Professor Michael Zank: Let me say good evening, dear Elisha, dear colleagues, dear students, and honored guests. We are here today to recognize and remember the human rights legacy of Nobel laureate, long-time BU professor in the Humanities, and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. We were privileged to have him as a colleague and a teacher. His work and words continue to inspire our work at the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish studies. The Elie Wiesel Memorial Lectures are a humble attempt to build on the legacy of Elie Wiesel, especially on the annual public encounters that were a fixture on our university’s calendar year after year. We can learn from his example and try to make what we learned from him and what he cared about relevant for today. The first annual lectures launched in 2018 to commemorate Elie Wiesel were dedicated to Kristallnacht 1938, a subject on which many of us, who are here tonight, have heard Professor Elie Wiesel speak. Kristallnacht, which occurred 83 years ago, just around now, on November 9 through 11, was the beginning of my own family’s paths of suffering, that ended with deportation and murder of my grandfather, my grandmother, my uncle who was my mother’s twin brother. I know many of you have suffered these kinds of losses, and I appreciate being with you here tonight to share this memory. We continued the series in 2019 with another subject dear to Professor Wiesel’s heart, namely writing from a place of survival. No one who heard the moving conversation between Rabbi Polak and Professor Hank Knight on that occasion will easily forget it. Last year we followed another lead in Professor Wiesel’s distinguished career and explored one of the great biblical figures, Moshe Rabbenou. Each year we use at least one out of the three lectures to explore our theme beyond its Jewish context. On November 12, 2018, Mark Hetfield spoke about lessons we should draw from 1938 for the refugee crisis of today. It so happened that this was the first speech the CEO of HIAS gave following the shooting of Jews at the synagogue center in Pittsburgh that took place on October 27, 2018. In 2019 we heard from Loung Ung, a daughter of Cambodia and a distinguished memoirist, who shared her story of survival and escape from serving as a child soldier under the Khmer Rouge. And last year, when we explored the biblical figure of Moses across biblical Islamic and African-American traditions, we were touched by the resonances of the singular character from the Jewish tradition across ages and communities of readers. Every year we choose a theme for the series that is deeply rooted in the Jewish experience, and that also resonates beyond. Indeed, the Nobel committee emphatically recognized Elie Wiesel as a messenger to humanity. We keep that in mind. And we are also motivated by the testimony of the students of Elie Wiesel, the generations of wonderful individuals who were privileged enough to study with him here at Boston University. These students came from every conceivable background, and they were all deeply transformed by their teacher precisely because of his extraordinary humanity. You will hear from one of Professor Wiesel’s former students, my colleague and Associate Director of the Elie Wiesel Center, Ingrid Anderson, in a moment. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, we all had to confront the evil of racism in this country. And after Squirrel Hill, we can no longer close our eyes to the twin evils of antisemitism and xenophobia. As an academic center responsible for Jewish Studies as well as Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Studies, we must not shy away from difficult conversations. The center ought to be a place where students of different backgrounds and orientations can learn together, hear one another out respectfully, and discover their common humanity by confronting that which divides us. I wish it was always simple and easy to explain this mission which seems at odds with the current polarization of our public sphere. Some members of the Jewish community felt hurt by comments one of our honored speakers in the series made not here at BU but elsewhere, and on a prior occasion on a subject that the majority of the Jewish community, including myself, care very deeply about, and that is the state of Israel and the Zionist idea on which it is founded. To associate Israel and Zionism with racism and colonialism is a travesty, ignoring the right of the Jewish people to have their own state. Many of us see Israel as the only meaningful answer to the traumas of the holocaust. We reject the accusation that the Israel defense forces carelessly target Palestinian children. It is a baseless charge that plays with anti-jewish stereotypes. Stereotypes that were preached from Christian pulpits for centuries and created the culture of hatred and disdain for Jews that led to the genocide whose traumatic legacy we carry. As a jew, as a child, and son-in-law of Holocaust survivors, as a parent of Jewish children, and as an educator, as someone who grew up in Germany, lived in Israel, and is now a citizen of the United States, I urge us to listen very carefully to what Elisha Wiesel has to say about this matter. This message is clear, but it is also capacious. Our solidarity with Israel must not blind us to human rights abusers anywhere. And our solidarity with the African-American community in this country must not silence our concern with rhetoric that can easily fan the flames of antisemitism. We must call out antisemitism where we see it, and at the same time, we must continue the work of building alliances across communities for a better, more humane future for all. And now, here to introduce tonight’s speaker is Dr. Ingrid Anderson, Associate Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies.
