Elie Wiesel

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Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel at the Time 100 Gala, May 4, 2010.
Born Eliezer Wiesel
September 30, 1928 (1928-09-30) (age 81)
Sighet, Maramureş County, Romania
Occupation Political activist, professor, novelist
Notable award(s) Nobel Peace Prize,
Presidential Medal of Freedom,
Congressional Gold Medal

Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE (English pronunciation: /ˈɛli viːˈzəl/; born September 30, 1928)[1] is a Romanian-born Jewish[2] writer, professor at Chapman University, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, the best known of which is Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.[3] His diverse range of other writings offer powerful and poetic contributions to literature, theology, and his own articulation of Jewish spirituality today.

When Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, the Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a "messenger to mankind", noting that through his struggle to come to terms with "his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps", as well as his "practical work in the cause of peace", Wiesel had delivered a powerful message "of peace, atonement and human dignity" to humanity.[4]

Contents

[edit] Early life

The house where Wiesel was born

Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928, in Sighet,[5] Transylvania, (now Sighetu Marmaţiei), Maramureş, Kingdom of Romania,[5] in the Carpathian Mountains. His mother, Sarah Feig, was the daughter of Dodye Feig, a celebrated Vizhnitz Hasid and farmer from a nearby village. He was active and trusted within the community, and in the early years of his life had spent a few months in jail for having helped Polish Jews who escaped and were hungry. It was Shlomo who instilled a strong sense of humanism in his son, encouraging him to learn modern Hebrew and to read literature, whereas his mother encouraged him to study the Torah and Kabbalah. Wiesel has said his father represented reason, and his mother Sarah promoted faith (Fine 1982:4). In his home, his family spoke Yiddish most of the time, but also German, Hungarian and Romanian.[6][7] Wiesel had three sisters – older sisters Hilda and Beatrice, and younger sister Tzipora. Beatrice and Hilda survived the war and were reunited with Wiesel at a French orphanage. They eventually emigrated to North America, with Beatrice moving to Montréal, Canada. Tzipora, Shlomo and Sarah did not survive the war.

"We are members of an endangered species," he said in his famously lilting voice that contains traces of his native Romanian intonation, as well as some French and much American flavor. "A survivor has an authority that no one else has."[8]

[edit] World War II

Buchenwald, 1945. Wiesel is on the second row from the bottom, seventh from the left.

In 1940 Romania lost the town of Sighet following the Second Vienna Award. In 1944, Wiesel, his family and the rest of the town were placed in one of the two ghettos in Sighet. Wiesel and his family lived in the larger of the two, on Serpent Street. On May 16, 1944, the Hungarian authorities allowed the German army to deport the Jewish community in Sighet to Auschwitz Birkenau. While at Auschwitz, his inmate number, "A-7713", was tattooed onto his left arm.[9][10] Wiesel was separated from his mother and sister Tzipora, who are presumed to have died at Auschwitz. Wiesel and his father were sent to the attached work camp Buna, a subcamp of Auschwitz III Monowitz. He managed to remain with his father for over eight months as they were forced to work under appalling conditions and shuffled between three concentration camps in the closing days of the war. On January 29, 1945, just a few weeks after the two were marched to Buchenwald, Wiesel's father was beaten[citation needed] by a Nazi as he was suffering from dysentery, starvation, and exhaustion. He was later sent to the crematorium, only months before the camp was liberated by the Third Army on April 11.[11]

[edit] After the war

After World War II, Wiesel taught Hebrew and worked as a choirmaster before becoming a professional journalist. He learned French, which became the language he used most frequently in writing.[12] He wrote for Israeli and French newspapers, including Tsien in Kamf (in Yiddish) L'arche. However, for ten years after the war, Wiesel refused to write about or discuss his experiences during the Holocaust. Like many survivors, Wiesel could not find the words to describe his experiences. However, a meeting with François Mauriac, the 1952 Nobel Laureate in Literature, who eventually became Wiesel's close friend, persuaded him to write about his experiences. Wiesel first wrote the 900-page memoir Un di velt hot geshvign (And the World Remained Silent), in Yiddish, which was published in abridged form in Buenos Aires.[13] Wiesel rewrote a shortened version of the manuscript in French, and it was published as the 127-page La Nuit, and later translated into English as Night. Even with Mauriac's support, Wiesel had trouble finding a publisher for his book, and initially it sold few copies.

