My original review of this book has been lost and it has now been several years since it was submitted. But while I can no longer be specific in my review, I can say that this has been a valued addition to my bookshelf. As a scholar of the Holocaust, I recognize the importance of Elie Wiesel's work. The book provided additional context into his thinking and teaching in the years following the Holocaust as he absorbed its impact and meaning. While any reading and understanding of Wiesel starts with his book Night and rest of that trilogy, I recommend this book to the serious Holocaust scholar.

There are few humans who have given so much back to a world that was cruel to them. Elie Wiesel was so much more than just an inspiring humanitarian who worked tirelessly to bring attention to the Holocaust (with his powerful must-read memoir, "Night") and to genocide around the world. While he had touched many lives with his activism, he actually probably changed more lives by being a teacher who helped his students to be free thinkers around heavy issues (religion, faith, human atrocities, etc.).

This book was written by Ariel Burger, one of Wiesel's students and teaching assistants who worked closely with Wiesel in his later years (he passed away in 2016). Burger has collected some of his favorite lectures by Wiesel so that he was able to include full quotes of Wiesel's brilliance and heart. The only downside of the book was that some of the discussions were super philosophical and heavy, which just felt hard to concentrate on (might be the frame of mind I was in while trying to read). But overall, Burger has been able to capture what was truly unique about Wiesel - his gift for finding compassion and positivity in a world that gave him much heartbreak. The fact that Wiesel was such a positive, optimistic person has inspired me to also find the good in any way I can. If someone who witnessed the horrors of the concentration camps can do it, I should be able to as well. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about Wiesel's legacy.

I was a student at Boston University when Elie Weisel was teaching there, and my biggest regret is that I didn't take his class. This book made me feel better and worse about that. Better, because Burger's writing and anecdotes almost make me feel as if I had been there. Worse, because what was I thinking? Fabulous book, I'm glad Burger took the time to write it.

Elie Wiesel is one of the giants of the twentieth century. His most famous book, Night, more than any other, lets the reader not only know about but viscerally feel the horror of the camps. Wiesel was so much more than his camp experience and what is really important about him is how he moved on beyond the holocaust not only to apply lessons learned but to examine the very nature of what it is to be human. Books such as Sages and Dreamers illustrate this. Burger writes an interesting book in so far as Wiesel goes but he himself is not all that compelling a charachter and the parts about his life are not very satisfying.

Such a powerful story at such a needed time for it. I would like for there to have been more about his actual teachings, but overall, I loved this book! Thank you!

Many good nuggets of wisdom in this book. The bottom line is that Mr. Wiesel doesn’t claim to have the answers to all the problems in the world. Yet he supports all attempts at making the world a better place and encouraging those who feel like they have the means to do so.

5★
‘Listening to a witness makes you a witness.’
. . .
‘The witness inhabits the world of madness. He sees what is happening with lucidity, but when he reports what he has seen, he appears to others to be mad.
. . .
‘If anything can, it is memory that will save humanity.’
- Elie Wiesel” [from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech

Elie Wiesel was a Holocaust survivor who wrote and travelled and lobbied and pressured world leaders about human rights violations. What's more, world leaders listened to him. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but most importantly, he taught. He was a professor for many years at Boston University, but he taught everyone he met. Everyone who heard him became a witness.

“Professor Wiesel emphasized difference. ‘It is the otherness of the other that fascinates me. . . . What can I learn from him? What does he see that I do not, cannot?’”

I began reading this book, not having read Wiesel’s famous account of his time in Auschwitz as a 15-year-old, "Night". Because so much of this obviously referenced it, I stopped reading this and finally read "Night", which I’d always ‘meant to read’ but hadn’t. It is a wonderful book – sad and awful of course, but simple reading and still amazingly full of love. I can’t recommend it highly enough. (Link to my review at the bottom, if anyone's interested.)

He had been an extremely thoughtful, devout little boy and was a teenager when he and his family were taken to Auschwitz. Ariel Burger, the author, seems to have been similarly devoted to his Jewish religion and its traditions.

For young Ariel, learning was an escape from the challenges of his family. His mother was an active, orthodox intellectual while his father was a ”composer and ex-hippie”, as Burger describes him. I don’t mean a street-corner busker, but a serious musical composer. When Ariel was five, his parents split up, and he and his sister, who was blind, alternated between homes, one a strictly observant household and the other a much looser affair.