Professor Ingrid Anderson: Thank you, Michael. My name is Ingrid Anderson, and as Michael just told you, I’m a Senior Lecturer here at Boston University in both the Writing Program and Jewish Studies. In recent years, I’ve also had the honor of serving as the Associate Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies. It is my privilege to introduce our esteemed speaker for tonight, Elisha Wiesel, who will give the last of three talks for our annual lecture series dedicated to the memory of his father and my teacher Elie Wiesel. Before I do that, however, I’ve been asked to share with you tonight some sense of what Professor Wiesel’s legacy is for myself, as both Professor Wiesel’s student and as a scholar and teacher of Jewish Studies. For almost 12 years now, I’ve been teaching my own classes here, at BU, sometimes in the very same rooms in which Professor Wiesel taught his own students. Some of the classes I teach even focus on his written work. Yet, when I’m asked to describe Professor Wiesel as a teacher or to put into words the most important things he taught me, I’m almost always speechless. Where to begin? How to put into words what in so many ways feels like deeply embedded, a deeply embedded driving force, the nature of which is so often ineffable? I still miss him; sometimes, it hurts to talk about him. The loss is too great. Yet tonight, I must try to articulate these things to honor my teacher, to celebrate his treasured son, and to say even a few words about how I try, humbly, both in my own classroom and in our work at the Jewish Studies Center to continue Professor Wiesel’s work in my own way. I met professor Wiesel when I was 30 years old and a first-year master’s degree student in Jewish Studies. My advisor, Professor Steven Katz, told me I should take whatever Professor Wiesel was teaching for as many years as I could. I took his advice. I know this may be hard to believe, but when I began my graduate studies, I knew close to nothing about Elie Wiesel. I had never even read Night. I went on to study with Professor Wiesel each fall for about five years. I even spent my first couple of years on campus as a work-study in his BU office. The first book of his I ever read was Souls On Fire, for a class he taught on Hasidic thought. And man, that book changed my life. Professor Wiesel changed my life before I had even read Night. Before I knew much at all about his decades of contributions to literature, human rights activism, pedagogy, Rabbinic literature, and thought, I could go on. What seized my soul, what let me know that I had found a teacher long before I knew anything about him, was the way he used Judaism and Jewish Studies in the classroom. Even when he was teaching texts written by people who had never heard of Jews, I could see in him the same fire that burned in me. A fire that demanded I make the world better in any way I could. I shared, before I even knew it, his belief that the world could be made better, bit by bit. Through learning, through dialogue, through questioning, through an honest, fierce, often frustrated love of humanity. No matter how brutal, how thoughtless we can be. He was often surrounded by staff, other students, even bodyguards. But I came to know him very well as a teacher and as a thinker. As a work-study student, I was often assigned shelving duty, which I loved. It involved shelving and reshelving the many books that orbited the office. Sometimes I would catch myself spending a little too long thumbing hungrily through the volumes. He would let me borrow books sometimes. He even gave me a copy of a book written by a theologian he admired but disagreed with emphatically; take this one with you, he insisted, as he pressed the book into my hands. I disagree with him, absolutely, but he’s an important thinker and needs to be heard. While I love the content he taught, I was as intrigued by how he taught as I was by what he taught. He rarely taught his own work or even texts considered Jewish in content. Yes, he taught the Book of Job, what a great class, and he taught Hasidic thought, life-changing. But most often, he taught literary texts, from around the world, in a series called literature of memory. But what I watched, as though my life depended on it, was how he used the particularity of Judaism to further, engage in, and support conversations of universal values. He did this deftly and with such grace, humor, and love. Love for Judaism, for us, his students, for humanity, despite everything. This brings me to one of the most valuable things I learned from Professor Wiesel, that embracing our own particularity should make us more open-hearted rather than less, that it should make us all the more insistent that protection of every human’s right to be particular in their own way as peacefully as possible, is not just the right thing to do, it is a commandment with, or without God. The lesson that the particular enables us to embrace the universal is not something to be taught through a lecture; rather, it should be modeled over and over and over again, even when it is hard, especially when it’s hard. Perhaps the most important lesson I learned from Professor Wiesel, however, is deeply personal. Something I think many of his students would likely say about their own experience as well. He taught me that the trauma I experienced as a child and as a young woman can inform who I am as a person, as a partner, and parent, even as a professional. It could, in fact, guide me in very useful and powerful ways if I learn to honor it without allowing it to control me. Trauma can make us more capable rather than less. It need not destine us to a life of victimhood. Trauma could instead become another important tool that gives us insight into the human condition. He never said those words, of course. He showed me, over and over and over. There were many times when I lost my way in graduate school when I wasn’t sure what I’d come here to say and to do. But in those moments, I would remember to look back to the hours I spent thumbing through hundreds of books on Professor Wiesel’s office floor. To remember the fire that burned inside me to make the world better, to read, to engage, to activate that same fire in others. To pass it on. And now, without further due, please welcome our very special guest, Professor Wiesel’s beloved son, Elisha Wiesel.