In 1960, Arthur Wang of Hill & Wang agreed to pay a $100 pro-forma advance, and published it in the US in September that year as Night. It sold just 1,046 copies over the next 18 months, but attracted interest from reviewers, leading to television interviews with Wiesel and meetings with literary figures like Saul Bellow. "The English translation came out in 1960, and the first printing was 3,000 copies", Wiesel said in an interview. "And it took three years to sell them. Now, I get 100 letters a month from children about the book. And there are many, many million copies in print." The 1979 book and play The Trial of God is said to have been based on Wiesel's real life Auschwitz experience of witnessing three Jews who, close to death, conduct a trial against God, under the accusation that He has been oppressive of the Jewish people.

"Night" has been translated into 30 languages. By 1997, the book was selling 300,000 copies annually in the United States alone. By March 2006, about six million copies were sold in the United States. On January 16, 2006, Oprah Winfrey chose the work for her book club. One million extra paperback and 150,000 hardcover copies were printed carrying the "Oprah's Book Club" logo, with a new translation by Wiesel's wife, Marion, and a new preface by Wiesel. On February 13, 2006, Night was no. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list for paperback non-fiction.

[edit] Life in the United States

In 1955, Wiesel moved to New York City, having become a US citizen: due to injuries suffered in a traffic accident, he was forced to stay in New York past his visa's expiration and was offered citizenship to resolve his status. In the US, Wiesel wrote over 40 books, both fiction and non-fiction, and won many literary prizes. Wiesel's writing is considered among the most important in Holocaust literature. Some historians credit Wiesel with giving the term 'Holocaust' its present meaning, but he does not feel that the word adequately describes the event and wishes it were used less frequently to describe significant occurrences as everyday tragedies (Wiesel:1999, 18). He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for speaking out against violence, repression, and racism. He has received many other prizes and honors for his work, including the Congressional Gold Medal in 1985, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1996. Wiesel also played a role in the initial success of The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski by endorsing it prior to revelations that the book was fiction and, in the sense that it was presented as all Kosinski's true experience, a hoax.

He is also the recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence. Wiesel has published two volumes of his memoirs. The first, All Rivers Run to the Sea, was published in 1994 and covered his life up to the year 1969 while the second, titled And the Sea is Never Full and published in 1999, covered 1969 to 1999. Wiesel and his wife, Marion, started the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. He served as chairman for the Presidential Commission on the Holocaust (later renamed US Holocaust Memorial Council) from 1978 to 1986, spearheading the building of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.

Wiesel addressing the United States Congress

Wiesel is particularly fond of teaching and holds the position of Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Boston University. From 1972 to 1976, Wiesel was a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York and member of the American Federation of Teachers. In 1982 he served as the first Henry Luce Visiting Scholar in Humanities and Social Thought at Yale University. He also co-instructs Winter Term (January) courses at Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida. From 1997 to 1999 he was Ingeborg Rennert Visiting Professor of Judaic Studies at Barnard College.

