Jewish Book Council Author Talk at FJC
Ariel Burger Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom
Tuesday, November 27 at 1:00 P.M. in Speen Hall
Open to the public – invite friends
Light refreshments served
Eight Cousins Bookstore will handle book sales.
“This book is beautiful and brilliant. The substance of Elie Wiesel’s teaching will always be with us. Now, thanks to Ariel Burger—a writer of great spiritual and intellectual integrity—we have access to the way Wiesel taught generations of students, not only through his words but in the way he lived his life and held his relationships. Witness is a treasure, giving us clue after clue about how to transcend and transform the suffering of our own time, turning death into life.”
—Parker J. Palmer, author of On the Brink of Everything, Healing the Heart of Democracy, and The Courage to Teach
Ariel Burger first met Elie Wiesel at age fifteen. They studied and taught together. Witness chronicles the intimate conversations between these two men over decades, as Burger sought counsel on matters of intellect, spirituality, and faith, while navigating his own personal journey from boyhood to manhood, from student and assistant to rabbi and, in time, teacher.
In this profoundly hopeful, thought-provoking, and inspiring book, Burger takes us into Elie Wiesel’s classroom, where the art of listening and storytelling conspire to keep memory alive. As Wiesel’s teaching assistant, Burger gives us a front-row seat witnessing these remarkable exchanges in and out of the classroom. The act of listening, of sharing these stories, makes of us, the readers, witnesses.