Elisha Wiesel: It’s nice to all be back together, isn’t it? Thank you, Ingrid, and thank you to the Boston University community, students, and particularly Professor Michael Zank for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. I want to recognize that Professor Zank brings a true and passionate commitment to many things. To scholarly work, to ethics, and to free speech, in particular. He brings these things to his role as Director of the Elie Wiesel Center. I want you all to know that he invited me here, knowing that he and I disagree on quite a few things, often sharply so. Often on matters of import relating to my father’s legacy. A lesser man, knowing the severity of these disagreements, would likely not have invited me to this stage. But he did, and it’s a testimony to Professor Zank and to our ability to have had dialogue, real dialogue, in some of the preceding weeks. It’s a testimony to his character. So thank you very much, Professor Zank, for allowing me to be here. Tomorrow is Kristallnacht. Tomorrow is Kristallnacht. Can you hear the breaking of the glass? Can you feel the heat of the burning Synagogue? Can you comprehend that the pieces are in place? The masks are off, and the nightmare is now well and fully underway. My mother is seven. She’s on a train escaping from Vienna to Belgium. The train is stuck at the station in Munich. Munich’s Jews have been both shown through violence and told explicitly that they must go, whether they have passports or not. She remembers the chaos of human anguish on the train platform. My father is ten years old and is farther away from the blast center of Nazi power. He has five more years before he will come face to face with pure evil. But the shock wave is moving towards him. Can you hear him reciting his lessons in Cheder, the Jewish classroom? Can you smell the fresh challah he picks up from his grandmother as he runs home on Friday afternoon before Shabbat? Can you feel the hug she gives him as she asks him what he learned today? And can you feel his joy as he excitedly shares his latest discovery? That’s Sighet, and that’s my dad, before the war. You cannot hope to understand my father without the importance of those five extra years that he had in Sighet between Kristallnacht and Auschwitz. Without understanding how he was raised. Judaism, at its heart, was about memory. My father learned his Jewish values from his family. My grandparents raised him to know who he was. They equipped him with respect for others, with reverence for knowledge, and with a responsibility to act. He grew up knowing himself to be a part of the broader Jewish people, who spanned continents, and millennia, who sought knowledge and joy, and who dreamed of an end to exile. Only by placing my father firmly in this context can we understand how he chose to go on living. What drove him to become a witness, a journalist, a writer, an activist, a teacher, a husband, a father. And here he is, in some of those roles. Both my father’s waking world and his dreams were populated by Avraham arguing with yet embracing Hashem, by Yitzchak, Isaac, and Job, walking off their sacrificial altars determined to still live and praise life, and by the Prophets, not only issuing warnings but intervening directly in the affairs of kings and empires. And here you have a Prophet intervening directly in the affairs of kings and empires. Let us follow my father then, as he intervenes, and learn how he approached his activism. I’m going to offer 11 lessons. These aren’t commandments; they’re not even suggestions. They’re just observations that I have found useful. My father’s career as an activist began with a movement to free Soviet jewry. When he was sent to the Soviet Union on assignment for the Israeli Press, he saw firsthand the plight of Soviet Jews who were forbidden to practice Judaism. It was his first opportunity to shape an outcome rather than report it after the fact. Published in 1965, The Jews of Silence helped fuel a movement that 22 years later culminated in 250 000 Jews and allies making their voices heard to president Reagan and Gorbachev in Washington DC on Freedom Sunday. And it was Hanukkah. In 2016, two days after my father passed, Natan Sharansky, the most famous of the Soviet Jewish dissidents who spent nine years in prison for the crime of being Jewish, wrote: “Wiesel was uniquely perceptive in realizing that without this power to generate fear and isolation, the entire Soviet system could fall apart. And he was prophetic in calling on the rest of the world to remind Soviet Jews that they were not alone. The history of the Soviet Union would likely be very different had the struggle for Soviet Jewry not come to encompass the kind of outspoken grassroots activism that Wiesel encouraged in his book.” My father went from being a journalist reporting the news to being an advocate listening to the distrust, and finally to being an agitator back at home. So our first lesson is that letting victims know they’re not alone not only strengthens the oppressed, it exerts influence on the oppressor. Sharansky continued in his eulogy, “while the major American Jewish organizations felt a responsibility