Wiesel has become a popular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust. As a political activist, he has advocated for many causes, including Israel, the plight of Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, the victims of apartheid in South Africa, Argentina's Desaparecidos, Bosnian victims of genocide in the former Yugoslavia, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, and the Kurds. Conversely, he withdrew from his role as chair of the International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, and made efforts to abort the conference, in deference to Israeli objection to the inclusion of sessions on the Armenian genocide.[14][15]

He recently voiced support for intervention in Darfur, Sudan.[16] He also led a commission organized by the Romanian government to research and write a report, released in 2004, on the true history of the Holocaust in Romania and the involvement of the Romanian wartime regime in atrocities against Jews and other groups, including the Roma. The Romanian government accepted the findings in the report and committed to implementing the commission's recommendations for educating the public on the history of the Holocaust in Romania. The commission, formally called the International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania, came to be called the Wiesel Commission in honor of his leadership. Wiesel is the honorary chair of the Habonim Dror Camp Miriam Campership and Building Fund, and a member of the International Council of the New York–based Human Rights Foundation. On March 27, 2001, Wiesel appeared at the University of Florida for Jewish Awareness Month and was presented with an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from the University of Florida by Dr. Charles Young.[17] In 2002, he inaugurated the Elie Wiesel Memorial House in Sighet in his childhood home.[18]

[edit] Recent

President George W. Bush, joined by the Dalai Lama and Wiesel, Oct. 17, 2007, to the ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., for the presentation of the Congressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama

In early 2006, Wiesel traveled to Auschwitz with Oprah Winfrey, a visit which was broadcast as part of The Oprah Winfrey Show on May 24, 2006.[19] Wiesel said that this would most likely be his last trip there. In September 2006, he appeared before the UN Security Council with actor George Clooney to call attention to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. On November 30, 2006 Wiesel received an honorary knighthood in London in recognition of his work toward raising Holocaust education in the United Kingdom.[20] On April 25, 2007, Wiesel was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters degree from the University of Vermont. During the early 2007 selection process for the Kadima candidate for President of Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly offered Wiesel the nomination (and, as the ruling-party candidate and an apolitical figure, likely the Presidency), but Wiesel "was not very interested".[21] Shimon Peres was chosen as the Kadima candidate (and later President) instead. In 2007, Wiesel was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award.[22] On April 9, 2008, Wiesel was presented with an Honorary Degree, Doctor of Letters at the City College of New York.

In 2007 the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity issued a letter condemning Armenian genocide denial that was signed by 53 Nobel laureates including Wiesel. Wiesel has repeatedly called Turkey's 90-year-old campaign to cover up the Armenian genocide a double killing, since it strives to kill the memory of the original atrocities.[23]

On September 29, 2008, the Rochester College President Rubel Shelly, on its 50th anniversary, bestowed Wiesel with a plaque conferring on him as an honorary visiting professor of humanities.[24]

On November 17, 2008, he received an honorary doctorate from the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel.[25]

In December 2008, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity issued a press release[26] stating that nearly all of the foundation's assets (approximately $15.2 million USD) had been lost through Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme,[27] an experience he later spoke about at a Conde Nast roundtable.

In 2009, Wiesel criticized the Vatican over its lifting of the excommunication of controversial bishop Richard Williamson, a member of the Society of Saint Pius X.[28]

On June 5, 2009, Wiesel accompanied US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel as they toured Buchenwald.[29] Merkel, Obama, and Wiesel each spoke about Buchenwald in personal terms, with Obama speaking of his great uncle liberating an outlying camp, Merkel considering the responsibility of Germans vis-à-vis National Socialist history, and Wiesel reflecting on the suffering and death of his father in the camp.[29]

Wiesel returned to Hungary for the first official visit since the Holocaust between December 9–11, 2009 by the invitation of Rabbi Slomó Köves, executive rabbi of the Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation and the Hungarian branch of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. During his visit Wiesel participated in a conference at the Upper House Chamber of the Hungarian Parliament, met Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai and President László Sólyom and made a speech to the approximately 10 thousand participants of a major anti racist gathering held in Faith Hall. The speech was broadcasted live by Magyar ATV, a nationwide television channel.[30][31][32]

On May 4, 2010 Wiesel met with President Obama at the White House to discuss Middle East peace relations.

