A Few Thoughts on Elie Wiesel's "A Jew Today"

I must have picked this book up used somewhere, or maybe ordered online from my favorite used book supplier, Abe Books. It's been in my queue for awhile. I recently finished. 

In no particular order, here are some thoughts. 

1. There is so much I do not know. Not just about Jews and Judaism, but about history, about the world. More on this below. 

2. Elie Wiesel is a man of great sorrow. He admits as much in one of his essays ("An Interview Unlike Any Other"),  in which he describes how he vowed not to speak or write about what he saw for ten years: "Long enough to see clearly. Long enough to learn to listen to the voices crying inside my own. Long enough to regain possession of my memory. Long enough to unite the language of man with the silence of the dead." 

The interview was with French novelist François Charles Mauriac, the man credited as the one who encouraged Wiesel to finally tell his story. "I think that you are wrong," Mauriac said. "You are wrong not to speak . . . Listen to the old man that I am: one must speak out--one must also speak out." 

Wiesel did, and the resulting manuscript would eventually become Night. But that sounds too tidy, and it's not that simple, how it came about, nor was finally writing about it enough to alleviate his pain. Each essay in this collection is etched with anguish. Reading it, you feel like placing a hand over your mouth, the way you might feel sitting beside Job, or beside one in mourning. You don't belong here. There's nothing to say. Nothing can be said.  

3. There is so much I do not know. Section II is called "Excerpts from a Diary." Each chapter is commentary on a current event, or controversy, or personality, of the era. My ignorance is deep and wide. After each chapter, I slunk my way to Google for a little primer on moments in history like the Biafran (Nigerian) Civil War between 1967-1970, where mass starvation was used as a legitimate weapon of war;  the genocide of the Aché  people of Paraguay during the second half of the century; United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 on November 10, 1975, which determined that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination. The Resolution was later revoked in 1991 at the initiation of President George H.W. Bush. Wiesel writes of diaries left behind in the camps, somehow written and concealed by the Sonder Kommando; of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: was he an anti-Semite? He writes of apartheid in South Africa, of Holocaust denial. He writes, and the intellect is strong, the words eloquent, but the emotion is raw. Time has not healed, nor likely ever will. He is deeply scarred.

4. Not, "where was God?" but, "where was man?" This was something I picked up on, not anything he wrote in those exact words, so I hope I'm not inferring in error. It was the chapter called "A Plea for the Survivors," which originally appeared in New York Times Magazine in August, 1978. He explains how the victims in the concentration camps believed the civilized world knew nothing about what was happening in the camps, otherwise they would come to their rescue. They consoled themselves with this one thought: "If the killers could kill freely, it was only because the Allies were not informed." But after the liberation, it became clear: in fact, the Allies did know. Everyone knew. While Jews were being decimated, thousands and thousands per day, newspapers around the world dutifully reported everything that was happening. Full coverage. Yet, no outrage. No demonstrations. Not even among American Jews. In the margins, I kept writing, "Why?" At one point, I wrote, "J'accuse!" The evil was there to see, but people in other parts of the world carried on, as if it were already too late for the European Jews. Today, it's easy to blame God. "Where was God in the Holocaust?" atheist Jews ask, and one has no answer, one can only nod in sorrow and shame, still believing in God. But reading this essay, I'm not so quick to blame God. If he's real, if he was aware of the atrocities that occurred then, if he's aware now, do we expect him to intervene supernaturally? Or does his intervention take place when people of courage and conscience stand up, speak out, act, intervene, take up arms. The courage of those who hid Jews in their homes, who lied to protect their Jewish neighbors, who smuggled infants and children out of the country. Stories of the Righteous Among the Nations, men and women, inspire. The courage it took to defy such evil, I can't even imagine.

But reading this, I am angered not at God but at man, at myself. Every day I read of Christians being annihilated, and organizations trying to rescue and intervene send me emails (I'm on half a dozen lists), asking for money. I glance at the messages and feel sad and guilty before deleting. Meanwhile, men and women who share my faith are being tortured, crucified, beheaded, burned alive. Not where is God, but where are we? Where am I? What can I do? Will sending $25 make a difference? I don't know. All I know is nothing I do can change things. Until and unless "they come for me," as the poem goes, we'll continue living life, making dinner, reading the news, shaking our heads...

J'accuse! 

I am guilty, not God. 

This is a book full of "must read" essays.  "A Plea for the Survivors" is one of them. 

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

(Martin Niemöller, 1892-1984)