Ariel loved drawing and painting (his father’s artistic genes) and liked to lose himself in the old stories, mythology, folk tales and such. This reminds me so much of young Elie Wiesel who said the same thing about himself and the old tales. I was another who loved myths and legends and learning, memorising things, although not in a religious sense, so I have some modest understanding of what kinds of little boys they were. Burger says of himself:

“For most of my life, I have fought to understand the uncomfortable gap between professed values and actual conduct, between lofty aspirations and real-life behavior. When I was a child, learning was a source of joy and comfort to me.”

I think Burger found solace in following the rules. I was also a stickler for the rules (then, not now!), and I would argue with my parents about exactly what I was or wasn’t allowed to do ‘according to the rules’. In my teens, when my father was withdrawing some privilege for some new transgression, I argued that it was an ex post facto ruling (he’d made the rule after the fact - I’d paid attention in civics class that day), and he was so amused, he let me get away with whatever it was. I expect young Ariel was a similar trial to his parents as well.

About his art, Burger says it may seem unusual for a boy whose sister was blind, but he felt in some ways he was painting for her the things she couldn’t see. It’s an interesting thought, and he is still an active artist. (His website has examples of his art.)

When he was older, he went to Elie Wiesel’s lectures, and through the course of the book we follow the author’s life in school, working and studying in Israel, his being torn between a life of devotion or one of study, but also of having to earn a living when he had a wife and children.

What he enjoyed most was learning and talking with Wiesel, who became his teacher, mentor, advisor, and friend. He returned to him time after time when making decisions

This is a wonderful story, chock-a-block with recreations of conversations from Wiesel’s classroom, which was filled with undergraduates, graduates, retirees attending just to listen, and professionals going for more degrees. It must have been a wonderful mix of viewpoints for Wiesel to bounce against each other. And there was certainly tension.

“The encounter between the child of a Holocaust survivor and the granddaughter of an SS officer was fruitful because of their very different starting points.”

A granddaughter of Holocaust survivors asked what kept Wiesel going after the Holocaust.

“Learning. Before the war, I was studying a page of Talmud, and my studies were interrupted. After the war, when I arrived at the orphanage in France, my first request was for that same volume so that I could continue my studies from the same page, the same line, the same spot where I had left off. Learning saved me. . .

Maybe that is why I believe so deeply in education. If there is a solution to the problems humanity faces, education must play the central role in it. I know that learning saved me. And I believe it can save us.”

The photos I’ve seen of Elie Wiesel, mostly as an old man, are of a kind, wistful, thoughtful, careworn face.

My Goodreads review includes a picture captioned: Photo of Elie Wiesel, thoughtful

As Burger describes him:

“His skin is weathered, his face furrowed by deep creases. It looks like a map of the world, if the world had been wounded but still managed to laugh.”

My Goodreads review includes a picture captioned: Photo of Elie Wiesel, joyful

He still managed to laugh. Burger didn’t endure the Holocaust, but his search for a path in life seems to have caused him a lot of consternation, so I expected his face to showed similar signs of angst. To my happy surprise, I discovered what appears to be a cheerful, good-natured fellow. I’d say his scholarship sits on him lightly, so he seems very approachable, as all good teachers should be.


My Goodreads review includes a picture captioned: Photo of the author, Ariel Burger, now a teacher and rabbi

Yes, he became a teacher. He began as Wiesel’s teaching assistant, and Wiesel encouraged him to study but not to lock himself away, as he seemed inclined to do. Burger had a wife and children by the end of Wiesel’s life, and Wiesel was so much his mentor and adviser that Burger says he still asks himself “What would Professor Wiesel do? I continue to learn as much from him after his death as I did before it, and his words echo in my mind.”

My Goodreads review includes a picture captioned: Photo of Ariel Burger and Elie Wiesel, a student and his teacher

A good teacher stays with you forever. This book is chock-a-block with the lessons from Wiesel’s classroom but also from Burger’s life and experiences. It’s one that you want to read with someone and talk about the various points of view brought by the students.

It’s also the kind of book that if you read a hard copy, I bet you find it hard not to begin highlighting and underlining passages. Every story and anecdote leads to another thought. Wiesel told so many stories and advised everyone to tell theirs, but cautioned them to use language wisely.

