From the past, but a good reminder for today. Jerusalem Post, April 22, 2002 www.jpost.com Elie Wiesel - 'We must not let the hater define us' By Caroline B. Glick (April 22) - Having fought the poison of anti-Semitism his entire life, Elie Wiesel reflects on the worst wave of Jew-hatred to sweep across Europe since the Holocaust. Through his mystical and haunting prose, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel has over the five and a half decades of his brilliant and unique career succeeded in bridging the gap between Jewish particularism and universal humanism for millions around the world in a way that no one else has matched. In so doing, Wiesel has rendered himself narrator for both Jew and non-Jew of the unprecedented crime of the Holocaust, and has become the voice of compassion as a form of defiance to tyranny and hatred. Wiesel came to Jerusalem last week to participate in Yad Vashem's International Conference on the Legacy of Holocaust Survivors. The conference at Yad Vashem attracted over three hundred Holocaust survivors from around the world. They came together to ensure that their legacy would be transferred to the next generations of Jews, even as the Jewish people, here in Israel and across the world is under attack. The Jewish month of Iyar is crowded with days charged with meaning for the Jewish people that seem to topple us with their messages. Even as we still weep for the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, our attention is turned to grieving the 20,000 who died to protect us in Israel's wars. Before our eyes have dried from weeping, we join hands and dance in celebration of our freedom in our land. If the rapid succession of holidays leaves us reeling in "normal" Jewish times, today, as we commemorate and celebrate under the gun of terrorists and against the background of the world's seeming rejection of Jewish power and our right to self-defense against enemies who murder us, and attempt to deny us our history and birthright to our land, we are at a loss for words to describe our feelings. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post at his hotel in Jerusalem, Wiesel reflected on today's anti-Semitism and on the meaning of the legacy of the Holocaust, and of our long collective history as Jews. In so doing, he attempted to make sense of our present circumstances to help Jews, particularly those among us who have not until now experienced anti-Semitism first hand, face the current crisis with self-assurance and humility that have been, for Wiesel, the stamp of our character since the time of Abraham. How would you characterize the current international climate towards the Jewish people and Israel today? - In a word, hostility. Wherever I go I encounter it, I sense it. Perhaps it is not directed against me personally, but I can feel its vibration. It is all around me. The fact that in Europe anti-Semitism has become so vicious and so vocal and acceptable is a cause of great anguish for me. The verbal anti-Semitism in Europe has taken on a violent expression - they are burning synagogues. My God, Jews are being assaulted on the streets. You have not been personally targeted in this current wave then? - I do feel this climate myself. Even in the letters I get - while they remain mainly positive - the percentage of hostile letters has increased drastically. I do not remember receiving such vicious insults before and so many death threats. It just seems to be part of the current zeitgeist to hate Jews. What are we, the Jewish people supposed to do to contend with this hatred of us? How are we to respond to it? - The meaning of this hostility for the Jews is that we must stand together. There must be solidarity among Jews in Israel and the Diaspora. I accept this responsibility. I believe in Jewish responsibility in general. What do you think has provoked this hatred? - I do not believe that the root of the current climate is political. I think what we are seeing now is the fallout from the events of the twentieth century. I fear that the hatred was kept at bay for a generation but was never exhausted, and it is now catching up with us. What is new and disturbing in the anti-Semitism today is that the anti-Semitism of the first half of the twentieth century was mainly limited to the right-wing. Now it has infected the left wing as well. Left wing anti-Semitism finds its roots in politics and right wing anti-Semitism's root are social and religious. Given the political roots of left-wing anti-Semitism, do you think today that there can be a difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism? - I believe that there must be a difference between the two. We must always use the term anti-Semitism with care. I can see an anti-Zionism that is not anti-Semitism, But at times like today, the levels of anti-Zionism are so high that it becomes anti-Semitism. [Wiesel did not point to a specific cause that has unleashed the current wave of European anti-Semitism, but he claimed that Jews, who lash out at Israel have contributed to the current climate of hatred.] The problem in pinning down the cause of anti-Semitism in Europe is that there are many anti-Israel voices being heard today in Europe that are Jewish voices and I fear there is not a small amount of disingenuousness here and it disturbs me greatly. To me, if a person has been devoted to Israel on many issues over the years and now says, 'I oppose Israel' there can be said to be some authenticity to the statement. But if now someone, and there are people like this, who never said anything about Israel in the past, uses his Judaism as a way of criticizing Israel, that is wrong. Why have I not heard their voices before now? What do you make of Arab anti-Semitism? - In France - the country that I know best, Muslim anti-Semitism is growing, and it finds its roots in Islamic fanaticism. When you read the Arab papers, you see they are simply pages out of Der Sturmer - they don't even have any imagination. They use the same old images - the blood libel from Passover or Purim. The way that they demonize Sharon for instance is disgusting and tasteless. Do you believe that the Jews stand alone and isolated in the world today? - We are not alone because we still have America. Our ties with America rest on a tradition of shared values of democracy. The bible communities of the Middle West in America love Israel so much it is a true blessing. They love us no matter what we are doing. The American commitment to Israel is also found in the deeply felt commitment of the President of the United States personally. I have known five presidents of the United States and each one of them has had a deep personal commitment to Israel. What about now with President Bush pressuring us not to defend ourselves against Palestinian terrorism? - I don't believe that he is ordering