Tag Archives: Congressional Gold Medal

Jew of the Week: Elie Wiesel

Messenger to Mankind

Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel

Eliezer Wiesel (b. 1928) was born in Romania in a home that regularly spoke Hungarian, German, Romanian, and Yiddish. During the Holocaust he suffered in multiple labour and concentration camps, including Buchenwald and Auschwitz, and lost both parents and a younger sister. After the war, he resettled in Paris, studied at the Sarbonne, and worked as a journalist. In 1949, Wiesel became the Paris correspondent (later the international correspondent) for Yediot Ahronot. Though originally not wanting to write at all about the horrors of the Holocaust, he was convinced by a friend and published Night in 1958 – a shortened French version of his 900-page memoir in Yiddish. Though it took a while to hit the mainstream, the book now sells hundreds of thousands of copies every year and has been translated into 30 languages. Wiesel has subsequently authored many more publications, and has become an internationally-renowned speaker. In 1986, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts against racism, violence, and genocide, and was called a “messenger to mankind”. He has also won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and was knighted, among many other awards. He has even been nominated as President of Israel, but did not wish to take up the post. Wiesel has taught at Boston and Columbia Universities, the City University of New York, and served as a visiting scholar at Yale. He has spent a great deal of his life as a political activist for international causes. He stood strongly against apartheid South Africa and raised support for intervention during the Bosnian genocide, and more recently in Darfur. He has assisted the plight of Kurds, Native Americans, Argentinian Desaparecidos, as well as Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry. Wiesel remains a vocal supporter of Israel, and Jerusalem as its undivided capital. For the past 58 years, he has lived in the US and to this day has authored 57 books.

UPDATE: Sadly, Elie Wiesel passed away on July 2, 2016.

Words of the Week

For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture – and not a single time in the Koran.
– Elie Wiesel

Jew of the Week: Menachem Mendel Schneerson

The Lubavitcher Rebbe

Menachem Mendel Schneerson – The Lubavitcher Rebbe

Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994) was the 7th and final Rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch. From an early age he was focused on the well-being of others, diving into the Black Sea to save a drowning boy when he was just 9 years old. After marrying, he settled in Germany, where he studied math, physics, and philosophy at the University of Berlin. Simultaneously, he began writing commentaries on the Torah. With the rise of the Nazis, Rabbi Schneerson moved to France in 1933, and studied mechanics and engineering at ESTP, then enrolled at the world-famous Sarbonne and studied math until the outbreak of World War II. In 1941, the Rebbe finally made it to America. Immediately, he went to work at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to help the war effort, and was on the team that supplied the U.S.S. Missouri battleship. By 1942, Rabbi Schneerson began taking charge of Chabad. He reluctantly accepted the title of Rebbe in 1951. Over the years, he launched many campaigns to reignite Judaism globally. He sent thousands of emissaries, called shluchim, around the world, setting up Chabad houses on every continent (except Antarctica, for now), thereby putting kosher food, warm hospitality and prayer services always within reach for Jews anywhere in the world. He was a noted kabbalist, and gave countless penetrating discourses. He touched the lives of thousands of people, and inspired countless more. In 1983, the US Congress established the Rebbe’s birthday as “Education Day”. Posthumously, he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

Words of the Week

You must approach a fellow Jew as though you are the King’s servant sent with a message to His most precious child.

– Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe