Identity, Israel, Religion

Elie Wiesel Can't Have it Both Ways

Elie Wiesel has long walked the tightrope between pious pronouncements of universal Jewish conscience and unabashed political advocacy. He’s been trying to have it both ways for years, but it seems to me that his balancing act is becoming more and more transparent.
Last week, as Wiesel unveiled an anti-Ahmadinejad ad with other Nobel Prize laureates, he blasted the Goldstone report, calling it “a crime against the Jewish people.” Leaving aside the issue that he took this opportunity once again to speak on behalf of the entire Jewish people, I’m still somewhat staggered that Wiesel, of all people, would use such charged Holocaust rhetoric in such a patently political manner. (I think Richard Silverstein at Tikun Olam hit it right on the head when he asked, “What was the last event in world history you can recall being a ‘crime against the Jewish people?'”)
If this wasn’t enough, now I read on Max Blumenthal’s blog that Wiesel’s foundation received $500,000.00 for one speech he delivered at the church of fundamentalist Christian Zionist John Hagee (whom he referred to as “my dear pastor”). Yes, this is the same John Hagee who publicly sermonized that Hitler was sent by God to create the Holocaust so that Jews would emigrate to Israel. It’s simply astonishing to me that so many Jewish leaders are perfectly willing to cozy up to the likes of Hagee, even after it has become so patently clear that his views are way off the rails. (That’s Wiesel, above, with Hagee, right, and Israeli minister Uzi Landau, left).
As far as I’m concerned, Justice Richard Goldstone is precisely the kind of courageous Jewish moral hero that Wiesel himself purports to be: someone committed to advocating for universal human rights even when doing so might mean holding our own community painfully to account. As for Wiesel, I’m finding his words and actions increasingly craven. No one begrudges him his opinions – but it’s time he dropped the pretense that he’s somehow beyond the political fray.

31 thoughts on “Elie Wiesel Can't Have it Both Ways

  1. It’s simply astonishing to me that so many Jewish leaders are perfectly willing to cozy up to the likes of Hagee even after it has become so patently clear that his views are way off the rails.
    You wouldn’t take $10,000 to give a speech at a Hagee event?

  2. Elie Wiesel has long walked the tightrope between pious pronouncements of universal Jewish conscience and unabashed political advocacy.
    Wiesel has never been a universalist. He is a Jewish nationalist. He plays a universalist on TV.

  3. As every day passes there is more information leaking out that the participants in the Goldstone report were fabricating and outright lying about what really took place in Gaza. The latest being Travers the so-called military expert. He now suggests that all of the IDF photos were doctored and that the Jewish lobby in England is the reason for support of Israel. The man is a known bigot. Goldstone may have been respected for some of his previous U.N. reports but this one is pure hysteria and fantasy. He does win the extreme left wing award for the “fool on the hill”.

  4. Posts like this make me think that sometimes bloggers could do with a little humility in their pronouncements on the integrity of other human beings.
    “As far as I’m concerned, Justice Richard Goldstone is precisely the kind of courageous Jewish moral hero that Wiesel himself purports to be: someone committed to advocating for universal human rights even when doing so might mean holding our own community painfully to account.”
    I would hope most of us are mature enough to avoid hero worship.

  5. What’re the “both ways” Elie Wiesel is trying to “have”? You mean being both a Jew and a non-leftist? Is one unable to be both simultaneously?
    Do you really think it’s a contradiction to stand on behalf of Israel and human rights worldwide? Elie Wiesel and alot of other people have been doing both for a long time.

  6. When Israel is not too stellar on human rights and you continue to advocate for both, then there is a contradiction. Simple. You support human right except for this one case.

  7. (And to see a survivor of mass murder standing right next to an advocate for it – without any uneasy looks – is quite surreal. God only knows what Wiesel was feeling when he took that picture.)

  8. “Not too stellar” by whose measure exactly…? The former commander of UK forces in Afghanistan says that Israel did more to safeguard civilian life than any military in history. But hey, what does he know about fighting an asymmetric enemy anyway?
    Israel’s human rights record is far superior to Western states who’ve faced far less trying circumstances. Elie Wiesel is advocating for two compatible (indeed semi-interchangeable) goals.
    I hadn’t known that Hagee and/or Landau ‘advocate for mass murder’. Somebody should call the media.
    (And if I had to guess I’d say Wiesel was thinking “Sheesh! How cool is it that a Christian pastor, an Israeli politician and a Hungarian-American Jew can all agree on the importance of supporting the security of the Jewish state?!! One hell of a change from the 1940s!”)

