How are Holocaust events remembered and narrated, and why? What knowledge can Holocaust testimony convey? Christine June Wunderli explores these questions as she examines four works by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Guided by Bourdieu's theory of literary field as well as Young's theory of literary representation, she traces Hasidic influences in Wiesel's writing. Her conclusions are telling: Wiesel's narratives are born as memory is pulled towards both Auschwitz and the shtetl, caught up in the tension between the two. Still, the emerging trajectory is one of hope, led by a new categorical imperative.
In this alternately humorous and horrifying memoir, a Jewish father schleps his reluctant children around Europe on a hard-charging tour of Holocaust sites and memorials in order to impress on them the profound evil of Hitler’s war against the Jews and the importance of combatting genocide. In 2017, renowned author and celebrity rabbi, Shmuley Boteach, decided to take his family on a European holiday. But instead of seeing the sights of London or Paris, he took his reluctant—and at times complaining—children on a harrowing journey though Auschwitz, Treblinka, Warsaw, and many other sites associated with Hitler’s genocidal war against the Jews. His purpose was to impress upon them the full horror of the Holocaust so they would know and remember it deep in their bones. In the process, he and his children learn a great deal about the scope and nature of the European genocide and the continuing effects of global hatred and anti-Semitism. The resulting memoir is an utterly unique blend of travelogue, memoir and history—alternately fascinating, terrifying, frustrating, humorous, and tragic. “It is my honor to contribute a foreword to his important book, in which Rabbi Shmuley Boteach details the excruciating journey he took with his wife and children in the summer of 2017 to the killing fields of Europe, a pilgrimage which every person of conscience should attempt at least once in their lifetime. It is our universal obligation to dedicate ourselves to the memory of the martyred six million, just as it is our obligation to confront and defeat genocide wherever it rises.” —From the foreword by Amb. Georgette Mosbacher
The Judaism of Sinai and the Judaism of Auschwitz are merging, resulting in new visions of Judaism that are only beginning to take shape. Each of the chapters of this book outlines an aspect of this work-in-progress, this Torah of Auschwitz, and we will see just how the ways of Sinai are being recast, the old wells re-dug. Jewish survival will not be assured until the grandchildren of survivors and others of their generation can begin to take the darkness of the Shoah and turn it into a song, absorbing the absurdity of a silent God while loving life nonetheless. "Compelling and provocative." --Yossi Klein Halevi, author, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor "Eye opening and thought provoking." --U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal "A powerful meditation on what Judaism could be in this time." -- Peter Beinart, author, The Crisis of Zionism "Hammerman's brave new vision challenges us and demands our attention." -- Gary Rosenblatt, Editor At Large, The Jewish Week "Should be read by every Jew who cares about Judaism." -- Rabbi Dr. Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, author, The Jewish Way
Journey to Poland addresses crucial issues of memory and history in relation to the Holocaust as it unfolded in the territories of the Second Polish Republic.
NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARDS FINALIST • “Part personal quest, part testament, and all thoughtfully, compassionately written.”—The Washington Post “Esther Safran Foer is a force of nature: a leader of the Jewish people, the matriarch of America’s leading literary family, an eloquent defender of the proposition that memory matters. And now, a riveting memoirist.”—Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR Esther Safran Foer grew up in a home where the past was too terrible to speak of. The child of parents who were each the sole survivors of their respective families, for Esther the Holocaust loomed in the backdrop of daily life, felt but never discussed. The result was a childhood marked by painful silences and continued tragedy. Even as she built a successful career, married, and raised three children, Esther always felt herself searching. So when Esther’s mother casually mentions an astonishing revelation—that her father had a previous wife and daughter, both killed in the Holocaust—Esther resolves to find out who they were, and how her father survived. Armed with only a black-and-white photo and a hand-drawn map, she travels to Ukraine, determined to find the shtetl where her father hid during the war. What she finds reshapes her identity and gives her the opportunity to finally mourn. I Want You to Know We’re Still Here is the poignant and deeply moving story not only of Esther’s journey but of four generations living in the shadow of the Holocaust. They are four generations of survivors, storytellers, and memory keepers, determined not just to keep the past alive but to imbue the present with life and more life.
Available again for the first time in decades, this jewel of a memoir is the poignant story of a young Jewish girl growing up in a Polish farm village, from the peaceful early 1930s through the tragic war years, and finding safe harbor at last. “Deeply moving”—Elie Wiesel “A tone poem evocative of a vanished world”—Chaim Potok In her own words and with her own beautiful paintings and drawings, artist Toby Knobel Fluek (1926–2011) lovingly unfurls a unique view of Jewish life. She introduces us to her village, to her family, to the people among whom they lived; she shows us how customs and holidays were observed; and, with both feeling and restraint, she illustrates how this long-enduring way of life was shattered by World War II. She depicts her family’s experiences through Russian occupation and the devastation wreaked by the Nazis—and, finally, her new beginning in America. New to this edition is a foreword by Rakhmiel Peltz, PhD, PhD, Founding Director of the Judaic Studies Program at Drexel University, which he led for twenty years.
Contains a literary criticism of the work of Elie Wiesel and presents a contemporary analysis of the Jewish response to the Holocaust of World War Two.
Remember Us is a look back at the lost world of the shtetl: a wise Zayde offering prophetic and profound words to his grandson, the rich experience of Shabbos, and the treasure of a loving family. All this is torn apart with the arrival of the Holocaust, beginning a crucible fraught with twists and turns so unpredictable and surprising that they defy any attempt to find reason within them. From work camps to the partisans of the Nowogródek forests, from the Mauthausen concentration camp to life as a displaced person in Italy, and from fighting the Egyptian army in a tiny Israeli kibbutz in 1948 to starting a new life in a new world in New York, this book encompasses the mythical “hero’s journey” in very real historical events. Through the eyes of ninety-one-year-old Holocaust survivor Martin Small, we learn that these priceless memories that are too painful to remember are also too painful to forget.
“Illuminating . . . 24 academic essays covering Wiesel’s interpretations of the Bible, retellings of Talmudic stories . . . his post-Holocaust theology, and more.” —Publishers Weekly Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel, best known for his writings on the Holocaust, is also the accomplished author of novels, essays, tales, and plays as well as portraits of seminal figures in Jewish life and experience. In this volume, leading scholars in the fields of Biblical, Rabbinic, Hasidic, Holocaust, and literary studies offer fascinating and innovative analyses of Wiesel’s texts as well as enlightening commentaries on his considerable influence as a teacher and as a moral voice for human rights. By exploring the varied aspects of Wiesel’s multifaceted career—his texts on the Bible, the Talmud, and Hasidism as well as his literary works, his teaching, and his testimony—this thought-provoking volume adds depth to our understanding of the impact of this important man of letters and towering international figure. “This book reveals Elie Wiesel’s towering intellectual capacity, his deeply held spiritual belief system, and the depth of his emotional makeup.” —New York Journal of Books “Close, scholarly readings of a master storyteller’s fiction, memoirs and essays suggest his uncommon breadth and depth . . . Criticism that enhances the appreciation of readers well-versed in the author’s work.” —Kirkus Reviews “Navigating deftly among Wiesel’s varied scholarly and literary works, the authors view his writings from religious, social, political, and literary perspectives in highly accessible prose that will well serve a broad and diverse readership.” —S. Lillian Kremer author of Women’s Holocaust Writing: Memory and Imagination