“Don’t say ‘income inequality’ when you can say ‘hungry child’. Don’t say ‘racial tension’ when you can describe rocks thrown at a family.”

The main point is the part I quoted in the beginning, that when you hear something, you are a witness to it, and as a witness, you have an obligation to remember it and tell it.

Just before he died, Wiesel told the author, and not for the first time, “Remember, your voice is just as important as mine.” Burger’s voice is clear here, but his art is also his voice, and you might like to see some on his website.

And remember, your voice is important, too!

I thank NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted.

[My review of "Night", which I seem unable to link normally. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2814836106]

A strong story about the influence of Elie Wiesel on one of his students, Ariel Burger. Burger is struggling to find his direction in life, and although perhaps there could have ben less of that and more of Wiesel’s teachings, it never-the-less is a powerful story about mentoring, teaching and learning.

Biography
Adult
I first learned of Nobel Peace Prize winner, scholar, Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel when a professor assigned his memoir Night, a book I still have on my shelf, for a European history class. (We also watched Rome: Open City – awesome class.) Wiesel passed away in 2016, to our collective loss. The world needs more people like him, activists who coach world leaders toward peace rather than war, toward acceptance and love instead of fear and hate. Witness offers an understanding of this wise teacher through the eyes of Ariel Burger, his former teaching assistant. The focus is of the religious, spiritual, and philosophical discussions from his classes, learned mostly by students but occasionally by the teacher. Perhaps the best description of this book is in Wiesel’s own words to a class: “Whatever you learn, remember: the learning must make you more not less human.”
Wiesel had great faith in learning and memory – “If anything can, it is memory that will save humanity.” A Holocaust survivor, he worked his entire life toward creating an understanding that we share a common humanity, that our differences are interesting, not threatening, and that we all have a responsibility to address injustice, suffering, and other wrongs. The anti-bullying campaign “Don’t Be a Bystander” is an excellent example of his approach: “Never allow anyone to be humiliated in your presence. Whatever has happened in the past, we must deal with those who are here now.” But that doesn’t mean the past isn’t worth examining; in fact, he said, we must study the past to create a better future. This book, winner of the National Jewish Book Award in the biography category, is jam-packed with Wiesel’s inspiring, thoughtful and thought-provoking ideas, often discussed through stories from the Old Testament. He encouraged his students, and others, to listen to stories of suffering rather than passing judgment, and to make sure those stories stay alive through teaching. You may recall a recent news story that half of Canadians could not name a single Holocaust concentration camp – not Dachau, not Birkenau, not even Auschwitz. Many younger respondents weren’t sure what the Holocaust was. This gap in their knowledge is our fault, not theirs. They can’t know what they aren’t taught. But Wiesel says it’s not just about passing on the information; it’s about teaching empathy and being motivated to take action to prevent or address suffering. Important lessons for us all. A touching love letter and informative perspective on a great leader, and an excellent introduction if you don’t know Wiesel’s work. My thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the advance reading copy provided digitally through NetGalley. You’ll find a copy of this memoir at the Grand Forks & District Public Library, too.
More discussion and reviews of this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37570564

What an incredibly beautiful book. “Witness” is a gift to the reader you don’t want to miss. The author, Ariel Burger was Elie Wiesel’s Student Teacher and Mentee. The book is the story of the time he shared with Elie Wiesel both in and out of the classroom. Part of the beauty of the book is not just the wisdom of Elie Wiesel which in itself is breathtaking, but also the author, Ariel Burger’s gentle wisdom. Like Wiesel’s, it is wisdom sprung from the courage to face the unknowable, and even at times the unthinkable. It is a wisdom that is most solid in its ability to bend under the weight of doubt. The lessons shared by both Elie Wiesel and Ariel Burger in “Witness” are so meaningful and relevant to today. Issues of hate, fanaticism, intolerance, and racism are front and center in the book. And while they are looked at unflinchingly, the reader is left not with despair, but with hope. For me, this hope has the power to lead us forward with grace beyond the ugliness of our times. I was privileged to receive a free advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and the Publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in exchange for an honest review.

Elie Wiesel has been regarded as one of the most influential voices of the Holocaust and those that survived it. However, Wiesel always saw himself and his true calling as that of a teacher, not a writer. In Witness, Ariel Burger, a student, then TA who came to be mentored by Wiesel over the years, provides an insight into the compassionate heart and intelligent mind of Wiesel as a teacher.

