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92NY’s Goldman Center for Children and Family provides an exceptional array of programs designed to support children at every stage of their development.
at The 92nd Street Y, New York. Supported by The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity
Nov 12, 1987
The year’s fourth lecture features reading from the new novel, Twilight, in which the residents of a mental hospital believe they are biblical personages. As such the novel brings together clinical, mystical, and moral madness. The first case in history of madness (of melancholy) was Cain, whose “face fell.” Madness can lead to creativity. But it can also lead to despair, as in the example of a number of Holocaust survivor/writers who committed suicide. In addition, it is important to give an account of the year’s travels: to Oslo (to receive the Nobel Peace Prize) and the shechehiyanu prayer said on that occasion but that still remains; to Japan, to speak against antisemitism and to see the “very, very moving” shadows in Hiroshima; to go to Germany, to visit Wannsee on the 20th of January anniversary (of which no one was aware) of the 1942 meeting, and recommend the infamous villa become a museum; and to read the Berlin Reichstag speech, including the opening in Yiddish and the insistence on memory. “Well, you can imagine the impact. . . In conclusion, as we are about to part for another year, let me just say, we always meet here to study. . . And the purpose is always surely to defeat hatred.”
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