A Nobel Peace Prize recipient, playwright, and award-winning writer, Elie Wiesel’s personal experience of the Holocaust has led him to use his talents as an author, teacher, and storyteller to defend human rights and peace throughout the world. As the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University since 1976, Professor Wiesel led students in his Literature of Memory courses to explore themes of foundational importance to human interaction and understanding, using a wide breadth of literature from biblical texts to contemporary fiction. His annual public lectures were significant events in the cultural life of Boston University and the Greater Boston Area for the past four decades. Professor Wiesel passed away on July 2, 2016, at age 87. In the fall of 2018, the Elie Wiesel Center inaugurated the Elie Wiesel Memorial Lecture Series in his memory.
Learn More About Elie Wiesel's Legacy From Dr. Ariel Burger
Ariel Burger is the founding director and senior scholar of The Witness Institute, whose mission is to empower emerging leaders inspired by the life and legacy of Elie Wiesel. Dr. Burger served as Elie Wiesel’s Teaching Fellow from 2003-2008 and is a National Jewish Book Award winner for his book Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). As a lifelong student of Professor Wiesel, Dr. Burger said the following on Elie Wiesel’s legacy:
“Professor Elie Wiesel obm lived through the inexpressible darkness of the Holocaust, and, through his thirst for learning, his rootedness in Jewish wisdom and values, and his personal qualities, managed to turn that horrific experience into a lifetime commitment to human rights. He was an author whose first book, a memoir called Night, has indelibly influenced millions of readers with the memory of the Holocaust; and whose other books of fiction and nonfiction have explored enduring philosophical questions, presented tales of great sages of the Jewish tradition, and confronted contemporary political realities. He was a teacher who loved his students. When he gave public lectures at BU, he always said, “I want to thank my students. Every year I say that this year they are the best, but this year I am right.” He was a human rights activist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1986 in recognition of his work as “a messenger to humanity.” He spoke up on behalf of victims across the world, in Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Darfur, and many other places, serving as a voice of conscience on behalf of the voiceless. He was a confidant and trusted advisor to presidents and prime ministers, who was uniquely able to persuade them to reconsider their policy-making in light of humanity, justice, and kindness. He famously challenged President Ronald Reagan, who was planning a visit to a German military cemetery at which Nazi officers were buried, to reconsider, saying, “Mr. President, that place is not your place.” He was a Jew from the town of Sighet, a lover of Israel and a singer of old Jewish melodies, a person who celebrated friendship, lived with joy and humor, and enjoyed chocolate. He was a person of deep faith, “wounded faith,” as he called it, a faith that included and embraced questions and profound wrestling with God’s role in history. He was a loving husband, father, and grandfather who chose to have a family in spite of the despair that tempted him, and which he rejected. He was the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University from 1976 until 2013, where he taught “Literature of Memory,” an interdisciplinary series of courses exploring great questions through philosophy, history, and literature. He never repeated a course. You can view many of Professor Wiesel’s BU lectures here.”
You can learn more about Dr. Burger’s work by visiting his website.
