help them respond to these questions. His aim therefore is to provide access to Jewish life. This means being present and listening to the concerns of undergraduates and helping them to participate fully in Jewish community.

The lecture and panel sparked a robust discussion with the audience. Because of the wealth of experience on the stage, audience members asked very practical questions like how to navigate discussions surrounding the State of Israel while working with college students. Another audience member asked about how to welcome non-Jewish spouses or partners into Jewish life. The panelists responded by drawing on their own experience, sharing anecdotes from their work in their own communities on how rabbis can respond to the unique challenges of the 21st century.

Photos by Lauren Andrea-Lucia Hobler

Opening remarks from Professor Nancy Ammerman, on behalf of the College of Arts and Sciences and Dean Ann Cudd

Professor Michael Zank welcomes the audience and introduces the keynote speaker Rabbi Anisfeld.

Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, Dean of the Hebrew College Rabbinical School, gives her keynote speech.

Our panelists, introduced by Professor Zank, from left to right: Maharat Rachel Kohl Finegold, Rabbi Suzie Jacobson, Rabbi Elie Lehmann, Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld.

Professor Zank and Rabbi Jevin Eagle, Executive Director of BU Hillel, thank the panelists.

The Modern Mediterranean Identities series reconvened on November 17, 2017 in the EWCJS library, this time focusing on “Catholic Pasts and Futures in France.” Professor Zank welcomed the audience over lunch, and thanked Professor Kimberly Arkin for her continued work to make the series possible.

Professor Arkin introduced Professor Elayne Oliphant, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at NYU, and her respondent Cornell Professor of History Camille Robcis. She also thanked the audience as well as the staff of the Elie Wiesel Center for continuing to host and support this series.

Professor Oliphant began her presentation by explaining the framework of her research, arguing that permeable ideas about what makes a space “public” allows for nuance in how the French understand Catholic ideas. She challenges the idea that France has moved past the Catholic Church as a guiding social force, and claims that the idea that the culture is “vanishing” highlights how Catholicism is in fact still privileged in France. Catholicism has become part of, as she puts it, “French architecture” as it has become a part of the “ambiance” despite the widely held conception that French society encourages laïcité (secularism).

In the 19th century, churches were designed and built with support from the state, and they have become part of an imagined past of the people of France and what they have believed. Catholicism in France maintains a historical image of being crucial to French life, which Oliphant argues makes it an unmarked, privileged category despite being a religion.

Camille Robcis responded to Oliphant’s paper by complimenting her focus on the “unacknowledged privilege” of Catholicism rather than statistical numbers. Robcis questions the use of the word “infrastructure” to describe Catholicism as ambient rather than “norm” or “ideology”. She also highlights Oliphant’s point about marriage as a social structure, and she argues that marriage became a social and legal agreement (and therefore more secular) to ensure that the state could survive. Both scholars discussed how French society negotiates the Catholic influences on marriage with currently changing norms around gay marriage and national identity. Catholic traditions in public life, they argue, impact the people of France regardless of race, class or religious affiliation.

The event concluded with further discussion about this blend of secularism and religious tradition in political and social life.

On the afternoon of December 4, 2017, Professor Jonathan Klawans (BU Department of Religion) spoke at the fall semester’s BUJS Research Forum. Elie Wiesel Center Director Michael Zank introduced Professor Klawans to a large and engaged audience of scholars and students. Klawans presented his sabbatical research on Mordecai Kaplan and Jewish antiquity with his talk “Judaism was a Civilization: Towards a Reconstruction of Ancient Jewish Peoplehood.”

Klawans spoke not just on how we think about Jewish antiquity, but also the particular frames that scholars use to shape that thinking. By using the work of Mordecai Kaplan, who wrote about American Jewish identity as well as Jews of the Second Temple period in the 19^th century, Klawans argues that we should embrace anachronism. The terms we use to study ancient people did not exist when those ancient people were alive, he argues, and that defining Judaism as solely a “religion” in a Protestant sense (absent from race or ethnicity) ignores the nuance in how Jews have identified themselves. Kaplan encouraged the use of the term “peoplehood” in order to understand Jewish identity as a “social heritage.” Klawans argues that this utilitarian term allows us to study Jewish history with a flexible way of categorizing.

This terminology opens up the usefulness of primary sources when looking at early periods of Jewish life, and the context of folk art and traditions that have been associated with certain groups of Jews. The study of Jewish peoplehood releases the baggage, Klawans claims, of terms like “nation” or “religion.”

The event concluded with a Q&A session about Klawans’ research and how he plans to expand these definitions in his upcoming book

Photos by Lauren LeBlanc

Our final film screening of the year brought Executive Producer Jonathan Bernstein to BU to discuss both The Chosen and In Her Own Time. In Her Own Time was screened in CAS 326 the following Tuesday, making this a two part film series exploring Orthodox Jewish life in both fiction and in documentary film.