[edit] 2007 attack on Wiesel

On February 1, 2007, Wiesel was attacked in a San Francisco hotel by 22-year-old Holocaust denier Eric Hunt who tried to drag Wiesel into a hotel room. Wiesel was not injured and Hunt fled the scene. Later, Hunt bragged about the incident on a Holocaust denial website. Approximately one month later, he was arrested and charged with multiple offenses.[33][34]

Hunt was convicted on July 21, 2008,[34][35] and was sentenced to two years but was given credit for time served and good behavior and was released on probation and ordered to undergo psychological treatment. The jury convicted Hunt of three charges but dismissed the remaining charges of attempted kidnapping, stalking, and an additional count of false imprisonment, amid Hunt's withdrawal of his not guilty by reason of insanity plea.[36][37] District Attorney Kamala Harris said: "Crimes motivated by hate are among the most reprehensible of offenses ... This defendant has been made to answer for an unwarranted and biased attack on a man who has dedicated his life to peace."[38] At his sentencing hearing, Hunt apologized and insisted that he no longer denies the Holocaust;[39] however, he continues to maintain and update a blog that denies the Holocaust and is critical of prominent Jewish people.[40]

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Criticism by Norman Finkelstein

Wiesel is highly criticized by Norman Finkelstein in his book The Holocaust Industry. Finkelstein accuses Wiesel of promoting the "uniqueness doctrine" which holds, according to Finkelstein, the Holocaust as the paramount of evil and therefore historically incomparable to other genocides.[41] In the book Wiesel is also lambasted for playing down the importance of other genocides, especially the Turkish Holocaust on the Armenians, and thwarting efforts of raising awareness of the genocide of the Romani people executed by the Nazis. These claims are exemplified by Wiesel's lobbying for commemorating Jews alone (not the Romani people) in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in addition to numerous Wiesel quotes on the "uniqueness of Holocaust".[42]

[edit] Goldstone Report

In late February 2010, Wiesel also claimed that the Report chaired by Richard Goldstone on the Gaza Conflict[43] represents "a crime against the Jewish people," an opinion for which he was criticized by Richard Silverstein.[44]

[edit] Donation to Wiesel Foundation by Pastor John Hagee

On October 25, 2009, Wiesel delivered a speech before 6,000 Christian Zionists at a meeting organized by Christians United for Israel, whose founder and national chair is Pastor John Hagee. $500,000 was donated to the Wiesel Foundation.[45][46] Hagee has been widely criticized for his extremist right-wing political and theological sermons.

[edit] Controversy over historical and religious rights to Jerusalem

On April 15, 2010, Wiesel took out full page ads in the New York Times, Washington Post and elsewhere, in which, amongst other things, while emphasizing Jewish rights to the city, he denied Muslim connection to Jerusalem, citing the fact that there are zero mentions of Jerusalem in the Koran. He said that: "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." He also claimed that Muslims can settle anywhere in Jerusalem.[47][48] His position has been criticized by the Americans for Peace Now in an open letter to him who said that "Jerusalem is not just a Jewish symbol. It is also a holy city to billions of Christians and Muslims worldwide. It is Israel's capital, but it is also a focal point of Palestinian national aspirations." They also claimed that equal residential rights do not exist in the city.[49] Wiesel has also been criticized in Israel. Haaretz published an article by Yossi Sarid which accused him of being out of touch with the realities of life in Jerusalem.[50] Wiesel's ads, according to unnamed senior American officials, are "not a wise move".[51]

Extended quote from the text:

"For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics. It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city, it is what binds one Jew to another in a way that remains hard to explain. When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time; it is a homecoming. The first song I heard was my mother's lullaby about and for Jerusalem. Its sadness and its joy are part of our collective memory."

