Blog
Wiesel Institute in Romania says it found mass grave of Jews
Written on November 6, 2010 at 10:55 am, by Carolyn
FYI: This is an example of an all-propaganda, no-forensic information “news article” that has been copied by AFP from a “News Release” sent out by the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania. Photograph and all. They publish it “as is” without checking facts. Notice there is no author for this story; no journalist wrote it. The article below appeared in the Montreal Gazette on Nov. 5. The Montreal Gazette seems to be a news outlet specially partial to Israel and Jewish propaganda. I have added my comments ~CY.
MASS GRAVE OF VICTIMS UNEARTHED IN ROMANIA
AFP November 5, 2010
Human remains are seen after archaeologists uncovered a mass grave of Jews killed by Romanian troops during World War Two in a forest area near the village of Popricani, close to the city of Iasi, in northeast Romania.
Photograph by: Anthony Cioflanca, Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania.
[Comment: Notice that Cioflanca is employed by the EW Nat. Inst. in Romania. He is the only “archaeologist” mentioned and does not seem to be a real archaeologist. If he were, his credentials would be given. Therefore, who are these archaeologists that uncovered the grave?]
BUCHAREST – A mass grave containing the bodies of Jews killed by the Romanian army during World War II has been discovered in a forest in northeastern Romania, the Elie Wiesel National Institute said on Friday.
[Comment: It’s not been forensically determined that they are Jews; they are being called Jews based on “talking to locals.”]
“So far we exhumed 16 bodies but this is just the beginning because the mass grave is very deep and we only dug up superficially”, Adrian Cioflanca, the researcher at the origin of the find, told reporters during a press conference.
[Comment: They say they have 16 “bodies,” but they claim 100 before they ever find them.]
The Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania and Cioflanca both said they believe up to 100 bodies could be buried in the mass grave.
The find, in the Vulturi forest in Propricani, about 350 kilometres (220 miles) northeast of Bucharest, is “further evidence of the crimes committed against Jewish civilians in Romania”, Elie Wiesel institute head Alexandru Florian said.
“It is another testimony of a shameful period in Romania’s history”, Aurel Vainer, representative for the Jewish community at the lower house of parliament said.
[Comment: Two quotes solely of propaganda value from two political, activist Jews pointing the finger at Gentiles before the evidence can be studied. This is the formula that we have seen used over and over.]
According to an international commission of historians led by Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel, himself a Romanian-born Jew, some 270,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews were killed in territories run by the pro-Nazi Romanian regime during 1940-1944.
[Comment: Now we come to the blanket statement of distorted historical “truth.” When did Elie Wiesel become a historian? He is not. Where does the figure of 270,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews come from? What “international commission” is being referred to?]
This is the first time a Holocaust-era mass grave has been discovered since 1945, when 311 corpses were exhumed from three locations in Stanca Roznovanu, close from Iasi, according to the Wiesel Institute.
[Comment: No wonder they are trying to make a big deal of it. They need to come up with something after 65 years of nothing but “witness testimony.”]
“For a long period of time, no research was done because the subject was taboo under the communist regime (1945-1989) and also for some years after the return of democracy in 1989″, Cioflanca told AFP.
[Comment: Just think how tough the communist regime of ‘45-’89 made it to get any truth for Germans. The taboo in place by the Holocaust enforcers up till this very minute makes it very difficult to disseminate any truth for German losses, and who the true perpetrators were. Democracy is of no avail in their case.]
[NOTE: From an updated AP report in the Kansas City Star, we read: “Romania’s role in the Holocaust remains a sensitive and highly charged topic. During communist times, the country largely ignored the involvement of Romania’s leaders in wartime crimes.” If this is the case, it’s very likely the Communists did the killing, not Romanian “Nazis.” But it is in the interest of the Elie Wiesel Institute on the Holocaust in Romania to blame the “Nazis” and “fascists” in order to bolster “Holocaust” claims, if at all possible. Naturally, the current Romanian regime will go along with that. The Jews will cause them endless trouble if they don’t; Germans and Romanians will not say a word. To get to the bottom of the events that are behind the discovery of these bones would take an honest, careful investigation by neutral scientists — which is not what we’re seeing here.]
Things improved after the Wiesel-led commission’s report in 2004 and in 2006 president Traian Basescu called on his fellow countrymen to face up to the role played by the pro-Nazi regime of wartime Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu.
