Language:
English
Year of publication:
2017
Titel der Quelle:
Antisemitism Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
1,2 (2017) 280-304
Keywords:
Wiesel, Élie,
;
Wiesel, Élie, Criticism and interpretation
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Personal narratives
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
;
Christianity and antisemitism
;
Jews
;
Israel Public opinion
Abstract:
Elie Wiesel was not a historian or a sociologist. He was rather a witness, storyteller, human rights activist, religious Jew and Holocaust survivor. These defining features of his life led him to address antisemitism with a particular angle of vision and a specific goal in mind. This article reviews a number of facets of Wiesel's response to antisemitism, including the Christian antisemitism he faced growing up in Hungary as well as his postwar judgments of Christianity's complicity in the Holocaust; his trenchant assessment of the derangement of Holocaust denial and the formulation of an effective response; his multi-leveled advocacy on behalf of Soviet Jewry; and his incisive countering of anti-Zionism, particularly as expressed in the 1970s by the United Nations and in more recent years by the Iranian government. I conclude by highlighting how Wiesel used storytelling, drawing on traditional Jewish sources, as a way to turn the insidious nature of antisemitism inside out.
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