to stick to quiet diplomacy, wary of ruffling Soviet feathers and alienating non-Jews in the United States, Wiesel’s book became the banner of activists, students, and others who would not stay quiet. Ellie and I first discussed the idea of a March in mid-1986. I found myself lamenting to him that the Jewish establishment was too resistant to the idea, afraid of the logistical difficulties involved and of being painted as enemies of a newly born detente. Ellie replied that we should not expect establishment organizations to take the lead and should instead mobilize students, who would pressure them from below to get on board. So I, Sharansky writes, traveled to about 50 U.S. universities in the months leading up to the march, galvanizing activists who were eager to participate. And sure enough, just as he predicted, all of the major Jewish organizations eventually united behind the idea.” My father could have waited for the established leadership to act, but like Nachshon ben Aminadav, the first Jew to step into the red sea, before the waters had yet parted for Moshe Rabbeinu. He took matters into his own hands, which brings us to our second lesson. You can’t assume leadership will lead sometimes, you have to do it yourself, and then the leaders will follow. So first, there’s a picture of, you can see, the sign on the back as the Princeton University students. I looked hard for a picture showing student power. And lesson two. Sharansky concludes his recollection, “as we were all marching together, establishment leaders justifiably congratulated themselves for this great achievement. Elie looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and said, “yes, they did it.” Rather than splitting hairs about who had been more influential, he credited the power of the Jewish world as a whole. We had been right to act as we did, to make noise and push for change through our own resolute campaign, but we needed the establishment to see our efforts through. Elie understood exceptionally well how to unite these two forces for the common good.” So the third lesson then is to always treat others with respect, especially those who share your vision but not your tactics. My father could have argued over who deserves credit, but that was not his style. See, it’s actually at a federation panel, and here they are shaking hands and being happy to see each other. I remember my father schlepping me to the Soviet Union. Here we are; actually, that’s in one of the great shoals of Moscow before Sharansky was released. We looked nervously over our shoulders as the KGB followed us on the Moscow subway. I was six years old. I was even younger when I traveled with my parents to South Africa in 1975. My father was there to speak to the Jewish community and educate himself on apartheid while he was there. And it was a trip very delicately arranged with the South African government. I had at the time a Jamaican nanny named Rosemary, whom we very much loved. I was three, and she was traveling with us. And I’ll never forget hearing about this, that my father told our hosts, if for one second she feels treated in any way, less than our full equals, we’re turning around and going home. And if you think my criticisms of the regime are already bad, you will have no idea what hit you. It’s going to be hard to see, but this is actually a letter from the South African Zionist Federation to the hotel at which we were staying, and it says we have been assured, that we’ve been advised that the governess is Jamaican by birth, and we have been assured that cordiality will be extended to Mr. Wiesel, and will also be extended to their governess. You know, some work happened to make sure that there were no embarrassments. So lesson number four is set your boundaries even as you’re an activist around human dignity. In 1985, most of you will be familiar with this one, president Reagan’s advisors had arranged a trip for him to visit a West German cemetery in Bitburg where SS officers were buried. The news broke in the weeks before my father was due to receive a congressional medal at the White House. My father tried to give the president a way out, asserting he must have received bad advice, but it wasn’t too late to change course. He suggested that he visit Jewish concentration camps instead. He gave clear and consistent private warnings to the White House that he was planning to confront the president. His speech became a timeless example of speaking truth to power. But I want to point you to maybe a less obvious lesson. Lesson number five, always publicly give a way out, to someone you’re trying to influence, to someone with whom you have a disagreement. And here you can see, my father, I’m not sure if this was the case he was pleading in the Oval Office at the time, but it might have been. And lesson number six, always provide private warning of your intentions, especially when you are going to challenge someone, as a gesture of respect. This allows for the building of trust rather than surprising someone. If your cause is just and your arguments are solid, there is nothing they can prepare that will harm your case. It is possible they may not even realize