Burger shows his own skill at writing as he depicts Wiesel in both lectures as well as intimate one on one conversations about life and the world he had the privilege of experiencing. From this Wiesel emerges as a man who truly cared for all who suffered, who would travel across the world to bear witness to those in need and then travel tirelessly after making every effort to reach those capable of stopping this suffering. Wiesel was a man who never seemed in a hurry despite a packed schedule and who had a gift for seeing to the heart of things. He had a weakness for chocolate and a love of the tales of his Hasidic faith and enjoyed dissecting literature not by its literary influences but by its humanitarian ones. Through Burger, we see why Wiesel was more than just an author of Night, but an endearing man who suffered unimaginable cruelties and spent his life trying to spare others from such sufferings.

Though I had read Night in the past, I felt Witness made a deeper impact in seeing the man Wiesel became and that his students fell in love with. I had originally thought this might be a book like Tuesdays with Morrie, and there is some elements like that, but I would argue that Witness goes deeper. It strikes at the moral fiber and through it one hears the voice of Wiesel asking the difficult questions that encourage introspection. A book that will challenge the reader with trains of thought that linger long after the book is finished. A worthy read.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book so much after I read my ARC, I purchased it for friends and family. This book has a "Tuesday's with Morrie" feel to it, only with Elie Weisel and his student. I devoured this book. It is filled with so much wisdom, from a great man. I highly recommend this book.

I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

There are probably not that many people living in the modern world today who have not heard of Elie Wiesel, a survivor of Auschwitz, where he witnessed more cruelty, more hatred, more indifference, and more death, including that of his entire family than this man. Going onto to be a great humanitarian, Mr Wiesel has influenced many from the common man to presidents and world leaders. In this fantastic book, Mr Wiesel is looked at by one of his former students, a person who is searching for the meaning of his Jewish faith and the relationship one has with God.

As we explore with Mr Burger the words and actions of Elie Wiesel, we become students ourselves immersed in the wisdom of his words, of his ability to teach, not preach, of his joy in being the one thing he wanted most to be, a teacher.

"What hurts the victim the most, is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander." In this story, Elie Wiesel encourages all of us to be that voice, that one person who stands and speaks out without fear of retribution, or fear of what others think and do. He weaves his faith, his belief in God, into words that inspire as well as help those of us who have so struggled with religion and the ravages it sometimes brings into the world it is suppose to make better. Growing up myself surrounded on all sides by a Catholic environment, I found myself somewhat adrift when relating to others outside of the faith that was pretty much drummed into me from a very young age. My religion frightened me as I was an extremely sensitive child, and the thoughts of beloved family members going to hell because they were not baptized made me sick with worry. So, in my own way, I have been searching for answers, the same as the author has been.

"To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all." That is why we must stand up today. There is an enormous amount of hatred circling our world. It is squeezing the very life out of us and as we witness once again the recurrence of antisemitism, we can't stand silent. I have often thought of the term used..never again when referring to the Holocaust...and yet never again has happened in Darfur, Bosnia, and Rwanda to name just a few. Christians are being persecuted in Syria, Jews are being attacked, as I write these words and here we are not raising our voices as Mr Wiesel so adamantly wanted us to.

Reading this book was an awakening for me. It made me realize the presence of God in our lives is the focus of our lives. It made me know that while I thought God was silent as the world has burned, God is not. He has allowed his human creation to become better. We haven't though and there is still time for us to be what Mr Wiesel wants us to be. "I still believe in man in spite of man. I believe in language even though it has been wounded, deformed, and perverted by the enemies of mankind. And I continue to cling to words because it is up to us to transform them into instruments of comprehension rather than contempt. It is up to us to choose whether we wish to use them to curse or to heal, to wound or to console."

Thank you to Ariel Burger who wrote this inspiring book about his beloved teacher, to Houghton Miflin Harcourt for an advanced copy of this book, and to NetGalley. It is a book I will always remember...
This book is in my top ten reads for the year, 2018. Pick it up, read it, and assimilate Elie Wiesel's words. It just may change you for the better.