The mass grave in Propricani was discovered after Cioflanca, a historian, gathered testimonies of local inhabitants who saw the killings of Jews. One of the witnesses escaped after convincing the Romanian troops that he was an Orthodox Christian, Cioflanca said.
[Comment: Now Cioflanca is called an historian; previously he is called a “researcher” and also an “archaeologist.” But his actual credentials are never given. What are they? Because he “gathered testimonies of local inhabitants” – this qualifies him as an historian?]
The victims could be Jews from the northeastern city of Iasi, where Romanian officials and military units, assisted at times by German soldiers, killed at least 8,000 during a pogrom in 1941, according to figures by the U.S. Holocaust memorial museum.
[Comment: This is another blanket statement. The USHMM is not a credible, unbiased institution, but the product of Holocaust survivors, the Holocaust Industry, Jewish organizations, and Jewish influence in and on the US Govt. Their “figures” are meaningless without independent research and scrutiny.]
Many of them are buried in official common graves.
The researchers will now try to identify the bodies excavated.
“We will not be able to use DNA tests because we do not have any contact with potential relatives still alive and, to use DNA, you need to compare samples,” Cioflanca said.
[Comment: No relatives? What about the witnesses who saw what took place – they don’t know who any of them were? What about the one who escaped? Do they not want to use DNA because it could show these are not Jewish bones at all, but Romanian or some other. Notice how they don’t even consider that they might not be Jews. They want them to be Jews. The more dead Jews it can find, the happier the Elie Wiesel Institute is!]
The exhumations are expected to go on after consultations with the authorities.
[Comment: “Consultations” means pressure, bribery, threats of a political and financial nature. In other words, “we’ll destroy your careers if you don’t go along with us, and we’ll do all in our power to blacken Romania’s reputation and standing in the European Union.”]
The military prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation.
[Comment: [Will this be a real investigation or one run by the Jewish “archeologists” and “historians”? A necessary question.]
After the find, the Elie Wiesel Institute deplored the fact that some Romanian cities, like Sibiu, Pitesti and Timisoara, “still continue to celebrate the memory of Romanian officials who were war criminals and who took part in the persecution against Jews by giving their names to streets.”
[Comment: Ah, Elie. His heart still full of revenge for those “war criminals” who dared to lay a hand on a Jew. That a Romanian official should have his name on a street!! Make them all Jewish names as a proper memorial to their unique suffering; then Elie Wiesel might be satisfied.]
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
Wiesel to begin fellowship at Chapman University; retain position at BU
Written on October 29, 2010 at 3:07 pm, by Carolyn
by Carolyn Yeager
Elie Wiesel will “spend time” at Chapman University in Orange, California beginning this spring and for the following four years, through 2015, according to Chapman President Jim Doti. Wiesel has been appointed as a “Distinguished Presidential Fellow”, which means he will visit classes in Chapman’s Holocaust history minor, and possibly other disciplines, including history, French, religious studies and literature, according to chapmannews.
Chapmannews reports that complete plans for his fellowship activities are still in progress (as of August) and that he will retain his full-time faculty position at Boston University. As we have pointed out on this website, Wiesel’s duties at BU are light, leaving him time for his extra-curricular activities, now including being employed by a second university. However, Wiesel’s fellowship stay is also described as amounting to only “several days each spring.” My! “Visit” is certainly the right word for it.
“Distinguished Presidential Fellow” may be a newly invented position, meaning that he is appointed by the President (Jim Doti), not hired under academic requirements by a department dean. Wiesel will be what you might call, in diplomatic terms, an at-large representative of the Jewish interests that are no doubt paying his salary. He will be most closely associated with Chapman’s Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education, a unique construction that bridges the Religion and History Depts, and was opened in Feb. 2000 “through a generous gift from Barry and Phyllis Rodgers, [and] dedicated to preparing young people to become witnesses to the future.” Witnesses of the Holocaust? Is this the job of a university? Well, it seems to depend on who offers the money, and what they want it to be used for.
Wiesel offered special words of praise to Dr. Marilyn Harran, who directs the Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education, for “the way in which the university is teaching and remembering some of the most tragic events in human history, events that have had such a deep influence upon my life.” She and the Center are the reason that Wiesel says he “made the decision to return to Chapman annually as Distinguished Presidential Fellow.”