Wiesel's view on the Qur'an and Jerusalem is in contrast to Muslim interpretations of implied textual references to Quranic verses and subsequent Islamic tradition.[52] Wiesel's viewpoint can also be contrasted with western scholarship on the implied understanding of Jerusalem in the Qur'an, and subsequent Islamic history.[53]

[edit] Philanthropy

In 2004, Wiesel attended Action Against Hunger's annual gala to present Nelson Mandela with the Action Against Hunger Humanitarian Award.[54]

[edit] Works

Additionally, as Wiesel has offered a unique and poetic articulation of traditional Jewish thought and identity today, other books sometimes carry introductions or reviews from him:

Critical analysis and appreciation of Wiesel's position in the history of literature:

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Elie Wiesel from Encyclopædia Britannica
  2. ^ Elie Wiesel from Encyclopædia Britannica
  3. ^ "Winfrey selects Wiesel's 'Night' for book club", Associated Press, January 16, 2006.
  4. ^ 1986 Nobel Peace Prize Press Release
  5. ^ a b http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/wiesel.htm
  6. ^ "Elie Wiesel: First Person Singular. The Life and Work of Wiesel". PBS. http://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/life/. Retrieved 15 August 2010. 
  7. ^ "Elie Wiesel Biograph". Academy of Achievment. http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/wie0bio-1. Retrieved 15 August 2010. 
  8. ^ A privilege to share, www.jewishjournal.com
  9. ^ http://www.nobelpeacelaureates.org/pdf/elem_EliezerWiesel.pdf
  10. ^ Stefan Kanfer (2001-06-24). "Author, Teacher, Witness". Time Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,141324,00.html. 
  11. ^ see the film "Elie Wiesel Goes Home" by Judit Elek, narrated by William Hurt ISBN #1-930545-63-0
  12. ^ Sternlicht, Sanford V. (2003). Student companion to Elie Wiesel. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. p. 7. ISBN 0-313-32530-8. 
  13. ^ Naomi Seidman, "Elie Wiesel and the Scandal of Jewish Rage", Jewish Social Studies 3:1 (Fall 1996), p. 5.
  14. ^ Finkelstein, N.(2003) The Holocaust Industry, 2nd edition, p.69.
  15. ^ Peter Novick. The Holocaust in American Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. 373 pp.
  16. ^ Elie Wiesel: On the Atrocities in Sudan
  17. ^ Independent Florida Alligator article March 23, 2001
  18. ^ Elie Wiesel Returns to his Home in Sighet, Romania, Embassy of Romania in the United States, 23 July 2002.
  19. ^ Press Release ~ Oprah.com
  20. ^ "Wiesel Receives Honorary Knighthood" ~ TotallyJewish.com
  21. ^ Olmert backs Peres as next president Jerusalem Post, 18 October 2006
  22. ^ Dayton awards 2007 peace prizes
  23. ^ State of Denial: Turkey Spends Millions to Cover Up Armenian Genocide, By David Holthouse // Intelligence Report, Summer 2008
  24. ^ christianchronicle.org/, Holocaust survivor honored
  25. ^ Elie Wiesel will receive an honorary doctorate from the Weizmann Institute
  26. ^ Statement on Elie Wiesel Foundation Website
  27. ^ Agence French Presse (AFP) (December 24, 2008). "Wiesel Foundation loses nearly everything in Madoff scheme". http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081224163605.lxui4v5w&show_article=1&catnum=1. Retrieved 2008-12-24. 
  28. ^ Elie Wiesel attacks pope over Holocaust bishop
  29. ^ a b Visiting Buchenwald, Obama speaks of the lessons of evil
  30. ^ http://stop.hu/articles/article.php?id=564533
  31. ^ http://www.hetek.hu/kulfold/200911/magyarorszagra_jon_elie_wiesel
  32. ^ http://atv.hu/hircentrum/091210_tizezres_antifasiszta_nagygyules_elie_wiesellel__.html
  33. ^ "Suspect named in Wiesel attack", MSNBC, February 16, 2007
  34. ^ a b "N.J. man arrested in attack on Wiesel". Yahoo! News. 2007-02-17. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070218/ap_on_re_us/wiesel_accosted. 
  35. ^ "Man guilty in false imprisonment of Elie Wiesel". Reuters. http://uk.reuters.com/article/mediaNews/idUKN2146787020080722. 
  36. ^ news.yahoo.com, Man convicted of hate crime for accosting Wiesel
