Elie Wiesel — The Tragedy of the Believer

On Being with Krista Tippett

On Being Studios

Sociology, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Krista Tippett, Arts, Culture, On Being, Society, Society & Culture, Science, Social Sciences

4.7 • 10.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2006

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A survivor of the Holocaust, in which he lost most of his family, Wiesel was a seminal chronicler of that event and its meaning. Wiesel shares some of his thoughts on modern-day Israel and Germany, his understanding of God, and his practice of prayer after the Holocaust.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Krista Tippett.
0:01.9	Ellie Vizel stands in the modern imagination
0:04.8	as a towering moral figure.
0:07.1	He's known for his work on behalf of the Jewish people
0:10.3	and also other peoples across the world
0:12.7	who face suffering and persecution.
0:15.3	At the same time, Vizel is often cited
0:18.2	as an intellectual symbol of reasonable religious despair.
0:22.8	In his memoir Night, which has recently landed
0:26.1	on bestseller lists, five decades after its publication,
0:30.3	Ellie Vizel declared that he lost his faith forever
0:33.8	at Auschwitz.
0:35.3	This hour, we explore what that declaration meant
0:39.0	and how it has evolved in Ellie Vizel's life
0:42.0	and his perspective on the world.
0:46.4	This is Speaking of Faith, public radio's conversation
0:50.1	about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas.
0:57.1	Today, the tragedy of the believer,
1:00.1	an intimate conversation with Ellie Vizel.
1:08.1	A Jew born in Romania, Ellie Vizel
1:11.1	spent part of his childhood in the Nazi concentration camps
1:14.1	of Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
	...

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