Dr. Harran is a professor of both history and religious studies at Chapman. She has even stronger words of praise for Wiesel, announcing, “[he] has been the face and voice of Holocaust memory and witness to the world, and an ambassador of humanity and hope for decades. He has consistently challenged us to learn from the Holocaust and to reject indifference, and – in his words – ‘to think higher and feel deeper.’ We are unbelievably fortunate that he has chosen to return to Chapman and to share with us his knowledge and wisdom. I am stunned and deeply grateful that he will be with us in this new role as Distinguished Presidential Fellow. I know our university community will be profoundly enriched and inspired by his presence.”
University President Doti is equally humbled by the presence of the great man, saying “That this remarkable individual, one of the world’s most famous and respected people, one who truly exemplifies the meaning of ‘global citizen,’ should choose to return to spend time with our students is truly a tremendous honor for Chapman.”
Does it seem from this that Wiesel will be under any kind of performance requirement at Chapman, or will he be the determiner of his own course of action? It is probably the same at Boston University – the tail is wagging the dog. But Wiesel’s presence at both universities is more a public relations benefit to the school than an educational benefit for students. His fame as a Holocaust icon, including his Nobel Peace Prize, make him a valuable commodity – as opposed to having any pretensions to scholastic stardom.
Chapman University is seeking to transition from a “teaching university” to a “research university.” That means the faculty will be required to “publish” in the field of their expertise, and the more you publish, the higher your pay. Not all faculty think this will be beneficial to the student experience at Chapman; there is a school of thought that values professors as mainly teachers rather than researchers. But others, probably more powerful, think it’s more important to “upgrade” Chapman into a higher-rated university.
Emphasis on the Holocaust
Elie Wiesel’s visiting fellowship may be in accord with those objectives. The Sala and Aron Samueli Holocaust Memorial Library opened in April 2005, dedicated to providing a space “where teachers and students may gather to learn from survivors, visual testimonies and printed resources.” At the entrance to this library is a large bronze bust of – guess who? Elie Wiesel! 
The library has an exhibit area that currently displays “Themes of the Holocaust” featuring photos and artifacts donated or lent by individuals and institutions. Group tours are also arranged. It’s like a little Holocaust museum right there on the university grounds.
At Chapman, the Holocaust is taught in both the Religion and History Depts., and several of the courses overlap both. It is really quite amazing how much of the History curriculum is devoted to this subject. That Holocaust is taught in the Religion Department—as it is at Boston University—makes sense because it is a belief. It has become an unquestioned, highly enforced belief system that is assumed to be true at its base, but with too little examination of the basic operations it would require.
A difference in approach at Chapman however, as compared to BU, is the emphasis on Holocaust in the History Dept. I discovered six courses containing Holocaust, five of them devoted exclusively to it. This is a lot for a small university like Chapman, perhaps more than at any other accredited university in the United States. The History Dept. offers on an every-year basis:
HIST 307 Germany and the Holocaust
(Same as REL 307.) This course examines the Holocaust within the context of the history of World War II. Topics include the origins of the Holocaust, the implementation of the Final Solution, resistance to the Nazis, survivor experiences, and the legacy of the Holocaust. (Offered every year.) 3 credits. Also offered in Religion
HIST 365 Topics in the Holocaust
(Same as REL 365.) This course examines selected topics within the study of Holocaust history, such as the roles of doctors, theologians and religion under Hitler, the persecution of non–Jewish groups (including homosexuals and gypsies), and the experiences and choices of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders. Courses that treat different themes may be repeated for credit. (Offered every year.) 3 credits. Also offered in Religion
HIST 365a Perpetrators, Witnesses, and Rescuers
[Same as REL365a] Within the context of Nazi Germany, World War II and the Holocaust, this course examines the choices that individuals faced and the decisions that defined them as perpetrators or rescuers. Includes the stories of those who survived the Holocaust to become witnesses to the truth. (Offered every year.) 3 credits. Also offered in Religion
Offered every other year, Spring semester:
HIST 365b The Holocaust: Memoirs and Histories
This course explores the complex history of the Holocaust from the perspective of selected memoirs written by survivors and examines the contributions and limitations of memoirs in shaping the historical record. (Offered spring semester, alternate years.) 3 credits.
