Wiesel's 80th overwhelming

DR. ROBERT KRELL

Almost a year has passed since I attended a three-day celebration at Boston University (BU) in honor of Elie Wiesel's 80th birthday. From Oct. 26-28, 2008, family, friends and colleagues attended A Celebration of Elie Wiesel. My friend, Rabbi Joseph Polak, the longtime director of Hillel at BU, invited me and made sure that I was included in all the events. Polak, whom I have known for about 15 years, was born in The Hague, Holland, and so we share a common birthplace. We share more – but that is a story for another time.

The timing of the event was perfect, since I had to be at Northwestern University near Chicago just a few days later. Not that I would have missed the opportunity in any case.

The tribute and celebration was divided into morning and afternoon sessions of scholarship pertaining to Wiesel's vast body of work. As it happened, I arrived at the same time he did, and was able to wish him my personal mazal tov and that of my family as we walked in together.

BU president Robert Brown offered the introduction and then it began in earnest. How to describe such an astonishing event? Each morning and afternoon session had three or four scholars speaking on the impact of Wiesel's work on biblical and talmudic themes, Chassidism, Holocaust literature, testimony, fiction and teaching.

The scholars included friends, colleagues and students – his disciples if you will. It was an incredible display of scholarship in tribute to their mentor. But in this hall, there was another presence, a name told to me in whispered tones and spoken with special reverence. He was pointed out to me, "Look, look over there. That is David Weiss Halivni, the greatest living talmudic scholar." I was embarrassed not even to know of him but he spoke that morning to a hushed and attentive audience on Aggadot d'Rabbi Elazar: The Contribution of Elie Wiesel to Aggada.

He and Wiesel huddled together and spoke as if they were two youngsters, two boyhood friends, which turned out exactly to be the case. Weiss grew up in the home of his grandfather, a talmudic scholar in Sziget, Romania, where Eliezer Wiesel was born. Yes, they knew each other then. And both were deported to Auschwitz; Elie at age 15 and David at age 16. Weiss was born in 1927, one year earlier than his friend. I saw no photographer anywhere so I asked them if I could take their picture.

How is it possible? Two giants of Jewish learning who just happened to survive? Which of their murdered childhood contemporaries harbored similar talent? How many like them did not make it?

That morning also, Polak spoke on Elie Wiesel and the Rabbis. The rabbi knows whereon he speaks. Once a week for the past 30 years, he and Wiesel study together.

I cannot list all the lectures, but the other speakers included Steven Katz, Gershon Greenberg, Alvin Rosenfeld, Sara Horowitz, Alan Berger, Ellen Fine, Rabbi Irving Greenberg, Lawrence Langer, Berl Lang and Alan Rosen, among others.

A roundtable devoted to The Lasting Contribution of Elie Wiesel concluded Wednesday afternoon. One speaker was the brilliant John Roth and the final speaker was Irwin Cotler, our own national treasure and longtime friend and ally of Wiesel, as they worked together so many years for human rights and in defence of our people and of Israel.

On the morning of the second day, I saw Wiesel sitting in the front row, alone. I joined him and asked him what it was like to listen to so much learned commentary on his work. He responded, a twinkle in his eye, "I am a good listener." And that he is. He is a gifted listener who misses nothing and seemingly stores all in his prodigious memory. He himself did not speak during the conference, until after Cotler's concluding address, Professor Elie Wiesel: The Conscience of Humanity. He responded graciously to the honor bestowed upon him. And that concluded the special gathering.

While the conference itself was attended by about 100 persons each day, not so his address to the general community. In a public lecture on the Monday evening, in a hall that looked to hold at least 1,000 people, his lecture titled Kristallnacht was packed, mostly with students. Wiesel emphasized not so much the historical aspects of Kristallnacht but its moral and ethical dimensions as the harbinger of the Shoah.

I now know why it took me so long to put pen to paper to share a few fragments of this event. It was simply overwhelming. I look forward to the publication of the scholarly articles that were presented that week. Then all of us can read how Wiesel has enriched our lives.

Dr. Robert Krell is the founding president of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and an occasional contributor to the Jewish Independent.

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