{"product_id":"from-the-kingdom-of-memory-isbn-9780805210200","title":"From the Kingdom of Memory","description":"In this \"powerful\" \u003ci\u003e(New York Times Book review) \u003c\/i\u003ecollection of personal essays and landmark speeches by \"one of the great writers of our generation\" \u003ci\u003e(New Republic), \u003c\/i\u003eElie Wiesel weaves together reminiscences of his life before the Holocaust, his struggle to find meaning afterward, and the actions he has taken on behalf of others that have defined him as a leading advocate of humanity and have earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere, too, as a tribute to the dead and an exhortation to the living are landmark speeches, among them his powerful testimony at the Klaus Barbie trial, his impassioned plea to President Reagan not to visit a German S.S. cemetery, and the speech he gave in Oslo in acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, in which he voices his hope that \"the memory of evil will serve as a shield against evil.\"\u003ci\u003ePreface \u003c\/i\u003e• 9\u003cbr\u003e Why I Write • 13\u003cbr\u003e To Believe or Not to Believe • 23\u003cbr\u003e Inside a Library • 37\u003cbr\u003e The Stranger in the Bible • 49\u003cbr\u003e A Celebration of Friendship • 75\u003cbr\u003e Peretz Markish • 87\u003cbr\u003e Dialogues • 95\u003cbr\u003e Pilgrimage to the Kingdom of Night • 105\u003cbr\u003e Sighet Again • 123\u003cbr\u003e Kaddish in Cambodia • 131\u003cbr\u003e Making the Ghosts Speak • 135\u003cbr\u003e Passover • 147\u003cbr\u003e Meeting Again • 155\u003cbr\u003e Trivializing Memory • 165\u003cbr\u003e Bitburg • 173\u003cbr\u003e Testimony at the Barbie Trial • 179\u003cbr\u003e When Memory Brings People Together • 191\u003cbr\u003e More Dialogues • 203\u003cbr\u003e What Really Makes Us Free? • 219\u003cbr\u003e Are We Afraid of Peace? • 225\u003cbr\u003e The Nobel Address • 231\u003cbr\u003e The Nobel Lecture • 237\"Wiesel is our rememberer: He is the bearer of witness.\"\u003cbr\u003e—Frederick Busch, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eELIE WIESEL\u003c\/b\u003e was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. The author of more than fifty internationally acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, he was Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University for forty years. Wiesel died in 2016.\u003cb\u003eKADDISH IN CAMBODIA\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e On the eighteenth day (in the Hebrew calendar) of Shevat I found myself in the dusty, noisy village of Aranyaprathet, on the border between Cambodia and Thailand, searching desperately for nine more Jews.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I had Yahrzeit for my father, and I needed a \u003ci\u003eminyan \u003c\/i\u003eso that I could say Kaddish. I would have found a \u003ci\u003eminyan\u003c\/i\u003e easily enough in Bangkok. There are about fifty Jewish families in the community there, plus twenty Israeli Embassy families, so there would have been no problem about finding ten men for \u003ci\u003eminchah. \u003c\/i\u003eBut in Aranyaprathet?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I had gone there to take part in a March for the Survival of Cambodia organized by the International Rescue Committee and Doctors Without Frontiers. There were philosophers, novelists, parliamentarians, and journalists—myriad journalists. But how was I to find out who might be able to help me with \u003ci\u003emy \u003c\/i\u003eproblem?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I would have liked to telephone one of my rabbi friends in New York or Jerusalem and ask his advice on the Halakhic aspects of the matter. What did one do in such a case? Should one observe the Yahrzeit the following day, or the following week? But I was afraid of being rebuked and of being asked why I had gone to Thailand precisely on that day, when I should have been in synagogue.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I would have justified myself by saying that I had simply been unable to refuse. How could I refuse when so many men and women were dying of hunger and disease?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I had seen on television what the Cambodian refugees looked like when they arrived in Thailand—walking skeletons with somber eyes, crazy with fear. I had seen a mother carrying her dead child, and I had seen creatures dragging themselves along the ground, resigned to never again being about to stand upright.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e How could a Jew like myself, with experiences and memories like mine, stay at home and not go to the aid of an entire people? Some will say to me, Yes, but when you needed help, nobody came forward. True, but it is \u003ci\u003ebecause \u003c\/i\u003enobody came forward to help me that I felt it my duty to help these victims.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e As a Jew I felt the need to tell these despairing men and women that we understood them; that we shared their pain; that we understood their distress because we remembered a time when we as Jews confronted total indifference. . . . \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Of course, there is no comparison. The event which left its mark on my generation defies analogy. Those who talk about “Auschwitz in Asia” and the “Cambodian Holocaust” do not know what they are talking about. Auschwitz can and should serve as a frame of reference, but that is all.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e So there I was in Thailand, in Aranyaprathet, with a group of men and women of good will seeking to feed, heal, save Cambodians—while I strove to get a \u003ci\u003eminyan \u003c\/i\u003etogether because, of all the days of the year, the eighteenth day of Shevat is the one that is most full of meaning and dark memories for me.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum was a member of the American delegation. Now I needed only eight more. Leo Cherne, the president of the International Rescue Committee, was there as well. Only seven more to find.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Then I spotted the well-known Soviet dissident, Alexander Ginsberg, and rushed over to him. Would he agree to help me make up a \u003ci\u003eminyan? \u003c\/i\u003eHe looked at me uncomprehendingly. He must have thought I was mad. A \u003ci\u003eminyan? \u003c\/i\u003eWhat is a \u003ci\u003eminyan?\u003c\/i\u003e I explained: a religious service. Now he surely did not understand. A religious service? Here, by the mined bridge separating Thailand and Cambodia? Right in the middle of a demonstration of international solidarity? I began all over again to explain the significance of a \u003ci\u003eminyan. \u003c\/i\u003eBut in vain. Alexander Ginsburg is not a Jew; he is a convert to the Russian Orthodox Church. I still had seven to find.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Suddenly, I caught sight of the young French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, who was making a statement for television. Only six more to find. Farther on, I found the French novelist Guy Suares. Then a doctor from Toulouse joined us, followed by Henry Kamm, of \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times. \u003c\/i\u003eAnother doctor came over. At last there were ten of us. There, in the midst of all the commotion, a few yards from the Cambodian frontier, we recited the customary prayers, and I intoned Kaddish, my voice trembling. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Then, suddenly, from somewhere behind me, came the voice of a man still young, repeating the words after me, blessing and glorifying the Master of the Universe. He had tears in his eyes, that young Jew. “For whom are you saying Kaddish?” I asked him. “For your father?” “No.” “For your mother?” “No,”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He grew reflective and looked toward the frontier. “It is for them,” he said.","brand":"Schocken","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303208079589,"sku":"NP9780805210200","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780805210200.jpg?v=1767727752","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/from-the-kingdom-of-memory-isbn-9780805210200","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}