The following two courses are offered “as needed:”
HIST 356 Modern Germany: From Sarajevo to Stalingrad
This course examines the political, social, and intellectual history of Germany from World War I to the end of World War II. Topics include the Holocaust and the roles of individuals in taking Germany down the path to two world wars. (Offered as needed.) 3 credits.
HIST 297 The Holocaust in History and Film
An introduction to the history of the Holocaust, from initial persecution to the implementation of the Final Solution, including the actions of perpetrators, rescuers, and resisters; the dilemmas facing those targeted for persecution, and major issues in the interpretation and visual representation of the Holocaust. (Offered as needed) 3 credits.
* * *
The Religion Dept. at Chapman offers three courses every year that are also offered in History:
REL 365 Topics in the Holocaust
(Same as HIST 365.)
REL 365a Perpetrators, Witnesses, and Rescuers
(Same as HIST 365A.)
REL 307 Germany and the Holocaust
(Same as HIST 307.)
In addition to all of this, there is the extensive program offerings of the Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education, which is entirely funded by several Jewish groups outside the university. According to the Chapman website, the mission of the Rodgers Center is to increase knowledge of the Holocaust, further discussion of the causes of genocide, and encourage reflection on the contemporary relevance of the Holocaust to our lives today.
As part of its mission, the Center sponsors a Lecture Series each year. For example, on Sept. 21 James Young gave a lecture entitled “Stages of Memory: Challenges of Memorialization (sic) from the Holocaust to the World Trade Center.” Young is Professor of English and Judaic Studies at the U of Mass, Amherst. He has written two books about the Holocaust: one about Holocaust Memorials and one about Holocaust Architecture. [Isn’t Holocaust to the World Trade Center quite a stretch? -cy]
The Art and Writing Contest is an annual program that involves “thousands of Southern California middle and high school teachers and students, culminating in an awards ceremony on campus.
Beginning in 2000, the Rodgers Center began a yearly Evening of Holocaust Commemoration to create a “community of witnesses” for the Chapman area.
What more can they think up?!
No one can deny that Holocaust is alive and well at Chapman University. And now Elie Wiesel, the “Grand Poobah” himself, will arrive every spring to energize it even further, and bring lots of media attention in his wake. This is a public relations dream!
But for those of us who care about the truth, it’s more like a nightmare. What do you think, dear reader?
Religion Department reveals interesting insight into Boston University
Written on October 26, 2010 at 8:07 am, by Carolyn
by Carolyn Yeager
BU’s Dept. of Religion is extremely over-weighted with Jewish faculty and Judaism courses.
Elie Wiesel, as the Mellon Professor in the Humanities at BU, teaches in both the Depts. of Philosophy and of Religion. Both departments are contained in the College of Arts and Sciences, headed by Virginia Sapiro.
I took a look at the Dept. of Religion after a student at BU informed me in a helpful manner that our Elie Wiesel Cons The World Boston University Project page was wrong in stating that Prof. Wiesel was not teaching any courses during the fall 2010 semester. This student referred me to the Dept. of Religion course offerings which are online and which show Elie Wiesel as the instructor of two undergraduate courses for this current semester. [I have corrected our page.]
The fall semester continues until December and the year-end break. Wiesel is teaching two courses especially designed for him [or by him]: Literature of Memory 1 and Literature of Memory 2. What is interesting about these courses is that they cover solely Wiesel’s own writings.
Lit of Memory 1 “examines the development of Elie Wiesel as a novelist from a selection of his fictional works. Particular attention is paid to the books’ structures, themes, and moral lessons. (It) provides an opportunity to study these works with the author himself.”
Lit of Memory 2 “explores Elie Wiesel’s non-fiction writing. Using his memoirs, Biblical interpretations, and reflections on prominent Hasidic masters, we seek to better comprehend the ethical voice in his work. (It) provides the opportunity to explore these issues with Professor Wiesel himself.”
It is obviously considered a special advantage for BU students to study at the master’s feet. I would certainly like to listen in on one of the class sessions myself! The Spring 2011 course offerings for the Dept. of Religion show no classes taught by Elie Wiesel. Perhaps he will be teaching a course for the Philosophy Dept. in the spring. As of this writing, they are not yet online.