WITNESS by Ariel Burger is subtitled "Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom" and is filled with wisdom that is highly relevant today. One example is this quote from Wiesel: "When you face evil, don't let it grow, fight it right away… Be watchful…. What happens to me will eventually happen to you …. Anyone who is suffering, anyone who is threatened becomes your responsibility.... I do not know how to end hatred, I truly wish I did – but recognizing our shared humanity is a good beginning." Others are the sections where Wiesel discusses the importance of listening and the power of words: "I used words to try to change facts, to create new realities." Or about the value of literature and history: "if we want to understand what is happening today, we must look to the past."

WITNESS is a truly moving and inspirational text and encourages all of us to reflect on how to lead a moral life. The author has known Wiesel for decades, first when Burger was a teenage student, and later as Wiesel's teaching assistant and mentee. Burger has filled WITNESS with quotes from classroom discussions at Boston University and from other communication with Wiesel. In addition to reading and contemplating the book itself, you may wish to register for Facing History’s online discussion with Ariel Burger about this book or for other webinars in the series.

Link in live post:
https://www.facinghistory.org/calendar/web2018bo4-witness-discussion-dr-ariel-burger-lessons-elie-wiesels-classroom

I first discovered Elie Wiesel’s writing at the age of 16. I used to haunt the classics section of my local bookstore, both because those titles introduced me to new, unfamiliar worlds, and because most were produced as mass market paperbacks that were affordable to a teenager with a modest income. Wiesel’s most well-known work, Night, the autobiographical account of his time in a Nazi death camp, sat unassuming on the bookstore shelf. It was a tiny volume of just over 100 pages that sold for $5.50, and yet when I opened it for the first time, it echoed questions I’d held close to my heart about God and His silence, about humanity and its penchant for evil, about surviving in the wake of terrible tragedy.

We’d studied the Holocaust in school, but at a distance that left the details vague and turned the real lives affected and lost into abstract concepts. Wiesel stripped bare the stark reality and gave voice to unspeakable horror. The next year — at the start of my senior year of academy — the Twin Towers were attacked. The morning of September 11, 2001 was supposed to be a consecration service for the senior class; instead, we watched on a projector screen in the school chapel as first one and then the second tower fell. The following year — my first year of college — we studied Night, and Wiesel’s words were both familiar and full of new insights about the world.

In the years since, Wiesel’s words have been a balm to my faith, doubts, fears, and questions. Though I’ve read many of his books, speeches, and interviews, followed the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s activism in Darfur and many more places, and mourned his death in July 2016, I never knew that throughout it all, Wiesel considered himself first and foremost, a teacher. His work as a professor at Boston University, which spanned over 30 years, was such a central part of his life, and yet is largely unknown.

Ariel Burger’s book, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom, brings this area of Wiesel’s life to center stage. Burger first met Wiesel at the age of 15, became his student a few years later, then teaching assistant, and later, friend — a journey that spanned 25 years. The book is based on Burger’s own journal entries and classroom notes, voice recordings of Wiesel, and interviews with Wiesel’s former students (ix). It is both invaluable coursework and a moving tribute to Professor Elie Wiesel.

Burger writes that once, several years ago, he asked a rhetorical question while giving a presentation at a conference: “If we were to create an institute to train teachers and leaders based on the core design principles of Elie Wiesel’s classroom, what would those principles be?” He then described a “methodology of wonder” that “has the potential to awaken students’ ethical and moral powers” (233). Wiesel, who was in the audience that day, took the question seriously and it was the subsequent discussion surrounding this idea that built the framework for Witness.

“Elie Wiesel believed in the power of education to change history,” Burger writes in the introduction (xiii), before inviting us to take a first row seat in Wiesel’s classroom. In this setting we learn in the unassuming presence of Professor Wiesel, who begins each lecture by telling his students, “Let us begin with your questions.”

His lessons revolve around topics as diverse as “memory, faith and doubt, madness and rebellion” (xv), and this is where we journey together, as teacher and student, both with questions to ask and answers to seek. Burger unfurls Wiesel’s lesson plan before us, as we are instantly encompassed in an atmosphere of learning, alongside fellow students, as Wiesel lectures.

The book is laid out as a classroom conversation on many of the topics Wiesel cared about and taught on: Memory, Otherness, Faith and Doubt, Madness and Rebellion, Activism, and more. Despite what many may assume, Burger tells us that “the Holocaust was not [Wiesel’s] subject; it was the lens through which he looked at all subjects” (16).