In Her Own Time is a documentary following the work of anthropologist Dr. Barbara Myerhoff in Los Angeles, specifically her fieldwork in the Fairfax community of Orthodox Jews in the 1980s. She did this work while also battling a cancer diagnosis, and the documentary focuses as much on her life as it does on her subjects of study. She received acclaim for her work on communities that were personal to her while overlooked by other anthropologists; she chaired the anthropology department at the University of Southern California and founded the Center for Visual Anthropology. Myerhoff and the director of In Her Own Time Lynne Littman also won an Academy Award for their documentary short Number Our Days, about the elderly Jewish community of Venice, CA. In Her Own Time recounts her life and work, and shows Myerhoff in a personal light as she finds support from the Fairfax community during this difficult time in her personal life. Littman took over the production of In Her Own Time when Myerhoff succumbed to her illness in 1985, and the documentary came out a year later.

Jonathan Bernstein was on hand to discuss he work on the production of this film as well as The Chosen and the Woody Allen film Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But were Afraid to Ask (1972).

At 7pm in the EWCJS Boardroom, Room 201, students, friends and family gathered to celebrate the end of the semester and to honor the achievements of students in Jewish Studies and in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Professor Zank opened the event with a musical performance accompanied by EWCJS employees and graduating seniors Blake Dickler (QSB ’18) and Sophie Collender (COM ’18).

Following the performance Professor Zank distributed merit awards in to a number of students:

• Deni Budman, Jesslyn Katherine, and Danielle Asbel each received the Brooks Family Scholarship for Excellence in Jewish Studies
• Leigh Crossett, Samantha Gagne, and Matthew Guenoun each received the Levine, Martin Family Scholarship for Excellence in Holocaust and Genocide Studies
• Talya Laver, Frances Gould, and Sophie Bartholomew each received the Henry J. and Carole Pinkney Research Scholarship
• Tayla Laver and Frances Gould also received the David V. Karney Israel Travel Scholarship, as did Emma Berman

The awards ceremony also honored students for excellence in their study of Hebrew, presented by Professors Abigail Gillman and Mira Angrist. Matan Zamir, a representative from the Israeli Consolate, witnessed the ceremony and congratulated all the students on their achievements. The ceremony concluded with a performance of Bashanah Hab’ah by Professor Zank, Blake and Sophie. You can watch that performance here.

EL ECO took the stage following the awards ceremony, performing two different musical sets at 8pm and then at 9:40 pm. The Elie Wiesel Center library was packed with friends and fans of jazz, and the acoustics made it possible to hear the music clearly throughout the building.

On October 19th and 20th, Israeli writer Dorit Rabinyan visited Boston University for a two-day residency, where she visited several Jewish Studies classes during the day and gave a public lecture in the evening at the Elie Wiesel Center. At 7pm on the 19th, Ms. Rabinyan spoke about her third novel All the Rivers, which was written following an eight-year hiatus from writing and came to be at the center of a political scandal.

To welcome the audience, Professor Michael Zank gave a few opening remarks to introduce Ms. Rabinyan, thanking Professors Abigail Gillman, Mira Angrist and Nahum Karlinsky who had hosted Ms. Rabinyan in their classes. He introduced her talk as an illuminating reflection on “the agony and exhilaration of writing,” and spoke about how her novel All the Rivers balances a compelling love story with the complexities of politics.

Ms. Rabinyan began the evening by remarking upon the importance of literature in encouraging empathy. “We taste what it is to be someone else,” she said, which we cannot do in a storytelling medium like film or television. She then went on to explain that All the Rivers transformed from a work of art into a political statement when the Israeli Ministry of Education removed the book from high school reading lists.

The love story at the center of the book between an Israeli Jewish woman and an Arab Palestinian man in New York came from Ms. Rabinyan’s own experience in 2002 when she met secular Palestinian artists while living in Brooklyn and formed close relationships that radically changed the way she thought about her home in Israel. Israelis, she argues, are not encouraged to empathize or get to know their Palestinian neighbors, and that this lack of understanding prevents the conflict from ever moving toward peace. Tribalism and isolation helped the Jewish people survive in diaspora, and Ms. Rabinyan respects these instincts while suggesting that Israeli people would benefit from rejecting the fear of losing their Jewish identity. Her book became an immediate bestseller following the controversy in Israel, yet according to Ms. Rabinyan she “would rather trade a stable democracy for more sales of my books.”

Her words inspired a lively discussion about how literature and politics collide and about her particular attitude toward the Israeli government’s charges of her book as “dangerous and assimilationist.” All the Rivers focuses on a specific love story between two young people living away from home in the United States, and Ms. Rabinyan discussed why she chose to set her romance far away from the center of the conflict in order to comment on how different one’s country of origin looks when outside of it.

The evening concluded with Ms. Rabinyan signing copies of her book and mingling with attendees over refreshments.

Photos by Lauren Andrea Lucia Hobler