your perspective. The great King Solomon was even chastised, the Talmud teaches us, for judging others without first giving warning. And here you can see from my father’s memoirs, he writes about how he gave an advanced copy of his Bitburg speech, where he said that place is not your place, in advance. He didn’t want the president surprised. The next year, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This is one of those pictures on the internet I most wish I could do a different pose for. The Nobel Prize brought in new funds used to establish conferences for human rights dialogue. My mother convinced him, however, to also launch the Beit Tzipora Project to aid the Ethiopian Jewish population recently airlifted into Israel. A long-time NAACP member, my mother introduced a new thread into my father’s activism, and this work became one of the projects that he was ultimately most proud of. Later my parents expanded the Beit Tzipora programming to address the needs of Darfur refugees in Israel. So lesson number seven is, sorry for the suspense. Here’s a picture of the airlifts. Lesson number seven is, it is important to show, not just tell. In other words, to act. Be involved in programs but take the risk of implementing a vision rather than just being a verbal advocate for change in what others are doing. My father’s activism sometimes involved confronting the issue of guilt. How should generations deal with the knowledge that their ancestors had inflicted great trauma? My father believed deeply in the power of individual choice. He spoke at the Reichstag in 1987, where he emphatically insisted to the post-war German generation that he denied the concepts of intergenerational guilt or original sin. The children of killers are not killers, he told them. But children. I have neither the desire nor the authority to hold today’s generation responsible for the unspeakable crimes committed by the generation of Hitler. But we may, and we must hold it responsible not for the past but for the way it remembers the past. My father did not believe in demanding of people the impossible or the unethical, and he did not believe in judging them by virtue of their heritage. He treated people as more than their ethnic or national inheritance and urged actions within the realm of possibility. And lesson number eight is that guilt is not inheritable. Sometimes activism is witnessing. By the time my father visited Yugoslavia in 1992, the news cameras were following him. Often ven when he didn’t want them to, they were following him. And this is the only time I can remember my father breaking Shabbos, that he felt compelled to confront Milošević. And this is lesson number nine, don’t let lies stand unchallenged. When Milošević claimed that a Muslim library had been burned from the inside by its inhabitants, my father said no, he had been there in person. And it was clear to him that that library had been attacked by shells from the outside. Not two of my favorite people. To witness is to bring emotional truths, not just to testify on facts. I remember one time that I personally experienced the full brunt of my father’s witnessing. It was the early 1990s, and the Bush Supreme Court was debating a constitutional amendment against burning the flag. As a recently arrived college freshman, first of all, I knew everything. And second, I could see no higher ideal than protecting free speech. I sought to flex my emerging debate muscles with my father as I told him, dad, the right to burn the flag is a more beautiful American ideal than the flag itself. My father turned to me with one of the darkest looks I can ever remember, and he said if you knew what that flag meant to those of us who saw it arrive at Buchenwald, carried by men whose brothers died to save us, you would never entertain such thoughts again. So lesson 10 is that what the witness felt and feels is testimony as important as what they saw. This is not Buchenwald, but it was a great photo. I remember one time when my father had to overcome his anger to serve the greater good. When my father in 2006 attempted with King Abdullah of Jordan to restart a stalled peace process with PM Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert, I knew it was difficult for him. Until then, my father had always refused to meet with holocaust deniers. And Abbas’s Ph.D. dissertation had involved Holocaust minimization, alteration. My father used the opportunity to do what he did best, to ask questions. Would Abbas condemn suicide bombings? He would. Would Abbas respond to the problem of instigation in Palestinian textbooks? He said he would. Whether he did or not is a different story, but to get him to say it alone was very important. So lesson 11, it’s important to ask direct questions when you have the opportunity, even if they seem obvious. Because if you don’t, who will? I want to zoom out a little bit now if I can on why some of the ideas that Professor Zank mentioned in his introduction are so important to me. Why it’s so important to me that when falsehoods against Israel are spread, we need to stand up to them. We live in a world where, particularly in the academic setting, Israel is