  37. ^ nbc11.com, Court Reaches Verdict In Elie Wiesel Accosting Trial
  38. ^ sfgate.com, SF jury convicts man of 1 felony in Wiesel case
  39. ^ Associated Press (2008-08-18). "Man gets two-year sentence for accosting Elie Wiesel". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-08-18-wiesel-accosted_N.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-27. 
  40. ^ "Eric Hunt: Stop tormenting children with Holyhoax lies". http://erichunt.net/. 
  41. ^ Finkelstein, N.(2003) The Holocaust Industry, 2nd edition, pp. 44–45.
  42. ^ Finkelstein, N.(2003) The Holocaust Industry, 2nd edition, pp. 75–76.
  43. ^ United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict
  44. ^ Wiesel: Goldstone Report "Crime Against the Jewish People"
  45. ^ CUFI:Elie Wiesel Took $500K From Hagee For One Speech
  46. ^ Elie Wiesel, Israeli Officials Address Christian Supporters of Israel at John Hagee Ministries' 28th Annual Night to Honor Israel
  47. ^ For Jerusalem
  48. ^ Wiesel: For me, as a Jew, Jerusalem is above politics
  49. ^ APN responds to Wiesel ad on Jerusalem
  50. ^ For Jerusalem, a response to Elie Wiesel
  51. ^ Shaykh `Abdul `Aziz ibn Baz, "U.S. officials slam pro-Israeli ads in American media
  52. ^ The Centrality of Masjid al Aqsa in Islam
  53. ^ Goitein, S.D.; Grabar, O. "al- Ḳuds." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Edited by: P. Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E. Bosworth , E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2010: "Jerusalem is not mentioned expressly in the Ḳurʾān. But "the city of the sanctuary" certainly was known to the Prophet. Sūra XVII, significantly named both al-Isrāʾ and Banū Isrāʾīl , in vv. 2–8 clearly refers to the destruction of the first and second temples (called masd̲j̲id in V, 7) as crucial events in the history of the Banū Isrāʾīl. Al-masd̲j̲id al-aḳṣā in the opening verse of the Sūra is taken by the prevailing Muslim tradition as referring to the sanctuary of Jerusalem. Against this, it has been argued that there was no building on the site of the Temple at the time of the Prophet, that the Holy Land is called in the Ḳurʾān the "nearest" (XXX, 2) and not the farthest (XVII, 1), and that, in general, the verse makes the impression (and is taken thus by Islamic tradition) of an account of a nightly ascension to a heavenly sanctuary (details in the articles of Bevan, Schrieke and Horovitz, cited in miʿrād̲j̲ ). But knowledge of the state of the site of the Temple or consistency in geographical definition were outside the interests of the Prophet. It may be concluded with reasonable certainty that, at the time when XVII, 1, was combined with XVII, 2–8, the tradition identifying al-masd̲j̲id al-aḳṣā as the Temple of Jerusalem was already dominant, and that the original meaning of the verse as that of a visionary experience was connected with it in one way or another (cf. "The Jerusalem above", St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, iv, 26). The situation is similar with regard to the ḳibla, or direction of prayer (II, 136–8). Again, Jerusalem is not mentioned expressly, but the Islamic tradition that it was intended by "the first ḳibla" is no doubt genuine; since the new ḳibla , which satisfied the Prophet's heart, was to the direction of the sanctuary of his native city, it stands to reason that the original one also was oriented to a holy city, and there was none for monotheists except Jerusalem. No "political" reasons, however, should be assumed for this change ("trying to win the Jews", "breaking with the Jews"). One prayed towards Jerusalem because this was the direction of the People of the Book as was known in Medina. It simply was the proper thing to do. When Islam became a separate religion with Mecca as its central sanctuary, the change was natural and religiously cogent".
  54. ^ http://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/1153-elie-weisel

[edit] References

 This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (September 2009)

[edit] External links

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