In Memory, Wiesel teaches us that the “distinction between an education that can save us and one that can exist comfortably alongside moral compromise, corruption, and evil rests on memory” (21). Wiesel continues saying,

“History is a narrow bridge. We are naturally afraid of our memories, of the trauma of our memories. We try to forget, and in truth, some things we must forget a little bit, simply in order to function. And yet…if we truly allow ourselves to forget, history may well return to us” (22).

In his lesson on Otherness, Wiesel says, “I don’t like the word tolerate. Who am I to tolerate you? I prefer the word respect. I must respect you even if I do not agree with you” (52). Later he continues, “To claim that one path is better than another, to denigrate others, has an almost inevitable outcome: dehumanization” (59).

The lesson on Faith and Doubt was the one that I appreciated most, perhaps because that is where Wiesel’s voice felt most familiar, as those twin concepts are often explored in his writing, and are ones I grapple with myself. Wiesel tells his students that,

“My questions are questions only because of my faith. My argument with God is an argument only because of faith. Sometimes I have wished to renounce it, but I could not….I believe in a wounded faith. Only a wounded faith can exist after those events [of the Holocaust]. Only a wounded faith is worthy of a silent God” (81, 82).

Wiesel discusses how protest against God can be an expression of faith. He uses the story of Abraham and Sodom as context for this idea. God has told Abraham he will destroy the city, and Abraham protests, haggling with God for the sake of the righteous who would be destroyed along with the wicked. Wiesel says,

“…do not forget that God invited Abraham to play this role. It’s as if God turns to us, the readers of the future, and says, ‘I’m going to tell Abraham what I intend to do to Sodom so that he will argue with Me. I want to lose this argument.’ God is in an argument with humankind, and God wants to lose. We are invited to argue, to disagree publicly and loudly, with fervor. We learn from this that if you have to choose between God and man, you must choose man — God can take care of Himself” (91-92).

Wiesel begins his lesson on Madness and Rebellion by saying,

“The witness inhabits the world of madness. He sees what is happening with lucidity, but when he reports what he has seen, he appears to others to be mad….In life, too, if you look away from suffering, you become complicit, a bystander. Silence never helps the victims, only the victimizers. If you do look, you risk madness. Faced with such a choice, madness is the better option. It is a better option because at least you will not be on the side of the killers” (111, 113-114).

He continues,

“The ones who recognize the coming of evil, of oppression, are often seen as madmen. They are attuned to a reality that most people do not see, to a vision of a world without hatred, a messianic vision. They live for this vision, and they are so sensitive to whatever threatens it that, unlike others, they react immediately. They are usually the first to raise the alarm” (115).

In Activism, Wiesel pulls the concepts of the preceding lessons together. “When you face evil, don’t let it grow, fight it right away. Had Hitler been fought immediately there would have been no Holocaust. Be watchful” (147).

I finished reading Witness on October 9. Later that week I attended annual meetings of my faith denomination and heard our General Conference president call social justice a “distraction.” Meanwhile, Wiesel’s words rang in my mind: “Are we sleeping while others suffer? Does our faith cause us to fall asleep? Or does it wake us up?” (100). Two and a half weeks later, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting occurred. Again, I was reminded of Wiesel’s words as recorded in Witness: “Kindness and compassion must not end with your own community” (159).

When our faith leaders fail us and our places of worship are no longer safe, what is left? We have our memories, we have our faith and doubts, we have activism rooted in a righteous madness, and we have, perhaps, hope. “We must hope in spite of despair, because of our despair,” says Wiesel, “we must not give despair the victory. I do not believe the world is learning. And I cannot hide from that fact. And yet, I do not believe in despair. People speak of a leap of faith. I believe we require a leap of hope” (184).

If Wiesel’s life and legacy taught me anything, it is this: We cannot remove ourselves from one another’s pain and we shouldn’t remain silent while surrounded by their suffering.

Ariel Burger says it best in the closing paragraphs of Witness,

“I often feel paralyzed when I consider the enormous suffering in our world. I’ve often let this paralysis stop me from taking even small actions. But now, I don’t expect to find the perfect solution to the world’s problems. I try instead to act in a way that might make a small difference — one person, one family, one classroom at a time….I find myself asking, ‘What would Professor Wiesel do?’ I continue to learn as much from him after his death as I did before it, and his words echo in my mind” (251).