Israel. He is giving us advice. When they say to Israel, 'We understand your need and you need to understand ours,' they seem to say, 'We have our own interests - namely to topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq - help us to achieve this aim by being more considerate.' The United States is not denying Israel's sovereignty or asking Israel to renounce its right to self-defense. What about Europe? - The Europeans have gone too far - this talk of threatening sanctions for instance is unbelievable. What can Israel do to defend itself in this climate of hostility? - Well there is the old answer - we must have better education programs both for the world as well as for our own people. It is a matter of language - of finding the right language to express what is happening. What do you mean? - For instance, on the one hand, no one should accept the phenomenon of suicide killers. Even wars have laws - the Geneva Conventions. There should be things that even terrorists do not do. Obviously all terrorism is immoral, wrong. We must explain again and again that using people to become murderers through their own suicide is beyond obscene. Well how do you do it? After all, you are one of the only people I can think of whose message resonates also with the non-Jews. That is, you seem able to make Jewish particularism acceptable with your language to Western universalists. What do you say to them? - I don't think that I have succeeded very well. I had a problem last year for instance. The President of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel and I organized five meetings to deal with these sorts of issues after the intifada had already begun and people wouldn't listen. After America was attacked good people said that we should explain why America is hated in the world. I refused. I said, 'Why should I make the haters task more easy?' It is the same thing with anti-Semitism. I am asked why the Jewish people are hated and I say 'I do not know.' They say that they expect Israel to behave differently. They say, 'You Jews know what humiliation means and therefore must act better.' The people who say these things are the good ones. The others simply condemn us. We should listen to these people who say these things. Why on earth should we listen to them? What they are saying in effect is that we as victims of the Holocaust bear responsibility for it. But that is not true. We were objects, not actors in the Holocaust. It was the Europeans who acted - who murdered us. We owe them nothing. If we follow their demands then we get to the absurd position of not being allowed to defend ourselves at all, for as victims, we should prefer surrender and further victimization to a situation of self-defense where we may, inadvertently cause other innocents pain. - It is true. That is what it means, if you take their point to the extreme. That is right. We were objects and we should not bear the moral responsibility. But still, we demand it of ourselves because we are Jews. To explain ourselves to them we must prioritize education and I mean this in the noblest sense of the word. Jewish people in Israel should explain what is happening. What do you think that the expression 'Never again' demands from the Jewish people? What sort of behaviour does it require of us? - We as Jews should never allow an Jewish community to feel alone. That is why I am here in Israel today. I feel it is important to be in Israel now. I say to Jewish leaders in the Diaspora that we must never let Israel feel alone. The other lesson from 'Never Again" is that we must never fail to be sensitive to other people's pain. Because we have suffered we should be sensitive. I understand young Palestinians for instance. In 1975, I published A Jew Today. In it, I wrote a letter to a Palestinian. The letter arose from a lecture I gave at the University of Ohio. At the end of my talk someone got up and said, 'I am an Arab, born in Jaffa, what do you have to tell me?' I was touched by that. In my letter I speak about his anger and I accept it. But I tell him that in truth, his anger should be directed towards his elders who betrayed him. They betrayed him in 1947, 1948, 1956, 1967. Why should a Jordanian not feel anger towards King Hussein for attacking Israel in 1967? The same is true today. What I wrote in 1975 is true today. Why shouldn't they be angry at Arafat for rejecting Barak at Camp David? As Jews, we must point this out gently. Why do you think that the Nobel Prize Committee has singled out Shimon Peres and not for instance Yasser Arafat? - I have no idea. I have been asked by many, many, many people to sign the petition to revoke the Nobel Prize from Arafat. I said to them that if it could be done, I would personally lead the campaign. The thing is that it is impossible to revoke the Nobel Peace Prize. It is the one prize that cannot be revoked. I am very disappointed with the committee members' attack on Shimon Peres, very disturbed by it. After all, they know that had it not been for Shimon Peres, there never would have been a peace prize for Arafat. How can they attack him? More than that, as members of the committee, they know it is impossible to revoke the prize. They are only saying what they are saying to hurt Peres and to hurt Israel. Do you now look differently at your own peace prize, given the way Peres and Arafat are being treated by the committee? - No. The Nobel Prize is not always a glorious prize, but it is a great prize. What do you have to say to the young Jews, who today are feeling anti-Semitism for the first time on their own backs - the generation, born after the Holocaust, after 1967, who today for the first time feels itself threatened personally and often physically? - - I am not sure I know the answer. But it must be clear that hate hurts the hater. The hate for us does not characterise us. The Jewish people have always had a self-portrait which is far from the reality of the haters. Their hatred for us tells us more about them than it does about us - and what we understand is that they need an object for their hatred. We must understand that hatred destroys the hater and woe to the society that enables it, that allows it to exist.We have always seen ourselves and must continue to see ourselves as the children of Abraham, of Issac and of Jacob. We define ourselves by the image that we have inherited not by the one who hates us." After the Holocaust, Jean Paul Sartre came out with that dismal and untrue statement, 'A Jew is a Jew because he is seen as a Jew.' Sartre's disciple, Victor Levy - who began as a Maoist, a revolutionary and then returned to Judaism and now is a great Talmudic scholar in Jerusalem, made Sartre admit that he had made a mistake. We are not now nor have we ever been, defined by those who hate us. We will never, and must never, allow that to happen.