under violent attack. And people, reasonable people, will disagree about this. But my father happened to believe, as he wrote in the book A Jew Today in 1975, talking about the famous Zionism is racism statement that the Soviet Union got passed at the UN, which Professor Zank mentioned. My father essentially wrote that that’s just the continuation of the lie, that our enemies pitted us against the world, and when they failed at that, they tried to pit us against each other. So my father, in particular, always took falsehoods against Israel very seriously. I know not everybody thinks that falsehoods against Israel are an attack on the entire Jewish people, but my father thought they were. So you have a context in which BDS runs rampant at many universities; Jews on campus feel less safe than they have in quite a long time. You have a world beyond the campus. You have the Middle East and North Africa editor for Twitter, the curator for this content, has a history of praising Farrakhan. The New Jerusalem correspondent for the New York Times has been found to have said that Hamas and Hezbollah are not terror organizations. These are people with incredible responsibility for curating and reporting content. So we live in a difficult world. We live in a world where when falsehoods accrue, and we’re told a narrative that the Palestinian response to the creation of Israel was dominated by non-violence. Sadly, we know that wasn’t true. Arab armies repeatedly tried to push Israel under the sea. When we’re told that Zionists have a share of the blame for the difficulties that African-Americans face in voting, I don’t see it that way. And I don’t think my mother, who marched for Civil Rights, sees it that way. And obviously, when we talk about Israel targeting children is when we need to be the most careful of all, given the long history of the church and our enemies saying that we do terrible things that we have never done. The dialogue part is important, too, though, and I’m very, very glad that the professor mentioned that. Because I believe the right way to attack falsehoods when they’re being repeated, and I know that this may sound strange, but this is something I feel I learned from my father, which is the importance of extending the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure it has happened to some of us in this room that we have, at time to time, engaged in something called Lashon hara, gossip. We may have even passed on something that’s not true. May have happened to every one of us in this room. And I don’t think the answer is to make people feel that they are less than human or that they have done something that is the end of the world. People make mistakes, and I believe that lies need to be attacked, not the people who say them unless there is a repeated pattern of intentional usage. So it is important to engage, and I think it is important modeling. If I think about what is wrong in this country at the moment, one of the things that concerns me the most is that we attack people rather than disagree with ideas. So even if we have somebody who says something hateful, I’m a big big believer in picking up the phone or typing an email and talking to them. You never know what you’ll find. And I’ll tell you what happens if you simply start a war without having done that. There’s no hope at that point. The opportunity for listening will be gone, and we may push people, who didn’t really understand a situation, to really come out against us. I’m very, very optimistic for what this Center can be, and what this Center already is, and what it can stand for at a time when so many Jewish study centers in the university spectrum of the United States have sadly become more and more platforms for Israel and Jewish memory to be attacked. I know it’s happening elsewhere. My most sincere hope is that this Center will play a leadership role in combating that. Tomorrow is Kristallnacht. Kristallnacht continues. I want you here to recognize that those breaking glass today to attack Jews 83 years since the original Kristallnacht, they act on lies authored by Hamas as often as by David Duke or Farrakhan. My father believed in the power of students, especially at this university. You all have choices to make. I know my father’s legacy, and I’m doing my best to live it. I know you will too. I ended it, but there was a nice picture of my dad in Boston.
[Applause]
Elisha Wiesel: I think we’re now taking questions. Right?
Professor Michael Zank: Absolutely. I think we have microphones, and microphone runners, so if you want to ask your questions and comments, just raise your hand, and somebody will be there with a microphone.
Participant: Hi, thank you. I’m an alum. I studied with your father once. My father is a holocaust survivor as well. I really took your lessons to heart, and I think that a number of the lessons, I want to actually use those lessons for my question, which is speak to things directly. How do you think your father would feel about what’s happening right now in Israel? And if you could, how would you feel that he thinks? What type of solution do you think he would envision to what’s happening in Israel right now?