When Elie Wiesel passed away, the world lost a great light and the darkness felt tangible somehow. Burger’s book feels like a flashlight beam breaking into that darkness. It’s not as strong as the light that we lost, but it is enough to remind us of the way forward. To show us our own ability to change the world.

Ariel Burger was first a student, later a teaching assistant, and much later, a friend to Elie Wiesel, and he writes here of Wiesel’s time teaching at Boston University, something he did for over 40 years.

The primary, most important task in Wiesel’s teachings was educating against indifference. In addition, he was passionate about individual responsibility and building more compassion through literature and the arts.

Burger shares the intimacies of their conversations, along with the triumphs of Wiesel’s words inside and outside of classroom walls. Burger also speaks of his own personal journey and what Wiesel taught him, how he shaped and molded him into the rabbi and teacher he became.

I first read Night by Elie Wiesel the summer before I started high school. We had “summer reading,” and it was assigned. I was starting a new school, again, something I did frequently as a child, and I was anxious about life in general, and somehow in reading the book, as heartrending and devastating as it was, I was given hope for my new school, that we would be assigned books like Night to read, a book that made me feel deeply, viscerally because the atrocities of which Wiesel wrote actually happened. That hope held true, and Elie Wiesel helped in bringing that to me in many more ways than just that small one by comparison.

The biggest takeaway from Witness: if you listen to a witness, you, in turn, become a witness. This one is not to be missed!

Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Witness: Lessons From Elie Wiesel’s Classroom by Rabbi Dr. Ariel Burger was such a powerful book, and is such a gift to the world. I thank Burger for writing it and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for publishing it. It is so powerful and deep that I know I will want to reread it multiple times and very few books have rated that act in my long career as a librarian/educator ( and in my life as a bibliophile). My copy is full of bookmarks there were so many profound and thought-provoking sections.

As a school librarian and English teacher, I have always believed that Wiesel’s short novel Night ranks along with Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl as a must read and must teach book about the Holocaust. It is incredibly powerful. It’s strong theme is remembrance in order to avert inhumanity.

I have also long been familiar with Wiesel’s powerful impact on the world as a Human Rights crusader through so many other atrocities of the twentieth and twenty-first century from the war in Bosnia to the genocide in Rwanda to the ethnic cleansing in Darfur to name a few.

Wiesel, as a Holocaust survivor, could have turned his back on the world and man’s inhumanity to man, and the world would have understood, but instead he worked tirelessly to make the world a better place. This Nobel Peace Prize winner truly brought hope to a world in pain prior to his death at the age of 87 in 2016. And through this book the legacy lives on.

Even though he was known for his human rights work and his writing, Wiesel considered himself a teacher first and foremost. And this book is a chance to vicariously sit in Wiesel’s class at Boston University where he taught for many years. The author of the book was a protege of Wiesels who met him when he was 15, studied under him in his 20s, and was his teaching assistant in his 30s. The book also contain’s reflections of the authors about his search for purpose in life and a bibliography of many of the materials Wiesel used to teach from which will be another project of mine—to read those I haven’t.

The entire book is powerful, but here are a few passages to give you a glimmer in the inspiration and lessons it contains:

One of the powerful lessons Wiesel taught is that of How Faith Can Remain After Horror.
According to the author, Wiesel rarely taught his most famous volume—Night, but he made an exception in 2006 at the request his students. (They were probably influenced by Oprah Winfrey’s selection of the book for her book club that year.). Night is an autobiographical account of his family's deportation by the Nazis to the Auschwitz death camp and then Buchenwald. It is short but powerful. A quote:

"I believe in a wounded faith. Only a wounded faith can exist after those events," he told his class, adding, "(W)e cannot conceive of that place with God or without God. It is impossible to pray. But I did, and I said that prayer, because my father said it, his father, his grandfather. How could I be the last?"

How Learning Can Change the World is another lesson. Read this powerful passage from the book which I think reflects why being an educator was so important to Wiesel:

“On a cold December morning in 2005 in Boston, Elie Wiesel stands before a classroom full of students. They are local and international students, undergrads, future PhDs, auditing retirees, and professionals pursuing midcareer second degrees. It is the final meeting of Professor Wiesel’s weekly course, and students have the floor. In this last class, unlike all the others, they are invited to ask him anything they’d like, even if their questions do not relate directly to the course topic. Tensions in the Middle East have flared again, and students are eager to hear his perspective on prospects for peace. He speaks for half an hour about the political realities, which he connects to the course readings —literature and current events as commentary on each other.

