review
In the book A Jew today, Elie Wiesel testifies as a survivor of the Nazi death camps. That is actually impossible because it is ineffable. Faith is tested at the sight of those mountains of ashes. The book is an indictment against his generation but also against the generation that followed. This book is a ‘must’ because it is a challenge for those who care about the dignity of man and his future.
data
- title: A Jew Today
- author: Elie Wiesel
- year: 1978
- publisher: Gooi & Sticht
- ISBN: 9030401362
Contents of the book ‘A Jew today’
This book contains all short or medium essays in which the Jew is central. In most cases it revolves around the Holocaust, but other themes are also discussed, such as Israel and the Palestinians and the relationship between Jews and Christians. The most impressive essay is the “Plea for the Survivors.” In it, Elie Wiesel is suing his own generation and the generation that followed it. It is not only about the killers and their sympathizers who deny the Holocaust, but also about the people who have not experienced the Holocaust themselves and think they can imagine the unimaginable. The Holocaust is thus robbed of its sanctity and turned into a success story: to impress or shock. Nor are the survivors taken into account and they even receive admonitions: why did you survive; why have you survived and your neighbor not? Was it because you were so much more handy? Flinker? Tougher? More selfish? But those people who suggest that don’t understand the Holocaust. They can’t understand it either, they weren’t there.
The first essay in the book deals with Elie Wiesel’s memories as a Jew when he was young. I want to extract a number of quotes from this book:
piece of text from ‘Being a Jew: a prelude’
It goes without saying that the little boy only felt safe in the midst of his own, in his own environment, while the stranger frightened me. And the stranger, that was the Christian. Not the Muslim or the Hindu.
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I said to myself: they envy us, so they persecute us and they are right: they are the ones who are the most to be pitied. In tormenting us, they recognize their weaknesses, their insecurities within. It is thanks to us that the reality of heaven continues on earth and in the hearts of mortals. God has chosen us to declare His will and to make His plans clear; with us and through us He wanted to hallow His name. I would have felt the same annoyance in their place. How could it have been that they were not envious?
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How can it be explained that a Hitler or a Himmler was never banned by the church? That Pius XII never considered it necessary, even absolutely necessary, to condemn Auschwitz and Treblinka? That there was a large percentage of believers in the SS who remained committed to its Christian origins to the end? That certain slaughterers went to confession between murders? And that they all came from Christian families and had received a Christian education?
piece of text from ‘An unusual interview’
The Christians like to talk about that. The suffering of Christ, the dying hour of Christ, the death of Christ. It is about nothing else in your religion. Well, for your information, I saw Jewish children ten years ago and not far from here, each of whom suffered a thousand times more, six million times more than Christ on the cross. And that is not talked about.
Etsel’s opinion about the book ‘A Jew today’
direct link between Christianity and Holocaust
Elie Wiesel is one of the most important writers of Holocaust literature. He has experienced it himself and knows how to write about it impressively, although he indicates that this unimaginable suffering cannot actually be described. It is clear that Wiesel makes a direct connection between Christianity and the Holocaust. Without Christianity, the Holocaust could not have happened on such a scale. Wiesel indicates that he was afraid of the Christian even before the Holocaust took place. As a small child, the Christian frightened him. This was not the case with other foreign nationals. Wiesel wrote: “By tormenting us, they acknowledge their weaknesses, their inner insecurities.” I find this aptly formulated.
From a Jewish perspective, Christianity is an uncertain religion
In my articles on the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, I notice again and again that Christianity is actually a very uncertain religion. Again and again Christians rebel against Judaism and try to show with so-called proof texts that they are RIGHT and the Jews are not. It seems like they are playing some kind of competition to show who adheres to the TRUE FAITH. But the tactic that Christians use in this is extremely weak. To demonstrate the truth of the New Testament they do not take the New Testament as a starting point and say only this book contains the truth, but refer to the Old Testament (the Jewish Bible). They claim that the Jewish Bible is proof that the New Testament speaks the truth. This sounds very laughable to Jewish ears. For Jews, the Torah is the truth. They are not going to prove that by bringing in the New Testament. The Torah is God’s word and so the Torah in itself is THE truth. By testing the New Testament against the Torah, the New Testament does not suddenly become true. Then you could do that with every book, so to speak. There is always some way or another to make a link between the Torah and another book.
That the Chosen People does not accept Jesus as Messiah confuses Christians
The fact that Christians are so insecure has to do with the fact that the vast majority of the Jewish people do not accept the New Testament and do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. This confuses many Christians. Why is it that the Chosen people in particular do not accept our Bible and Jesus, they wonder. And that confusion brings misunderstanding and ultimately hatred. For, of course, Christians will never admit that they adhere to a false teaching. After all, then they are no longer ‘chosen’. And what do you do then? Then of course you will shout that the Jews are not right. After all, in that case you will remain ‘chosen.’ And the sad thing is that Christians interpret the term ‘chosen’ differently than the Jews. For Jews it entails a task that does not make them any better than other peoples or religions. For Christians, ‘chosen’ means exclusivity, namely only those people who accept Jesus will be saved. And because Jews do not accept Jesus, they are no longer chosen and cannot be saved, according to many Christians.
The New Testament is un- and anti-Jewish; Jewish Bible is not anti-Jewish
Amazing that the Holocaust was caused precisely by the excesses of Christian anti-Semitism? No, not for me. The New Testament is very un- and anti-Jewish. Anyone who puts the New Testament and the Jewish Bible side by side can immediately see that. And it is very sad to note that there are still Christians who deny that and even claim that the New Testament is not anti-Jewish, while according to them the Jewish Bible is much more anti-Jewish because in this the Jewish people are very harsh words as a sinful people are reported by the prophets and then punished by God. In doing so, these Christians not only indirectly deny the Christian involvement in the Holocaust (and other forms of Christian anti-Semitism) on the basis of the New Testament, but also misuse the Jewish Bible by assuming that the same God is spoken here as in the New Testament in which Jesus is presented as (Son of) God. In the Jewish Bible, however, it is about punishment in case the God of Israel is not served; in the New Testament it is suddenly required that Jews worship Jesus and consider him (Son of) God. That is from a Jewish perspective given something totally different. Anti-Jewish statements of Jesus, Paul and the like cannot be compared with statements of the prophets from the Jewish Bible in which Jews were threatened with punishment. Jews were NOT persecuted by Christians because they would not serve God, but because they did not accept Jesus as God. God, of course, does not punish his people for refusing to serve a false god (Jesus). Therefore, the New Testament can be considered an anti-Semitic book and the Jewish Bible cannot!
NB The Christians I am referring to in this article will of course say that Jesus is the same as the God of Israel. They adopt an ambivalent attitude in this regard. On the one hand they recognize the Jewish people as chosen, on the other hand they DO NOT accept the Jewish explanation about God that excludes Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They embrace with a lot of fuss the Messianic Jews who do accept Jesus and the Holy Spirit or the Trinity. The striking thing about these Christians is that they always seek confrontation with the rest of the Jewish people who do not accept Jesus. Based on false theology, they think they have to save these Jews and think they have been chosen to do this important work. That is a huge mistake that many Christians have made for centuries and that ultimately leads to a huge amount of hatred for becoming frustrated. God is not waiting for outsiders to interfere with the relationship between Him and the Jewish people. God has obligated the Jews to listen only to Him. God leads His people and Gentiles have no influence on that.