  9. Eric,
    “Both ways” means that he’s trying to be the Jewish voice of conscience on universal human rights AND an apologist for the policies of the State of Israel. He preaches the importance of never remaining silent, YET remains silent himself on Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. He rails against cheapening the Shoah by invoking it for political gain, YET uses Holocaust rhetoric himself to condemn the Goldstone report…

  10. “Elie Wiesel has long walked the tightrope between pious pronouncements of universal Jewish conscience and unabashed political advocacy.”
    All politicans of all countries engage in machiavellian tactics. Denying that they do is part of the machiavellianism(is that a word?). G-d bless Elie Wiesel for doing the same for Israel.

  11. Hi,
    I’m the person who originally posted the short audio segment, from a late 2005 John Hagee sermon, that caused then-presidential candidate John McCain to renounce John Hagee’s political endorsement.
    John Hagee has said and written worse than his claim that “God sent a hunter… Hitler was a hunter.”
    For example, in John Hagee’s 2006 book Jerusalem Countdown, in a subchapter entitled “Who is a Jew ?” Hagee claims Adolf Hitler was a “half-breed Jew.” In the segment, which one can read from the paperback version of Hagee’s book on Amazon.com, John Hagee writes,
    “Esau’s descendants would produce a lineage that would attack and slaughter the Jews for centuries. Esau’s descendants included Haman, whose diabolical mind conceived the “final solution” of the Old Testament–the extermination of all Jews living in Persia. It was Esau’s descendants who produced the half-breed Jews of history who have persecuted and murdered the Jews beyond human comprehension.
    Adolf Hitler was a distant descendant of Esau…”
    For Elie Wiesel to appear in public with such a man is horrific. My research colleague Rachel Tabachnick and I have written an open letter to Elie Wiesel calling on Wiesel to break off his ties with Hagee.
    Tabachnick and I have written several articles for Zeek, a co-production of the Jewish Forward, in which we address the vicious anti-Jewish claims put out by John Hagee and other Christian Zionists.
    See:
    http://zeek.forward.com/articles/116292/
    http://zeek.forward.com/articles/115872/
    http://zeek.forward.com/articles/116247/
    Respectfully,
    Bruce Wilson

  12. What exactly is “horrific” about appearing in public with a man who constantly goes out on a limb to support Jews and the Jewish state??
    “Vicious anti-Jewish claims” from a man who takes every opportunity he can to speak on behalf of Jews and tells his congregants of their religious and moral obligations to support the Jewish people?
    Your dislike of his theology isn’t enough to conceal those real-world facts.

  13. The few times I’ve had the misfortune of being directed to Richard Silverstein’s blog, I’ve been struck by the disconnect between the allegedly peaceful tenor of the blog (“Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place”; olive branches, etc.) and the shrillness of the actual posts. This time was no exception. Shame his repository of vitriol had to be linked here.

  14. eric-
    if his theology includes the ultimate destruction of the Jewish people by means of apocolyptic hellfire unless they accept Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior, well, I don’t know if that is so much supporting Jews. Zionists supported the Nazis because they helped their cause of getting Jews to move to Palestine, but that doesn’t mean their cohorting was a good thing

  15. in 1933-1938 Zionist activists had lots of communication with the Nazi party as both advocated the emigration of Jews from Europe to Palestine. It’s not a secret or conspiracy theory.

  16. lol at this guy trying to school me on Zionist history (and citing Lenni Brenner no less). groundbreaking internet research, Justin! son: you’re talking to someone who has probably *forgotten* more than you will ever know on this topic.
    but that’s not the point I wish to make here.
    “communication” or “negotiation” or — if you wanna get real Norm Finkelstein (or Lenni Brenner) with it, “collaboration” — DOES NOT = “support.”
    take a deep breath and listen to what I’m about to say: Words have meaning.
    you have suggested that the Zionists “supported” the Nazis. your comment was ignorant and offensive. you *might* get a pass if English is your third or fourth language. if not, you need to recognize that you’ve made a mistake, quietly apologize for what you wrote, and kindly back out of this comment thread.

