Excerpts from a conversation between Elisha Wiesel and Baila Olidort.
Your father, Elie Wiesel, put the tragedy of his personal experience in the Holocaust to work, raising awareness about the danger of antisemitism and the evil of hatred. You yourself have begun to speak out against antisemitism, sometimes — as you did at the UN— with indignation, even anger. Is that something you’d say came from your father?
My father was not an angry person, so I won’t say that. But there is a time and a place to get appropriately angry. Today, being a victim seems to be the only way to get attention. I get angry by the stupidity of the argument against Israel. This rhetoric is absolutely antisemitic, absolutely hateful, because the only way to get attention is to close the Dome for an hour so that more Jews die. So we need to raise our voices. We need to respond. Sometimes, you have to get angry with these people, because it’s the only way they’ll listen. Otherwise, you’re just ignored, and that has murderous results.
You once said that you struggled as a child growing up in your father’s shadow and trying to carve out your own identity. What was the turning point in your relationship with your father?
In 1995, I joined my father on a trip to Sighet, his childhood hometown. That was a turning point. We also went to Auschwitz on that trip, but that’s where the Jewish community went to die. Sighet is where the Jewish community lived. In Sighet, my father could describe coming home from cheder, or from choir practice, stopping at his grandmother’s window–on Fridays she had a fresh challah to give him as he came home. That was powerful for me.
This is where my father grew up, and it’s important to see him as someone who had this incredible strength to persevere, with resilience, and to engage with the world after the Shoah.
Where do you think that resilience came from?
It came from the way he was raised. My father was not raised in a vacuum. I could see the influences of his upbringing. My father loved Judaism, loved the world. He was raised in a loving home. He had a strong sense of identity. And when you have that, you have the strength to face challenges in life.
Were there other turning points for you?
Growing up, I didn’t get to experience a big family or joy in Judaism, and that was missing for me. My father gave me a gift when he passed. He wanted me to say Kaddish for him, and when I started to visit shuls to do so, I saw joy. I saw joy in the community, in the singing, in the dancing, in the food, in the camaraderie. The joy of Yiddishkeit seems to be an important theme in your family life.
We only get this narrow window to give our children the values and experiences we want them to remember. I want my son to have experiences he’s going to remember ten years from now, when he makes decisions about life. I don’t feel I’m going to teach Judaism by lecturing or giving them rational arguments.
What he will remember is that he and a friend would sit in shul and have a good time together, and occasionally they’d get up and dance with us and run around. He’ll remember the experience of the lively singing, and being able to sing along. He’ll remember that great feeling at the Shabbos Kiddush in shul, where you’re schmoozing and the food is great, and people are happy to see each other. That’s what will stay in his heart, not in his head. So I’m much more focused on that.
In a 2012 interview in these pages, your father spoke about his personal relationship with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He said the Rebbe urged him to marry and have a family. The Rebbe was constantly reminding my father that this was the most important thing he could do to really defeat Hitler. To really show that he stood for all the things he said he stood for. The Rebbe would say, “If your children are not Lubavitch, that’ll still be good.” He did it with a sense of humor.
Did your father live to see the way you have evolved?
He didn’t live to see my son’s bar mitzvah, but I think he would have been proud. I hope that I can raise a Jewish family with joy very much at the center of the experience.
Excerpted with permission from Lubavitch International Magazine, Spring 2022. The full issue can be read at www.lubavitch.com