In the BU Dept. of Religion I was amazed to find a large percentage of course offerings devoted solely to Judaism and Jewish culture. I would not have been surprised to find there were more than for any other religion, but the proportion was so wildly unequal one wonders how they get away with it. Here is the breakdown for the current semester. [Note: please see my reply to Dove in the Comments section below (11-13 at 8:55 a.m.) re a more complete listing of Religion Dept. courses for Fall and Spring, 2010-11, which you can find here. I’m not going to redo the article at this time because the ratio of Jewish courses to Christian and others remains essentially the same.]
Fall 2010 offers 24 lower and upper level courses, all 4 credit hrs
8 courses are solely about Judaism and Jews
- Elie Wiesel, Lit. of Memory 1 [his own fictional writings]
- Elie Wiesel, Lit of Memory 2 [his own non-fiction writings]
- Introduction to Rabbinic Literature
- Jewish Mystical Movements and Modernization
- American Jewish Experiences
- The Modern Jew
- The Holocaust
- Holocaust Literature and Film
1 course about Judaism and Christianity [Apocalyptic Lit in Early Judaism and Christianity]
1 course solely about Christianity [Gender in Medieval Christianity]
2 courses solely about Islam
1. Islamic Law
2. Islamic Theology/Philosophy
1 course about Daoism
1 course about Zen-Buddhism
1 course about Culture, Society and Religion in South Asia
9 courses on Religion—Non-Specific
This is an astonishing 36% about Jews and their culture/religion as opposed to about 25% for all non-Jewish religions combined, and around 39% for non-specific religion topics. And this is not in any way an exceptional semester, considering the same proportion appears in the spring semester.
Spring 2011 [click on “Courses” under Academics] offers 17 lower and upper level courses, all 4 credit hrs
6 courses solely about Judaism and Jews
- History of Judaism
- Classical Jewish Thought
- Gender and Judaism
- The Holocaust
- Jewish Bioethics
- Topics in Judaic Studies: The Zionist Idea
2 courses solely about Christianity
- Varieties of Early Christianity
- Theology of Christian Mysticism
1 course on Islam
1 course on Buddhism
3 courses on Religion & Literature from around the world
4 courses on Religion-Non-specific
Here again we see 35% solely about Judaism; about 24% on Christianity, Islam and Buddhism combined; 41% for non-specific religious topics. This seems to be the formula. What does it tell us about BU?
Has Boston University become a Jewish institution?
As we note on our Boston University page, according to Hillel.org and Reform Judaism Magazine [via Wikipedia; NOTE: the Wiki BU page has been revamped since July and all mention of Hillel House removed], “Boston University … has the second highest number of Jews of any private school [after New York University] in the country with between 3,000 and 4,000 [out of approx. 30,000], or roughly 15% identifying as Jewish.” It is also, according to the latest figures available, approximately “68% white, 15% Asian, 7% international students, 7% Hispanic, and 2% black.” While 15% Jewish is a high number in a country where the total Jewish population is no more than 2 to 2½%—it doesn’t begin to reach to the 35% average of Judaism courses offered by the BU Dept. of Religion.
First we might ask: Why is the Jewish student population at BU so high? One reason is the location in Boston, Mass. and surrounding states like New York and New Jersey, which have a higher than average Jewish population. Another is the culture that has developed there. Again, as we stated on our Boston University page, the school was historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church, but lost its Christian identity somewhere along the way and now describes itself as nonsectarian. However, considering its student body, and its faculty and administrative personnel, not to mention the Board of Trustees, it could very easily—and perhaps more correctly—be identified as a predominately Jewish institution.
When we look at the administrative faculty positions in the Department of Philosophy, we can’t help but notice the abundance of Jewish names. Nine out of 29 professors [31%] are unmistakably Jewish, and others could very likely be. In the Department of Religion, of 31 professors listed, eleven are unmistakably Jewish [35%] and some others are likely Jewish. The Jewish professors teach the Jewish courses, so the percentages fit together.
I’m not going to look into BU in its entirety because I am not on a hunt to discover how many Jews are employed there [although I may be accused of that]. What I am after is to discover whether BU has a Jewish culture and political base, and it appears that it does. The more “Jewish” Boston University becomes, the more Jewish students are attracted to attend this university. And so it builds on itself. I can tell you that if you’re going to major in Religion, you’re going to get a heavy dose of Judaism.
