In Dialog and Dilemma With Elie Wiesel

by Elie Wiesel, David Patterson

Conversations with Elie Wiesel is a far-ranging dialogue with the Nobel Peace Prize-winner on the major issues of our time and on life’s timeless questions.In open and lively responses to the probing questions and provocative comments of Richard D. Heffner—American historian, noted public television moderator/producer, and Rutgers University professor—Elie Wiesel covers fascinating and often perilous political and spiritual ground, expounding on issues global and local, individual and universal, often drawing anecdotally on his own life experience.We hear from Wiesel on subjects that include the moral responsibility of both individuals and governments; the role of the state in our lives; the anatomy of hate; the threat of technology; religion, politics, and tolerance; nationalism; capital punishment, compassion, and mercy; and the essential role of historical memory.These conversations present a valuable and thought-provoking distillation of the thinking of one of the world’s most important and respected figures—a man who has become a moral beacon for our time.

Genres: Holocaust, Nonfiction, History, Biography Memoir, Biography, World War II

254 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1991

About the author

Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.
In his political activities Wiesel became a regular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust and remained a strong defender of human rights during his lifetime. He also advocated for many other causes like the state of Israel and against Hamas and victims of oppression including Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, the apartheid in South Africa, the Bosnian genocide, Sudan, the Kurds and the Armenian genocide, Argentina's Desaparecidos or Nicaragua's Miskito people.
He was a professor of the humanities at Boston University, which created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. He was involved with Jewish causes and human rights causes and helped establish the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Wiesel was awarded various prestigious awards including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He was a founding board member of the New York Human Rights Foundation and remained active in it throughout his life.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. Great insight from a man who has been through and seen it all. I read this a few days before hearing him speak on the art of reconciliation language. Coupled with the lecture, it really helped me be more concious of the words I use that may offend other people. When he spoke, he talked about developing conversation and unity bewtween the three monotheistic faiths, and the fact that Jews and Christians communicate but tend to leave Muslims out of any healing process. Interesting things to think about.

He adds many sayings and stories from old rabbis, which makes him fun to listen to and read.

[Mark Fallon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The chapters are transcripts of extraordinary conversations between Wiesel and Heffner. The beauty of Wiesel's wisdom touches me every time I read any of his works.

[Theresa Malloy Lemickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a compilation of interviews and conversations between Elie Wiesel and his colleague Richard D. Heffner. The two delve explore topics of power, journalistic integrity, concern for humanity. I especially appreciated Wiesel's belief in bearing witness to tragedy and being there for victims. The trajectory of his journalistic career embodied this, and I think it's something journalists today can continue to practice and strive for in their reporting. I re-read several passages because Wiesel has a beautiful way of seeing the world.

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good source of opinions straight from the horses mouth, so to speak. Elie Wiesel's conversations with Richard Heffner are edited for the written word. The questions are thoughtful and Wiesel's responses shed light on the character of a very famous but humble man.

[Tracy Schillemore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking for reflections on his experiences with the Holocaust. Althought the book touches on that point in history the book itself is more a commentary on life. Wiesel is a wise man with good insights.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read quite a few books by the author, including one additional book like this one that was made as a result of a long conversation, I have to say that Elie Wiesel does not come off as personable in these conversations that he does in his own writing.  I'm not sure why that is the case, but it's worth a guess at least.  In his own writings, the author has some kind of story to tell, usually, whether that is the story of his own childhood, a fictional narrative that relates to the Holocaust and its aftermath, narratives about sages and wise men, or in a memoir about a near death experience resulting from heart problems.  In these contexts the author is winsome and if he has a somewhat narrow range he at least handles that range well.  When he is engaged in the sort of conversations that become books, though, we see the weaknesses of Elie Wiesel's approach in his reflexive globalism and his hostility to absolute truth and in his post-millennial optimism and his automatic sympathy for supposed "victims" and a failure to understand how these people can easily become oppressors in turn as has happened in South Africa, among other places.

This book consists of eleven chapters with various interludes that contain smaller fragments of conversations.  The conversations begin with a discussion of the responsibility that people have for others (1), move on to the place of the intellectual in public life (2), and talk about the issues of political correctness (3), where the author's views are somewhat nuanced but ultimately somewhat PC.  The conversation moves to the proper role of the state in the lives of citizens (4), issues of religious, politics, and tolerance (5), and nationalism and upheaval, especially in the post-Communist world (6).  The conversation moves to an anatomy of hate (7), Wiesel's opposition to capital punishment (8), and the issue of the mercy of taking lives (9).  Finally, the conversation closes with a discussion of making ourselves over in whose image (10) as well as the mystic chords of memory (11) that connect people together, after which the book closes with an afterword.  Altogether, the book contains about 175 pages of material whose reception by the reader will likely depend on the extent to which Wiesel's political worldview corresponds with their own.  Admittedly, there are a lot of differences between worldview between myself and Wiesel, so this book was not one that greatly pleased me as a reader.

This book really indicates the problem that results when having a book of conversations.  When the author writes about either his own story, or a story that he has imagined, he has a good enough prose style and a winsome enough approach that he is able to be enjoyed without too much difficulty so long as one has a way of approaching the text.  However, the author's views on political matters are decidedly partisan, and with a bias that I find reprehensible in politics.  The author is distressed that politics are so important and he would appear to rather talk about other subjects, but the way this book is framed, it appears as if the co-author is most interested in showing what Wiesel had to say about questions of policy and geopolitics, and that is precisely where Wiesel has the least to say that is worthwhile to read and pay attention to.  As a person, Wiesel is winsome, as a Holocaust survivor he has a lot of dark tales to tell, but as a political commentator his views are not particularly insightful or worthwhile.  By playing to the author's weaknesses rather than his strengths, this volume is a big disappointment in a little book.

[M. Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based upon conversations between Holocaust survivor, author, college professor and Nobel Prize winner, Elie Wiesel and his long time friend and colleague, Richard D. Heffner, these conversations cover fascinating political and spiritual ground, expounding on many global issues. Although there are references to the Holocaust and World War II II, I would not say that it is a book about those two things, nor is it a biography as the bookshelves/tags describe them. It was, however an extremely interesting book.

[Vanessa Braganza · Rating 5 out of 5]

“How could a man or a woman participate in the killing of ten thousand people a day and not even feel it… It was a parallel universe. When people came there, the killers killed, the victims died, the sky was blue, and somewhere a man who was in charge of the bookkeeping wrote, “Today they killed 10,494.”…Had there been hate, it would not have been possible.”

[Laura S. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Is he really Elie Wiesel?
https://littlegreyrabbit.wordpress.co...

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intense. A lot of life advice.

[LP · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rated "1" for hypocrisy.

http://forward.com/articles/203581/lo...