  17. this is pleasant adult conversation. you’re very good at being an ass, apparently, but other than semantics you seem to have little issue with the notion that Zionists and Nazis collaborated on similar political goals.
    I will not back down from what I said as I firmly believe that an entity that does not oppose another whose motives and goals are ultimately at odds with itself (the same is true today of Israel and Christian “Zionists”) then, well, that’s support in my book.
    But I really want to get back to something more important, in my opinion, and that’s your tone. you continually take this smarter-than-thou tone and lord it over others under the guise of mature conversation. But it’s not. What’s more, you’re presuming my own knowledge on the topic, which you really cannot do from anything that I’ve written here. Please, don’t demean me by using language like “son,” to try and assert some type of self-deluded authority over me.
    If you can find me 51 documents that show that Zionist organizations actively sought to fight the Nazis and their rise to power, well, let’s talk. But what I see in the history that I, too, have spent quite a number of years learning and anazlyzing from various perspectives, is that major players in the zionist movement were completely blinded by their desires to fulfill their political visions, and in doing so endangered european jews.
    so please, before you demand that I back out of anything at all, take a deep breath and curb your douchebaggery and treat me like an f’ing human being.

  18. is that major players in the zionist movement were completely blinded by their desires to fulfill their political visions, and in doing so endangered european jews
    @Justin. Wasn’t a Zionist-Nazi 1930’s deal something like: the Zionists paid the Nazis a bunch of money and, resultantly, 60,000 Jews escaped Europe for Israel? Would it have been better to let those 60,000 people die? Or, were the Zionists supposed to invade Berlin?
    Similarly, Eli Weisel lost a fortune in the Madoff affair. Do we not expect him to make half-a-million dollars in one speech to Hagee’s group? (It’s not a perfect analogy for the reason that Hagee is not Hitler, and we live in 2010 and not 1933).

  19. Probably not one, frankly (unless we think that the Nazi war effort/extermination plans hinged on a few million dollars in the 1930’s).
    Let’s put it another way, though. Wasn’t there a case in one of the European ghettos (maybe the scholar rs can help us, because I can’t remember all of the details) where there were two leaders of a certain Jewish community? Once it became clear that the Nazis were determine to wipe out the Jews, one of those leaders committed suicide, and the other began working with the Nazis and helping them deport Jews to the death camps. But, at the same time, he was also working to secretly save Jews. As a result, many survived the Holocaust because of the collaborator.
    Which leader took the better path?

  20. “Zionists supported the Nazis because they helped their cause of getting Jews to move to Palestine, but that doesn’t mean their cohorting was a good thing
    —Justin”

    Ahhhh, the reliable old Zionazi collaboration to abuse the real Jews of Europe while displacing the peaceful aborigines of ancient Palestine….
    You don’t think you’re stepping even a little bit into crackpot territory with this stuff?
    “an entity that does not oppose another whose motives and goals are ultimately at odds with itself…then, well, that’s support in my book.”
    What a conveniently flexible definition of “support”…

  21. You don’t think you’re stepping even a little bit into crackpot territory with this stuff?
    See here
    and here.
    The Zionists (of all colors) were not drying to kill the Jews of Europe, heaven forbid, but did not find negotiations with the Nazis anathema, as well as getting them all to Palestine. “Never let a crisis go to waste”