And Holocaust, too. Along with Elie Wiesel as a celebrated professor there, I’d like to acquaint you with Prof. Steven T. Katz , who is Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University, and holds the Alvin J. and Shirley Slater Chair in Jewish and Holocaust Studies in the Dept. of Religion. [I didn’t know there was an Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at BU until I read Dr. Katz’ bio. I will have more to say about that in another blogpost.] Katz was also Chair of the Academic Committee of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum [in Wash. D.C.] for five years. He still serves on that committee, and is also Chair of the Holocaust Commission of the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. Not surprisingly, he’s teaching the course “The Holocaust” jointly with the prolific Professor Hillel Levine. Katz is no doubt too busy to do more, as he is also one of the American representatives to the International Task Force on the Holocaust, established by the King of Sweden, now sponsored by the European Union.
Holocaust as part of the Religion curriculum at BU
It is left to us to figure out why BU is offering courses on The Holocaust in the Department of Religion, rather than in History. Strangely, when I look at the course offerings in the Dept. of History, the word “Holocaust” does not appear once. A course titled World War II: Causes, Course, Consequences is offered in the Spring 2011 semester. That is the only mention of WWII in all the course offerings for both semesters [not to mean it is not touched on in some other courses].
However, there are several courses about Israel and Jews for general students and history majors. Among the undergraduate courses for Fall 2010, there is Jews in the Modern World, Topics in the History of Israel, and Topics in Jewish History. For the Spring 2011 semester, I find The History of Israel: An Introduction, Topics in Jewish History, and The Making of the Modern Middle East [this one taught by Jewish professor David Fromkin]. This is more than it might look considering the entire spectrum of world history of all cultures that needs to be covered in a Dept. of History. Israel is a tiny state and Jews make up a tiny percentage of the world’s population, yet at BU they are given an inordinate amount of attention.
Is the Holocaust, as it is understood by most professors, an historical event or a religious event, according to Boston University? First let me say that the fact of the History Department remaining aloof from the Holocaust is not surprising at all. Real historians—trained scholars—stay away from the Holocaust because actual evidence for it is weak. It is based on war-time and post-war propaganda; witness testimonies by the alleged victim-survivors; photographs and confessions, many of which have been demonstrated to be fake; and poorly-explained happenings. Yet it is politically verboten to question it; therefore the answer for historians is simply to not teach, write or talk about it, but only to give it lip-service.
However, for Elie Wiesel [and those who surround him], the Holocaust is the mainstay of his entire career. Wiesel treats the Holocaust as a religion, complete with prophecies and forerunners, saints and heroes, highly embellished but un-provable narratives [including his own], and miracles given as explanation for that which can’t be explained otherwise. One of Wiesel’s continuing themes is that the Holocaust cannot be described, nor can it be understood by those who were not there.
Thus, it is in the interests of Professors Wiesel, Katz, Levine, and other Jewish proponents of “The Holocaust” to keep it in the Dept. of Religion. And this is where we find it. ~
NOTE (Oct. 27): On Monday night, Oct. 25, Elie Wiesel, as a Prof. of Religion at BU, gave the first of three lectures on Old Testament biblical themes to a reported 1000 students and faculty at Metcalf Hall on the BU campus.
The lecture was titled “In the Bible: A Judge Named Deborah,” about a female judge and prophetess of “Israel” who led a successful campaign against the Canaanites, the seemingly eternal enemies of “Israel” throughout the bible. The story is found in the book of Judges.
According to The Daily Free Press student newspaper, “Wiesel then spoke about Yael, the woman who killed the leader of the Canaanite army by hammering a peg through his head (!), and went on to argue that women played essential roles in the Bible, starting with Eve. […] ‘All the time, women were actually those who made decisions,’ Wiesel said, citing the importance of Ruth, Esther and Rahab in the Bible.”
Most of these biblical stories have been shown by modern archaeologists and biblical scholars to be fictional embellishments designed to hold the Jewish people together as a religious community. This lecture series is under the auspices of the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at BU.
What is of greatest interest to us here at EWCTW is the final paragraphs of the article published in the Daily Free Press:
BU President Emeritus John Silber, who introduced Wiesel, emphasized the importance of Wiesel’s memoir, “Night,” which recounts his experience in the Nazi prison camps.
“In ‘Night’ [Wiesel] reveals the full horror of the Holocaust as an inscrutable evil,” Silber said. “‘Night’ has made millions of young students aware of this tragedy in which all standards of civilization were abandoned.” [see Wiesel’s description of Yael’s tactic of “hammering a peg through her enemy’s head” above -cy]
Silber said since Wiesel’s first lecture 34 years ago, the author has “made it his primary concern to arouse the consciousness of mankind to the realities of the Holocaust.”
