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at The 92nd Street Y, New York. Supported by The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity
Apr 19, 2007
Professor Wiesel evokes, as his guest of honor, an unexpected rebbe in the Beshtian movement: the Maiden of Ludmir. In a week that saw the Virginia Tech suicide-murders and on the anniversaries of Bitburg and the Warsaw ghetto uprising, Professor Wiesel insists that Hasidism holds the allure of wisdom, humor, and colorful individuals. Retelling the story of the Maiden of Ludmir, Professor Wiesel recalls the life and work of Ansky. Just as Ansky conducted research through his Jewish Ethnographic Expedition and then dramatized the metamorphosis of the Maiden in his famous play, The Dybbuk, so too does Professor Wiesel revisit, research and retell the story of the Maiden. When Ansky described his mission, in 1914, as one of rescuing from obliteration the Jewish past, “sanctified by the blood and tears of so many martyrs,” Professor Wiesel asks the question: aren’t Ansy’s words at least as applicable to our own times? Following in the footsteps of Ansky, the chronicler, Professor Wiesel takes the analogy one step further: didn’t a malevolent dybbuk enter history 70 years ago and don’t we also need to perform an exorcism on that dybbuk and on hatred?
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