  22. If you can find me 51 documents that show that Zionist organizations actively sought to fight the Nazis and their rise to power, well, let’s talk.
    Sadly, this is an apparently serious request on your part. I’ll try to talk you through this one. Avowed anti-Zionist Brenner has cherry-picked 51 documents that relate to Zionist dealings with the Nazis (dealings that, as Jonathan1 correctly points out — and which is fairly freaking obvious –, were directed wholly and entirely at saving Jews from certain death in Europe).
    Here’s where your and Amit’s ears perk up: “A-HA! The Zionist leadership was NOT interested in saving Jews from certain death in Europe, but merely in bringing able-bodied Jews to Palestine to build a state!”
    ….which of course would ultimately save them from certain death in Europe. Given the near ZERO effort being made by the rest of the world to get Jews out of Europe to anywhere, I will refrain from impugning the motives of the Zionist leadership here. They saved a bunch of Jews, and in doing so did about a million times more than most of the rest of the world. To consider this an act of “support” for the Nazis is pretty ridiculous.
    Furthermore no serious scholar (nor me) would bother playing Zionist-Nazi tit-for-tat with wacko Brenner on this point, for the simple fact that the entire Zionist movement aimed ultimately at saving Jews from what the Zionist leadership saw as eventual certain death in Europe! (Again you are free to disagree on this point, but Zionist thinkers from Graetz to Ben-Gurion cited the physical danger to Jews in Europe – in addition to their cultural decay there – as main reasons for the Zionist enterprise.)
    In this light, coming up with 51 documents showing that the Zionists opposed the Nazis seems a pretty silly exercise. (I suppose I could for argument’s sake select at random any number of letters of Ben-Gurion’s or Weizman’s to heads of state between the years of 1933 and 1942, the Statement by the Jewish Agency for Palestine in reaction to the White Paper, the Biltmore Declaration, countless memoranda of the Jewish Agency during the war years, any number of official resolutions from the World Zionist Congresses between the years 1933 and 1939 etc. etc. etc….but I sense that these would be insufficient to overcome the enormous burden of proof established by…Justin and Lenni Brenner.)
    And dude: Zionists did not “endanger european jews.” THE NAZIS endangered european Jews. Zionist efforts at saving European Jews were (at worst) feeble, ineffectual, and lethargic or (at best) of very limited success in bringing about the rescue of several thousands of Jews (yes — in exchange for *GASP!* financial incentives for the Nazis. I know it’s bizarre that the Jew-killing Nazis weren’t willing to let a group of Jews save another group of Jews absent some sort of payoff; what were they thinking?).
    Brenner’s — and your — attempts to paint these Zionist-Nazi dealings as anything other than desperate wartime expediency are nothing if not politically motivated: you begin from a position of anti-Zionism, and are more than happy to add to the Zionist indictment this dubious charge of Nazi collaboration. A dispassionate assessment of the facts as they actually transpired it is not. (I always marvel at the enormous demands that the Brenners and Finkelsteins and Justins of the world NOW make of the wartime Zionist movement, as if a stateless NGO such as the Jewish Agency didn’t do enough to halt one of the most powerful and technologically advanced nation-states the world had ever known, while the industrialized nations of the world and their vast mechanized armies stood idly by.)
    I fear ultimately that the premises of our debate are not the same (and I don’t mean that you take for granted the evilness of Jewish nationalism and I do not). What I mean is that the levels of our arguments are off. You (and now Amit) consider your charges of Nazi-Zionist collusion to be bold and provocative, serving bravely to shed light on (yet another) shameful episode in Zionist history for the ignorant rootlesscosmos and Jonathan1s of the world. And in this light it must seem to you (and Amit) sufficient for the sake of your “argument” simply to link to a Wikipedia entry, at which point I am presumably to read about said episode, shocked and ashamed at suddenly seeing the core foundations of my Zionist upbringing eroded by these unpleasant new revelations, only to bury my head and slink back into a corner, defeated. Simply raising these points (rather than seriously debating them)is sufficient for the sake of your argument, since you take for granted that I’ve never considered them in the first place. “Here’s a Wikipedia entry. Done.”
    What you don’t seem to understand is that I already happen to know about Jews for Trucks, I already know about Naftali Lubinchik, I already know about the Kastner affair and I already know about Lenni Brenner and his entire schtick. So you can save your Wiki entries; I assure you I have seen (and very likely edited) them before.
    And yet, lo-and-behold, after reading all of this over the course of many years, I *STILL* consider your assertion that the “Zionists supported the Nazis” to be utterly and completely ignorant and offensive.
    And you’ve presented exactly nothing to convince me otherwise (other than to twist the definition of “support” to better suit your original assertion).
    [And if we must address said strained definition (…an entity that does not oppose another whose motives and goals are ultimately at odds with itself…well, that’s support in my book.): Suffice it to point out that by your definition all Jews who failed to “oppose” the Nazis (that is, the vast majority of the 6 million) supported the Nazis.]
    [On a side note, you seem embittered by our exchanges on here. I actually enjoy them. Each subsequent conversation serves to give a fuller picture of your worldview. You’ve previously blamed the Zionists for your getting ridiculed in schul and for declining world bee populations (http://jewschool.com/2009/12/28/19767/a-hill-of-beans-in-this-crazy-world/). And now we see that your favored historical narrative of Zionist-Nazi relations is based on the work of Lenni Brenner. And finally, you seem to believe earnestly that the “Zionists supported the Nazis.” These are essential bits of context for anything you may have to say in the future about Zionism or Israel.]
    As for carrying on an “adult conversation,” my score-keeping goes like this: I called you “son.” You called me an “ass” and a “douchebag.” You do the math.