Audience members said they were excited about seeing Wiesel at BU.
“I think that Elie Wiesel is a huge character and very, very inspirational to not just the Jewish people but also the whole world,” said College of Arts and Science [Jewish] freshman Ben Fishman.
“Elie is a faculty member who stands out, his name stands out on the paper when you see him on your schedule so when you have that opportunity it’s an opportunity you can’t pass up,” said School of Management freshman Albert Tawil. “That’s why BU takes pride in having him here.”
The second and third lectures in the series are scheduled for Nov. 1 and Nov. 8 at Metcalf Hall. Please see my blog on Opportunities for Activism here.
We Appeal to Students at Boston University
Written on October 12, 2010 at 2:18 pm, by Carolyn
Robert A. Brown, President of Boston University: “Elie Wiesel is a man of integrity and would not stoop to fabrication.”
With this statement, Dr. Brown replied to my September 23rd email message and postal letter to him, and to those copied, which I am publishing here.
Robert A. Brown
Office of the President
1 Silber Way, 8th Floor
Boston Ma 02215
September 23, 2010
Re: Prof. Elie Wiesel
Dear President Brown:
I recognize that Boston University has a long and admirable tradition of support for the humanities. One of your most prominent, most politically conspicuous faculty members is Elie Wiesel, who is associated in the public mind with a host of worthy, even noble causes, including being the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Particularly because of the honored position Professor Wiesel holds at BU, the questions that are being raised about his Holocaust testimony bother me, and I think if you were aware of them they would bother you, too. First is the lack of evidence that he has an Auschwitz tattoo, though he repeatedly claims to have one. As recently as last March, at Dayton University in Ohio, a student asked if he still has his concentration camp number, and he said, “I still have it on my arm.” However, his own 1996 video, in which his bare forearms are exposed to the camera, reveals no tattoo on his left arm, where it should be.
This, along with archival documents primarily from Buchenwald that show a Lazar Wiesel born in 1913, not 1928, who was there with his brother Abram, put his entire account of his concentration camp experiences of 1944-45 into question. No documentation for Shlomo Wiesel/Vizel, Elie’s father, or of a Lazar/Eliezer Wiesel with Elie Wiesel’s birth date of Sept. 30th, has been revealed.
Still other questions being raised concern his authorship of the original Yiddish version of Night. The brief description he gives of when, where and how he wrote And the World Remained Silent contain contradictions and improbabilities. In addition, there are major factual differences between key passages in Night, the English derivative of the original Yiddish language book, and Prof. Wiesel’s memoir All Rivers Run to the Sea. To mention just one—in the former, his foot is operated on before the evacuation to Buchenwald in January 1945, while in the latter it becomes his knee that is operated on! These are just a few of the red flags that are raised when studying Prof. Wiesel’s testimony with a critical eye.
I realize it is not my responsibility, but rather yours, to maintain the integrity of your faculty. However, I feel an obligation to bring this information to your attention because it is information that is gaining the attention of the world, and more importantly of your students, through various venues and investigations, and may reflect poorly on your great university.
Respectfully yours,
Carolyn Yeager
PO Box 439016
San Ysidro, CA 92143
Email: [email protected]
Web: http://www.eliewieseltattoo.com/
cc: David K. Campbell, Provost
Virginia Sapiro, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
Daniel Dahlstrom, Chair, Department of Humanities
Aaron Garrett, Assoc. Chair, Dept. of Humanities
Walter Hopp, Director, Undergraduate Studies, Dept. of Humanities
David Roochnik, Director, Graduate Studies, Dept. of Humanities
Members of the Board of Trustees
Robert A. Knox, Chairman
John P. Howe III, Vice Chairman
Jonathan R. Cole
Richard C. Godfrey
Robert J. Hildreth
Eric S. Lander
Alan M. Leventhal
J. Kenneth Menges, Jr.
Christine A. Poon
Adam. W. Sweeting
On September 27, I received a polite reply, which did not indicate whether Dr. Brown had looked at any of the pages I linked to on the Elie Wiesel Cons The World website.
