{"id":124507,"date":"2025-09-27T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=124507"},"modified":"2025-09-25T15:35:56","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T13:35:56","slug":"27-00-114","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=124507","title":{"rendered":"\u2018As a Jew\u2019 critics of Israel aren\u2019t following in Wiesel\u2019s footsteps"},"content":{"rendered":"<hr \/>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jns.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"center alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.reunion68.com\/Biuletyn\/img\/jns-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"35%\" \/><\/a><span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #000080;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #000080; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jns.org\/as-a-jew-critics-of-israel-arent-following-in-wiesels-footsteps\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u2018As a Jew\u2019 critics of Israel aren\u2019t following in Wiesel\u2019s footsteps<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Jonathan S. Tobin<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr style=\"height: 15px; background: #d0e6fa; width: 100%;\" \/>\n<div id=\"content\" class=\"content-alignment\">\n<div id=\"watch-description\" class=\"yt-uix-button-panel\">\n<div id=\"watch-description-text\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Elisha Wiesel: Telling His Father\u2019s Story Before the World Forgets\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5tW96x3ZkIo\" width=\"680\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><br \/>\nJNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin says that the release of a new documentary film called \u201cElie Wiesel: Soul on Fire\u201d about the life of the Holocaust survivor, author, lecturer and Nobel Peace Prize winner couldn\u2019t be timelier. At a time of an unprecedented surge of antisemitism and demonization of Israel, Wiesel\u2019s example of courageous truth-telling is needed more than ever.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">He is joined in the latest episode of \u201cThink Twice\u201d by Wiesel\u2019s only child and son, Elisha Wiesel, who works on Wall Street and for Israeli startups, as well as being a leading human-rights activist. He said that he and his late mother, Marion Wiesel, who passed away earlier this year, had been searching for a filmmaker for a story about his father before choosing writer\/director and producer Oren Rudavsky. Acting on his father\u2019s instructions, they have refused to let anyone produce a film based on Wiesel\u2019s classic Holocaust memoir, Night, but believed that a well-made documentary could help keep his memory alive as well as reintroduce a new generation to his work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The film traces Wiesel\u2019s Holocaust experience and journey back to life after surviving the camps, and his rise to prominence as an activist and author. The key incident in it concerns a confrontation in 1985 with President Ronald Reagan live on national television, when Wiesel unsuccessfully sought to persuade him not to visit a military cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, where Waffen-SS soldiers were buried.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Elisha Wiesel, who was present at the White House for the event, says looking back at it now, he sees how difficult it was for his father, who liked Reagan very much, to lecture him in front of the country. Still, it was a classic example of how to \u201cspeak truth to power\u201d in the service of a great truth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">He also says that those Jews who speak out against the State of Israel since Oct. 7, 2023, and in favor of \u201cfree Palestine,\u201d are not following his father\u2019s example. Elie Wiesel was an ardent Zionist and never chose to criticize Israel, whether or not he always agreed with its government, because he understood how that would be used by antisemites.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cMany of these people think that they\u2019re acting in keeping with my father\u2019s values. You know, I\u2019ve seen signs at Israel-hating rallies that actually say, you know what Elie Wiesel said\u2014you know, the enemy, the opposite of love is not hate, it\u2019s indifference. So, a lot of people go around and they think, you know, \u2018I\u2019m being Wieselian. I\u2019m not indifferent. Look at me.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cI think my father hadn\u2019t properly envisioned at the time that he made that statement how we\u2019ve gone past, we\u2019ve gone beyond indifference. We\u2019ve gone straight to what I like to think of as indignant ignorance.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">He said the current generation of young American Jews doesn\u2019t feel \u201cwhat I feel in my heart. When Israel is attacked, it\u2019s visceral. It\u2019s gut-level. It\u2019s emotional. This is 50% of my brothers and sisters in the Jewish people, so many of whom came, whether fleeing the Farhud in Muslim lands or the Holocaust, you know, to get to Israel. These are my people, my brothers and sisters, who have gotten to a place where they can finally defend themselves and create the state that is transforming the world with its inventions and its ideas.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Elisha Wiesel compared the \u201cFree Palestine\u201d movement and support for anti-Israel New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani to the punk rock music he loved as a teenager.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">\u201cSo much of the \u2018Free Palestine\u2019 movement to me\u2014and so much of the tear it down, anarchy, let\u2019s end capitalism\u2014has all of the violence of punk rock without the good music. It\u2019s just people looking for change without thinking too hard about what they\u2019re going to build or what should be built.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Listen\/Subscribe to weekly episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Watch new episodes every week by subscribing to the JNS YouTube Channel.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr style=\"height: 15px; background: #d0e6fa; width: 100%;\" \/>\n<div id=\"content\" class=\"content-alignment\">\n<div id=\"watch-description\" class=\"yt-uix-button-panel\">\n<div id=\"watch-description-text\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p><em>Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion&#8217;68,<\/em><em><br \/>\nani te\u017c webmastera Blogu Reunion&#8217;68, chyba ze jest to wyra\u017anie zaznaczone.<br \/>\nTwoje uwagi, linki, w\u0142asne artyku\u0142y lub wiadomo\u015bci prze\u015blij na adres:<br \/>\n<\/em><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><em><a style=\"color: #000080;\" href=\"mailto:webmaster@reunion68.com\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">webmaster@reunion68.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr style=\"width: 100%;\" \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018As a Jew\u2019 critics of Israel aren\u2019t following in Wiesel\u2019s footsteps Jonathan S. Tobin JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin says that the release of a new documentary film called \u201cElie Wiesel: Soul on Fire\u201d about the life of the Holocaust survivor, author, lecturer and Nobel Peace Prize winner couldn\u2019t be timelier. At a time of an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[33,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=124507"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124532,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124507\/revisions\/124532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=124507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=124507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=124507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}