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Reviewed by:
  • Elie Wiesel: Teacher, Mentor, and Friend ed. by Alan L. Berger
  • Eugene J. Fisher
Elie Wiesel: Teacher, Mentor, and Friend. Edited by Alan L. Berger. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock/Cascade, 2018. Pp. 107. $18.00, paper.

When Elie Wiesel, whom Alan Berger aptly describes as “Holocaust survivor, author, teacher, advisor to presidents of both parties, human rights activist” (p. xvii), won the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, he and his wife Marion set up the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. One of the foundation’s first acts was the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics, an essay competition for college juniors and seniors, which has received more than 6,500 essays on the moral challenges facing the world. The authors in this deeply moving and enlightening book have served as the judges of the contest. Their articles reflect on what they have learned from the essays, each other, and especially from Wiesel, whom they consider their teacher, mentor, and friend. This is a book for both scholars and the general reader, especially for those interested in ecumenical and Jewish-Christian relations, since the authors are Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic scholars who are deeply involved in Holocaust studies and the dialogue that began with the liberation of the death camps.

Rabbi Irving Greenberg, long a leader in the dialogue, describes Wiesel— famous for his works such as Night (a memoir of his time in the camps)—as a tzaddik (righteous one), a rebbe (mentor/pastor/guide) to his students and fellow university teachers, and lamed-vovnik, one of the saintly thirty-six humans in every generation, according to rabbinic tradition, whose lives and deeds uplift all humanity and help to bring about tikkun olam, healing the world in preparation for the coming (for Jews) or return (for Christians) of the Messiah who will usher in the Messianic Age, when all humanity will live in peace and harmony, justice, and well-being. [End Page 467]

Judith Ginsberg, executive director of the Nash Family Foundation, which supports Jewish welfare organizations in New York and Israel, focuses on what she has learned from reading the students’ essays. Barbara Helfgott Hyett (who has taught poetry and literature at Boston University, MIT, Harvard, and Holy Cross) and Caroline Johnston (professor of history and American studies at Eckerd College) consider what they have learned from Wiesel on how to think and act ethically and how to teach students to do so.

John K. Roth (Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College) and Henry Knight (professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Keene State College) have furthered Wiesel’s probing questions about our religious traditions and Christian history of the teaching of contempt for Jews and Judaism over the centuries, which paved the way for the Shoah. They embody Wiesel’s challenge to Christians to repent and renew Christian teaching about Jesus the Jew and the Jewish people.

Alan Rosen and David Patterson delve into the writings and teachings of Wiesel as a profoundly Jewish visionary (some would say a prophet), who challenged and enlightened Jews and all other humans who read his works or were influenced by him, helping them to focus on caring for those in need or those persecuted anywhere for their beliefs, race, or disabilities.

The editor (Eminent Scholar Chair for Holocaust Studies at Florida Atlantic University) worked closely with Wiesel over the years. Berger shows how in his novels and other writings Wiesel took readers deeply into Jewish-Christian history and challenged Christians to reflect, repent, and work to redeem our broken world, while also honoring the small number of Christians (the Righteous among the Nations) who helped European Jews to survive the Nazi attempt to exterminate Jews and many other “sub-humans.” Berger centers on Wiesel as one who participated in and greatly furthered the Jewish-Christian dialogue, spurring the development of numerous ongoing centers connected with universities around the U.S. He also details the profound dialogue between Wiesel and noted Catholic author, Francois Mauriac, and how their meeting and subsequent dialogues deeply influenced the work of both.

Carol Rittner, RSM, writes a stirring Afterword. A major leader in...

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