Dear Ms. Yeager:
Thank you for your e-mail message of September 23, in which you express concerns about the accuracy of Dr. Wiesel’s testimony. I have no doubt that he is a survivor of the Holocaust and he has, thoughout his adult life, been a most eloquent witness to its atrocities. He is a man of integrity and would not stoop to fabrication.
Sincerely,
Robert A. Brown
We wanted to give the Boston University administration fair warning of what we are up to, and an opportunity to address the “Wiesel question” themselves.
Having done that, and after sending them a further reply suggesting that they look into the matter, and with no further response, we now turn to the students at BU. We have sent a message to student organizations, student publications and the local Boston media in a major effort to inform, encourage and assist students on campus to ask for answers to these questions. We believe there are individuals and organizations at BU who truly care about the ethical integrity of their university and its faculty, and who want to know the facts about all things, no matter how sensitive—not just accept what they are being taught by a timid, establishment faculty.
We suggest there is a simple request that Boston University students can make of Prof. Wiesel that their administrators are apparently unwilling to make. They can ask him to show his tattoo. He says he is a humble representative of the survivors of the concentration camps. Many Auschwitz survivors prove their presence in that camp by pointing to the number tattooed on their left forearm. Why not Elie Wiesel? Is he not one of them?
We’re urging students at BU, and all our readers as well, to write or call the following persons asking for their cooperation in a search for honest answers. Thank you for your activism.
Department of Philosophy
745 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 516
Boston, Massachusetts 02215
Phone:617.353.2571 | Fax:617.353.6805
Department e-mail:[email protected]
Department Chair: Professor Daniel Dahlstrom
Phone: 617.353.4583 | E-mail: [email protected]
Associate Chair: Professor Aaron Garrett
Phone: 617.358.3617 | E-mail: [email protected]
Director of Undergraduate Studies: Professor Walter Hopp
Phone: 617.358.4228 | E-mail: [email protected]
Director of Graduate Studies: Professor David Roochnik
Phone: 617.353.4579 | E-mail: [email protected]
Director of Graduate Admissions: Professor Allen Speight
Phone: 617.353.3067 | E-mail: [email protected]
Administrator: Matthew Roselli
Phone: 617.353.2572 | E-mail: [email protected]
Senior Program Coordinator: Lesley Moreau
Phone: 617.353.2571 | E-mail: [email protected]
Elie Wiesel: University Professor, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy and Religion
E-mail: [email protected]
The full Dept. of Philosophy faculty addresses can be found on our Boston University Project page.
* * *
The Daily Free Press 648 Beacon St. Boston, MA 02215
Tel.: (617)236-4433 Fax.: (617)236-4414
The Daily Free Press welcomes comments and corrections from readers. To write a letter to the editor, send fewer than 500 words to [email protected] . Please include your phone number so that you can be contacted.
Neal J. Riley– Editor-in-Chief ([email protected])
Josh Cain – Managing Editor ([email protected])
Saba Hamedy – Campus Editor([email protected])
Chelsea Feinstein – Editorial Page Editor ([email protected])
WTBU Boston University’s student radio station broadcasting online.
General Manager – [email protected]
News Editor – [email protected]
Programming Editor – [email protected]
Opportunity for Activism: Elie Wiesel to speak at free lecture series Nov. 1 and 8
Written on October 11, 2010 at 8:42 pm, by Carolyn
The Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University will host the final two free lectures by Elie Wiesel on Monday, Nov. 1 and Monday, Nov. 8. This is a good opportunity for students or Boston residents to question Wiesel in person.
Both lectures begins at 7 p.m. and are held in the Boston University Metcalf Hall, George Sherman Union, 2nd Floor, 775 Commonwealth Avenue. The lectures are free and open to the public. A ticket is not required. Seating is not reserved. Doors open at 6 p.m. Sign language interpreters will be available. No University parking is provided. No seating in the auditorium after the program begins. For more information, call 617-353-2238. Email: [email protected]
Monday, November 1, 2010
The Rebbe of Ger: A Tragedy in Hasidism
Introduction by Elaine Kirshenbaum, Boston University Trustee
Monday, November 8, 2010
Ethos and Contemporary Issues
Introduction by Rabbi Joseph A. Polak, Director, Hillel Foundation; Rabbi to the Jewish Community at Boston University
To our readers: Please see Note (Oct. 27) added to the post of Oct. 26 “Religion Department reveals interesting insights into Boston University.”