  23. @rootlesscosmo
    Ok. You actually do know a lot about this stuff. Do you know a bit more about the story I referred to above (I heard about it once on the radio)? There was a certain European community where one of the leaders committed suicide, and the other began working with the Nazis–while secretly saving Jews? Does that ring a bell?

  24. rc-
    I never doubted your knowledge. you read alot into my words, as you’ve done in the past. what you level against me as blaming zionists for declining bee population is case in point.
    what i said was the the type of farming that Israel engages in (and if you can separate farming Israel from Zionism, I’d like to hear that) encourages a decline in the bee population. this is not political. this is science. this is our biosphere. my point in that comment was that Israel engages in general societal practices that I do not relate to or find ethical, just or responsible. this is not wacko-jabber. this is my own opinion as to various reasons why I can’t support Israel more than I support any other nation on the planet, which is not at all.
    I never said I don’t enjoy our exchanges. I enjoy them when you share information, not when you ridicule me. but from the comment you made, it seems you enjoy them because you think you’re winning something. and, well, i don’t see it as a competition. I’m not really trying to convince you, or anybody, of anything. I believe every individual makes up their mind for themselves and creates their own right, and I believe you have a sound understanding of how you choose to see the world, and I don’t want to change that.
    I think alot of this is that you are reading my words with the story that you’ve created about me, based on nothing really. again, in this case, and your issue was with my language and apparently the scholar i put forth, you’ve generally taken my position out of context and twisted it into something sinister.
    you see me as anti-zionist. I’m not anti-zionist any more than I am anti-(insert nationalist movement here). I’m not this angry, bitter little man ranting and raving. I was once an ardent, active, believing, devout, engaged, aliyah/tzahal-intending zionist. i am not making any allegations of zionist/nazi conspiracies or trying to say that zionists wanted to harm jews. I do believe, ultimately, when all is taken into perspective, the zionist movement has done the global jewish community less good than it likes to think. that’s my opinion.
    i’ve spent alot of time in israel since 1995, went with a one way ticket, unexpectedly left, didn’t go back for ten years, and then had four of the hardest months of my life. so my relationship to israel is my own and it’s only based on my experiences and my perspective based on those that i have concluded what i have about israel, the zionist narrative, and so forth.
    plus, like you, I am a student of history, and while my academic focus was not on the modern era, i am a student of historical theory and do not take a scholar like Brenner for his own words, but I also have the capacity to analyze historical events on my own right. you can disagree with my understanding, but to say it’s biased by my worldview and politics, well, that’s just human, no? is there such a thing as a non-subjective history? not in my opinion there’s not.
    that’s what that whole conversation in the post you linked to between you and I was all about. there are many ways to construct a historical narrative. it’s story telling, and you can tell the story as a straight line with an uninterrupted chain of events, as you choose to, or you can see it as isolated phenomena of various global communities united by expression of a uniquely behavior/text-based faith. both are valid reads of the history.
    all i was meaning to say in terms of zionist-nazi collaboration during the war is that people blind themselves because of their political motives and cohort with unlikely allies, like Wiesel and Hagee, or my personal favorite example, the Alter Rebbe, Reb Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad-Lubavitch, and his insistence on supporting the Czar in the face of the secularism and assimilation offered by Napolean, while many of the Alter Rebbe’s opponents looked to Napolean as the heralder of Moshiah since Napolean was really the first to offer the Jews a political entity in Palestine. Now, I think it goes to both sides, that advocating for either the Czar or Napolean was not good for the Jews, but each side saw it the way they saw it–was the threat pogroms, or the threat to immediate life, or was the threat to the customs, practices, rituals and laws of the Jewish faith, something much larger than immediate life, according to the Alter Rebbe, apparently.
    We can go back and forth on any given unnatural alliance is it right or wrong for who, but all i was really saying is that people blinded by politics make interesting bed-fellows. i acknowledge fully i should have better chosen my words.
    I am always willing to go back and forth with anybody and any issue, but I really do ask for respect as a person. Remember, you may just be looking into a computer screen, but there’s a real live person on the other end.
    And one more thing, re: Brenner, or Finklestein or any other scholar you write off; it’s not like they’re David Icke or James Stenzel. In the world of anti-war activism and radical thought, he’s not a disrespected writer. You may disagree with him, but that doesn’t make him a nutjob.

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