Elisha Wiesel: It’s a great question. By the way, I want to make sure, you know, we have Professor Zank here as well. So if anybody wants to ask him tough, direct questions, please feel free as well. But I’m happy to field the first one. Look, I think my father, if he looked at Israel today, would have had many concerns. I want to preface this, though, by saying that one of the few benefits of having passed is that nobody should put words in your mouth anymore. So I can’t tell you really what my father would have thought. I will tell you what I think, inspired by my father. But he doesn’t get, you know, the blame for that. Maybe he gets some because he influenced me. But it’s not fair to hold him to task for what I say. Look, I think my father would be, first of all, relieved that there’s a government which passed a budget for the first time in four years. I think he’d be relieved to see, and I’m going to really talk out of school that, you know, the new ministries that are coming together, are talking about things like moving the Rabbanut in the right direction, with regards to showing respect to conservative and reformed Jews. I think my father would be very troubled, and I don’t know what he would have done with it, and I wrestle with this myself, with the thought that as Israel has tried to navigate its way in the world, particularly in a world where its relationship with the US was quite frankly shaken, after the very dark moments of the Iran deal, first being inked. I think he would have great trouble with the fact that Israel has turned to China to the extent that it does, with the Uyghur situation that is occurring there. The fact that one million Muslims are being kept in camps and being re-educated. I think is something that would, you know, I again, I can’t know what would have been on his mind, but it’s on my mind when I think of him for sure. And with regards to our Palestinian cousins, my father always told me, and I know he did, wanted prosperity for the Palestinian people, wanted peace between Palestinians and Israelis, even when he thought it was maybe as unlikely as the coming of Mashiach, my father still made that meeting happen between Abbas and Olmert because he believed we have to try. So I think he, you know, today, if I look at Israel, and I try to see it through his eyes, I see lots of signs of promise. And my big hope is that collectively, as the region turns to one of accepting Israel, where Israel no longer has to fear that each and every one of her neighbors is out to get her, that that will bring a spirit of openness in the region, among our partners, and hopefully among our Palestinian cousins as well. So I’m as cautiously optimistic as one can be. I hope that that answered your question reasonably directly. Dexter.
Participant: One of the things that I have seen over the past two decades is how non-Jews use Jewish self-criticism as a weapon against the Jewish people and their sovereign state. And I’m going to ask you, and also Professor Zank. How do you respond to that? How do you take that into account? And I am a non-Jew, but when Jews argue amongst themselves, you know, how do you take that into account? And is it fair to even expect, for you, to take that into account?
Elisha Wiesel: I’m not sure I fully understood the question, but I’m happy to take a whack. If you understood it, then go for it.
Professor Michael Zank: No, you go.
Elisha Wiesel: Okay. I think if what you’re suggesting is that the fact that we, as a Jewish community, are so vocal in exploring different ideas and criticizing ourselves and each other. Is that a liability on the world stage when other tribes, if you will, don’t do that to quite the same extent? I happen to think that our history of free speech, and our history of arguing ideas on their merits, is part of who we are. Look at the Talmud, look at everything we are, our rabbinic arguments, these inter-generational arguments that go back thousands of years. I think it’s in our blood. I think you know; God forbid we ever stop arguing. Then something would really be wrong. On the other hand, I think it’s important when we’re trying to get something done to establish tent poles of what it means to be within reason within Israel, within our people. And I think when you find that we have people within our community, who outright call for violence on non-Jews, which God forbid, it happens sometimes. I can see it in some of these settler communities. It turns my stomach. That should be considered out of the tent of what’s acceptable discussion within the Jewish world. But simultaneously, when you see people champion the idea of a two-state solution, sorry of a one-state solution, why can’t we all just let there be a Jewish minority again? Everything will be fine? I think, you know, that too is very dangerous. And that, at that point, is really saying that the Jewish state of Israel needs to end. And I think that that type of discussion has to also be marked as beyond the pale. So I think that there’s a very wide range of acceptable political dialogue around whether it’s Israeli policies or how the American Jewish community needs to conduct itself. That within that, that every idea should be argued by those who feel passionately for it, and responded to, and dissected, and that I think is part of our vitality. But outside of that, no, I don’t support that.
Professor Michael Zank: Yeah. I completely agree with what Elisha just said. I just want to also recall maybe not as immediately relevant, but something to keep in mind is, like, when the rabbis try to explain the destruction of the second temple, one of the answers they gave was that it was destroyed because of civil war among the Jews. That is, the disagreement can also go too far, obviously. So there is a danger in quitting solidarity with one another, and I think that’s a very good point that you actually made. I also want to remind us that we just had the anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, and he was, of course, murdered by a fellow Jew. So this is a serious issue that we cannot ignore, that the fight between different factions can also go too far. So as much as I love the culture of debate, there has to be some ground rules where we have to agree, and that’s the same in this country as well, not just among Jews.