When he finishes, Rachel, a doctoral student and a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, raises her hand and asks a question. “Professor, what kept you going after the Holocaust? How did you not give up?” Professor Wiesel answers immediately: “Learning. Before the war, I was studying a page of Talmud, and my studies were interrupted. After the war, when I arrived at the orphanage in France, my first request was for that same volume so that I could continue my studies from the same page, the same line, the same spot where I had left off. Learning saved me.”

He goes on. “Maybe that is why I believe so deeply in education. If there is a solution to the problems humanity faces, education must play the central role in it. I know that learning saved me. And I believe it can save us.”

Rachel and the other students seem satisfied by this response, but I find myself struggling. I am not as hopeful as our professor. Of course I believe in education, but it is hard for me to see it as a panacea, the solution to the world’s problems.

Can learning, as Professor Wiesel claims, really save us? With the myriad seemingly insurmountable challenges we face today, from global warming to the revival of nationalist and populist movements, from hunger and homelessness to religious hatred and fanaticism, is education really the answer?”

This ties into another lesson about How Words Have Influence And Power. To quote:

"Language is essential. It is more than a vehicle to transmit ideas or memories; it is a desire of the human being to transcend his own limits," Wiesel told students. "But language can be corrupted. It can be contaminated by human cruelty."

About Fighting Hate. To quote:

“"When you face evil, don't let it grow, fight it right away," he said. "Anyone who is suffering, anyone who is threatened becomes your responsibility...It is not the end – I do not know how to end hatred, I truly wish I did – but recognizing our shared humanity is a good beginning."

When a theology student from Zimbabwe who had seen her brother killed and lots of injustice and violence in her country speaks in class even though it is hard to do so:

“At the end, as Solé stood in the open doorway about to leave, Professor Wiesel took her hand gently and said, “I told you in class that you must tell your story. This is because, if even one person learns from it how to be more human, you will have made your memories into a blessing. We must turn our suffering into a bridge so that others might suffer less.”

I can not recommend this book highly enough. Thank you Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader’s Copy and for allowing me to review it.

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I was disappointed by this book. Probably because I was expecting a great deal more given Elie Wiesel's icon status. The book is very thorough and well written but I was expecting something else which is completely my fault.

Librarian: This is a book that I really hope we librarians can succeed at getting into the hands of readers. In an age of an ever increasing divide between people, this book serves as a reminder of the fact that as different as we all are, we are also the same. It offers all sorts of life lessons from a man who was one of the finest minds, and hearts of the last century. Unfortunately I feel like this book may not circulate as well as it deserves to. It just feels to niche. We'll have to talk this one up, if we want it to get the circus it deserves.
Reader: I loved this book. The perspective it provided on such a well known figure was so illuminating. It was fascinating to see Wiesel from the perspective of someone who studied under him, and worked with him over the period of several years. The stories he shared were both entertaining and educational. Highly recommend.

To give witness, typically, is to tell the truth. One tells what one saw, gives facts, details; what one witnessed.

Ariel Burger, gives witness to what he learned from Elie Wiesel, in the classroom, in personal discussions, reading his books, and through both men's belief in their faith.

Most people remember the witness Elie Wiesel gave to the Holocaust, the horror of its existence, the brutality of of its keepers, the smell of the death camps that he himself survived. Elie trusted his God, believed in his God, had faith in his God. When he survived the death camp he "Gave Witness" to his faith. He became a scholar, a Rabbi of his religion so he could be a teacher. To his death, he always described himself as a teacher.

Ariel Burger describes scenes from Elie's classroom sessions, where Ariel was his teaching assistant, with students from all cultures, religions, races; wanting to learn and question this brilliant man. He would tell them stories, quizzical, moral stories, and the class would discuss it. He never gave them direct answers or told them what they should think or know; they learned together, thinking for themselves. That's teaching.
This is the best way I can describe this beautiful book to honor a man the world should never forget.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this advanced copy. Thank you Ariel Burger for sharing your experience with us.