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Israel at 60
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Posted May 10, 2008
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ELIE WIESEL -- EXTRAORDINARY MAN, EXTRAORDINARY "NIGHT"
As Professor Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, the author of over 50 books, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the pre-eminent human rights champion spoke, you could hear a pin drop. He recalled standing at "The Wall in Jerusalem", missing his mother who was separated from him and killed in the Holocaust, and seeing in his mind all those who have come to this spot before him "to seek compassion and peace." Elie Wiesel, an extraordinary human being, role model of children everywhere, as his "child Survivor story" book "Night" is read worldwide, and human right advocate, gave a touching, intense, and poetic address to the thousands gathered in Evanston, Illinois, on May 8^th ^2008 to honor Israel at 60. His closing words were amazingly simple, yet profound, spoken with complete gratitude and unconditional love, "Thank you Israel for just being you." Elie Wiesel to co-headline JUF's Israel@60 celebration in May By Cindy Sher Managing Editor As soon as I heard I would get the chance to interview Professor Elie Wiesel-the Holocaust survivor, the author of some 50 books, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the pre-eminent human rights champion-I immediately started jotting down some of life's biggest, most perplexing questions. It's not too often, even in my line of work, that I include in my interviews questions like "Why is there hate?" or "Is there hope for the Jewish people?" but it just seemed natural to me to use my phone time with this sage by getting down to the core of what matters most to human beings. In May, all those who attend the Jewish United Fund's Israel@60 Independence Day Gala, too, will have the opportunity to hear Wiesel's wisdom. He will headline the event, along with Israeli music superstar David Broza and Chicago comedian Jeff Garlin. Based on Wiesel's life, his most famous book, "Night," offers a stark account of one devoutly Jewish young man's yearlong journey through the Nazi concentration and death camps of World War II. Born in 1928 in a small town in Romania called Sighet, Wiesel was deported to Auschwitz at the age of 15. German troops violently forced his family from his home in the middle of the night and herded them to the camps. He was never to see his mother or younger sister again, and he watched his father die of disease and starvation at the Buchenwald camp. In total, Wiesel survived the Auschwitz, Buna, Buchenwald, and Gleiwitz camps. His memoir "Night" is the story of Wiesel coping with his overwhelming sense of guilt and surviving the camps when his family perished. Since writing "Night," Wiesel has made it his life's mission to relate his Holocaust experience to the public in the hope that the atrocities will never happen again. The ultimate promoter of human rights, he has devoted his time to combating oppression and genocide among all people-Jews and non-Jews alike-including the Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, the victims of apartheid in South Africa, Bosnian victims of genocide in the former Yugoslavia, and today, the people of Darfur, Sudan. Of all his accomplishments, Wiesel, who has taught nearly 40 years, says he's most proud of his role as teacher, and he currently holds the position of Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Boston University. As Holocaust survivors age and die out, he recognizes the importance of passing down the legacy of the Holocaust to the children, grandchildren, and future descendants of survivors. In 2006, he and Oprah Winfrey held a national high school essay contest asking students the question "Why is Elie Wiesel's book relevant today?" Among the winners were three Chicago-area students, including Clemantine Wamariya, a victim of Rwandan genocide, who said Wiesel's memoir empowered her to triumph over her own struggle with genocide. Wamariya said his words inspired her to feel the weight of her duty to realize Wiesel's dream for a better world. "His book taught us not to be selfish, to think about the future and things that are happening" she said. "Having that responsibility scares me a little bit-but it's a good scary. I could change a lot of people's lives, and when I will die, I will think, ‘Yep, I did that and that's great.'" In honor of Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) and in celebration of Israel's 60th birthday-both commemorated in May this year-Wiesel discussed in a recent phone interview the meaning of Israel's anniversary, the legacy of the Holocaust and his own legacy that he hopes to leave, and the hope he sees for the Jewish people. **Q: What does it mean to celebrate 60 years of the existence of the Jewish state? What does it mean to you that there's this place where Jews can always go to now that wasn't there before when you would have needed it? Elie Wiesel: Some of us live with Israel and for Israel. Whatever happens there affects us here. When Israel is happy, we glorify her happiness. When Israel mourns her dead, we join her in sadness. Now, at 60, Israel still needs our support, our solidarity. May I repeat a thought the Jew in me had for some time? I do not live in Israel, but I know now that I could not live without Israel. So, how can one not rejoice on her anniversary? **Q: You've advocated on behalf of so many people's plight-Soviet Jews, Ethiopians Jews, victims of apartheid, and now today genocide in Darfur. Why do people continue to do this to each other? Why do people hate? Hate is unfortunately part of human nature. And the terrible thing here is that we don't realize that hate could be vanquished; it could be disarmed. We Jews know more about hatred than many other people because anti-Semitism is hatred, hatred of the Jew. People don't understand that he or she who hates is unsatisfied with the hatred of one group or one person. Hatred is contagious. He who hates hates everybody. We cannot allow hatred to win. If we learned from our own history it is that silence and neutrality are not options for us. Silence helps not the victim, but the victimizer. **Q: What's your advice for what people can do to help stop genocide today Whatever was done was not enough. People could have prevented the massacre in Rwanda. We didn't, although we knew it was coming. In Israel, it's showing its humanity that Darfur people are being allowed to live in