Elisha Wiesel: The beauty of open discussion is that, you know, when Michael and I were talking over the past few weeks, Michael would be saying free speech, and I’d be saying responsible speech, and here you’ve actually gotten us to switch. So that’s actually part of the beauty of having some of these discussions, like that, that’s great, right. You know my father’s head is active in my vector, my father’s voice is kind of active in my head, so I have to put one more thing out there, which is when we talk about self-criticism, I think it’s very important to understand who the self is. I think that American Jews have an obligation to be extra sensitive when criticizing Israel and the Jews who live there. Because we don’t have our children in the IDF putting themselves in harm’s way, we are not paying the taxes; we are not politically active there, fighting for one party or another. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be any. But I think that there is plenty for us to be critical of as American Jews. I think American Jews should be absolutely having a deep introspective moment on what we can or should be doing differently. And I know, for a fact, that Israeli Jews are having that about themselves each and every single day. Now Israelis are not talking about us so much. I don’t think we’re so important to them in their day-to-day dialogue. But we shouldn’t be so insulted about that.
Participant: On a more hopeful note, we’ve made major progress made by the Abraham Accords. And I’d like to know what you think and channeling your father, and both of you, to speak about the Abraham Accords in terms of what that model pretends for the potential for Israeli and Arab improvements in relationships down the road and possibly paving the way for Palestinian-Israeli reconciliation too.
Professor Michael Zank: Sure. So, the Abraham Accords were, of course, an unbelievable breakthrough in diplomatic relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and it is something that I hope will lead to lasting relationships of the state of Israel, and its economy, and its citizens with the Emirates and other Arab states around. I think the detent between Israel and Arab states around is extremely valuable for everybody, and it helps calm down the Middle East in all kinds of ways. I hope that we will have a serious analysis of those things in the spring with our next, it’s a Rabin Memorial Lecture, and if you have a good speaker to suggest, I would love to hear your thoughts. On the other hand, we cannot ignore the fact that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. So Iran is, of course, the big factor in Middle East politics, and it needs to be kept in mind how this realign of Israel with a number of Arab states is kind of strategic or tactic in terms of the positioning vis-a-vis Iran. Is this a true interest in cooperation on the part of the Arab states, or is this just a tactical move?
Elisha Wiesel: I think that that’s all 100% correct. And the only thing I would add is, first of all, I hope that ultimately the Saudis do join the Abraham Accords. And I think that you what you will find is, although we may have concerns about the degree to which some of these parties, to these new, to the Abraham Accords have evolved in their own civil rights and their own granting of democratic rights to everybody, I actually think that Israel being a partner on the ground, a neighbor, a world where you can see the LGBTQ community treated well, where women can not only drive, but you know, are you know are doing are fighting in the air force, or are having every possible job. I really believe that ultimately we’re going to be a force for liberal values, that Israel will be a force for liberal values into the whole region, which has always been at the heart of the U.S. and Israel alliance, and I think we’re going to see that play out too.
Participant: So I’m a student in the Jewish Studies department. I’m a Jewish Studies minor, and I have read tons of works by your father. And as someone who’s never met him, I do feel personally touched by a lot of the things that he’s written, and it has greatly shaped my education. So my question for you is, how would you like to see your father’s legacy live on through education?
Elisha Wiesel: Wow. What a powerful question. My father told me we would have conversations on how he wanted to be remembered. And it was just the easiest, shortest sentence. He would say, I want to be remembered as a good Jew. Boy, can you double click on that and unpack it in so many different ways. But that is how he wanted to be remembered. So whatever that means to you, if my father’s memory helps you feel more connected to yourself. And I don’t know whether you’re Jewish or not. But my father believed that it was as important for a Muslim to be a good Muslim, and a Christian to be a good Christian, and even an atheist to be a good atheist. He wanted whatever you were; he wanted more of it. He wanted to see you be the best version of that affiliation, of that heritage that you could. So what I would hope you take away from it is that you are the best version of however you identify, and so remember him.
Professor Michael Zank: I don’t think we can top this. So, I just want to say thank you to Elisha Wiesel for coming out tonight to Boston University.
[Applause]
Professor Michael Zank: And I also want to thank you for coming out tonight because this was amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys.
[End of recording]