Israel. Their lives are being saved in Israel. The national foundation that my wife and I created helps take care of thousands of children and we have also opened it up for Darfur children. **Q: As Holocaust survivors have begun to pass away, do you worry about the legacy of the Holocaust? Are you confident that grandchildren of survivors can carry on the torch of educating the world about the horrors of the Holocaust Children of survivors and grandchildren of survivors, from generation to generation, will carry on the torch. Our students, our pupils, our friends, they will continue to bear witness. I am not afraid that the Holocaust will be forgotten-it cannot be forgotten. It is an event that represents the most recorded tragedy in history, so it won't be forgotten. I'm much more afraid of the vulgarization and the trivialization of the memory of the Holocaust. Can you point to an example of that? **Q: We see it in every field of human endeavor. Now, some Palestinian leaders accuse Israel of creating a holocaust in Gaza-to use that word iReport Special: The US Holocaust Museum in movies and books is horrendous Q: Last year, in San Francisco, you were dragged from a hotel elevator and attacked by a 22-year-old man, who confessed the attack on an anti-Semitic website. How did you respond to this vicious attack and to this despicable, ignorant man? I said it in court. I never felt fear since the war except at that time. He pulled me off the elevator and I felt fear because I didn't know why. We discovered later his motive that he published on an anti-Semitic website; he confessed to the police and he had wanted to kidnap me and force me to admit that "Night" is a lie and that the Holocaust is false and never happened. Why should a 22-year-old student, a perfectly good student, destroy his future by fighting in such a cause...There are many Holocaust deniers in the world, but this was the first time in my case that a Holocaust denier used violence. **Q: We've all read of your dreadful memories of childhood, but what are some of your fondest memories of childhood and your family before the darkness? I had a good childhood, a happy childhood. I was a good learner. I had a happy family. Whenever anything happened outside in the world, my father would take care of refugees and prisoners. In retrospect, I realize I owe my father more than I thought. My entire involvement in human rights I learned from my father. He would save Jewish prisoners from being handed back across the border. * Q: Describe your town of birth, Sighet. When my father was born, Sighet was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When I was born, it was Romanian. When I was deported from there, it was Hungary, and now it's Romania again. It was a typical Jewish shtetl...For Shabbat the entire city observed the Sabbath, even the non-Jews. The stores closed because who would come? Then the whole thing disappeared. Q: Why do you think you survived the Holocaust? I have no idea. I was the wrong candidate of survival. I was always sick as a child, always going from doctor to doctor, suffering from migraine headaches. And yet, look what happened. I have no idea why and there was no reason for it. At the same time, afterwards, I had to do something with my survival. To say I know why, I was destined to survive, that I wanted to survive, to write this story, not at all. Q: Did you believe in God then and do you believe in God now? I believed then and I believe now, except my faith since then has been a wounded faith. I still have problems...but I never divorced God. Q: You've inspired so many people, including so many young people today. The legacy that you are leaving to young people seems to be a recurring theme in this interview. Two years ago, you and Oprah Winfrey held a national high school essay contest asking students to write about why your book "Night" is still relevant today. What sort of emotion did you feel knowing that those students felt so compelled by your book? Well, of course, I feel satisfied whenever a person has read any book of mine, especially "Night." If anyone says I have read your book, I want thank that person for reading. Of course I feel rewarded. * **Q: Two of the winners of the essay contest were young Rwandan women, both victims of genocide. What was it like to know that your writing empowered them through their own journey? They are learning. I am a teacher after all. I've been teaching for almost 40 years. To see that teaching goes beyond my classroom means something to me. **Q: Turning back to Israel, as we celebrate her birthday, how do you suggest we help Israel's cause? So many people turn against Israel in all different ways, from the extreme with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatening to wipe Israel off the map, to divestment from Israel, to Jimmy Carter's book referring to Israel as an apartheid state. What do we do? It's easier for a Jew to be Jewish today and to have Israel as the center of our life. Generations and generations of our fathers and grandfathers and grandmothers did not live to see what we see. What was a distant dream then, for us it's more than that, we can feel and touch it-it's a landscape, scenery and your] heart is there. I cannot understand how some Jews don't feel stronger about Israel, but there are some. **Q: Do you see hope for the people of Israel and hope for Jews? Hope for both, really. My late teacher and friend Saul Lieberman said that God is like a banker and a banker does not invest a lot of money in an enterprise and leave it. If the enterprise fails, it costs the investors so much-the Jewish people-he cannot control it anymore. As for our Jewish people, we survive... I'm much more worried about the world than about Israel's future. What the state of the world will be tomorrow or next century, who knows? Turbulence, compulsions of history, we feel them everyday. **Q: What do you hope will be your most lasting legacy I try to protest against indifference. I try to communicate sensitivity. When students ask me what to take away for your course and your books, I ask them to transform information into knowledge, knowledge into sensitivity, sensitivity into commitment. Other links to information about "Israel at 60" and this event: *Flyer -- http://www.singerresidence.org/israel60gala/default.aspx*JUF news -- http://www.singerresidence.org/news/arts.aspx?id=32098*Elie Wiesel Leads Tibetan Protest -- http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m11s19&SecId=19&AId=59065&ATypeId=1
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