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Legends of Our Time
A collection of tales immortalizing the heroic deeds and visions of people Wiesel knew during and after World War II.
The death of my father
My teachers
The orphan
An evening guest
Yom Kippur : the day without forgiveness
An old acquaintance
The promise
Testament of a Jew from Saragossa
Moshe the madman
The Wandering Jew
The last return
Appointment with hate
Moscow revisited
The guilt we share
A plea for the dead
The death of my father
My teachers
The orphan
An evening guest
Yom Kippur : the day without forgiveness
An old acquaintance
The promise
Testament of a Jew from Saragossa
Moshe the madman
The Wandering Jew
The last return
Appointment with hate
Moscow revisited
The guilt we share
A plea for the dead
197 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
21 people are currently reading
419 people want to read
About the author
Elie Wiesel
274 books4,563 followersEliezer "Elie" Wiesel was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.
In his political activities Wiesel became a regular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust and remained a strong defender of human rights during his lifetime. He also advocated for many other causes like the state of Israel and against Hamas and victims of oppression including Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, the apartheid in South Africa, the Bosnian genocide, Sudan, the Kurds and the Armenian genocide, Argentina's Desaparecidos or Nicaragua's Miskito people.
He was a professor of the humanities at Boston University, which created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. He was involved with Jewish causes and human rights causes and helped establish the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Wiesel was awarded various prestigious awards including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He was a founding board member of the New York Human Rights Foundation and remained active in it throughout his life.
In his political activities Wiesel became a regular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust and remained a strong defender of human rights during his lifetime. He also advocated for many other causes like the state of Israel and against Hamas and victims of oppression including Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, the apartheid in South Africa, the Bosnian genocide, Sudan, the Kurds and the Armenian genocide, Argentina's Desaparecidos or Nicaragua's Miskito people.
He was a professor of the humanities at Boston University, which created the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in his honor. He was involved with Jewish causes and human rights causes and helped establish the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
Wiesel was awarded various prestigious awards including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He was a founding board member of the New York Human Rights Foundation and remained active in it throughout his life.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 28, 2018
update 28/8/18 And even as we write and read, here on the internet, Naziism continues to come out of its hiding place to take its preferred place on the stage. And no great surprise to see that even (or especially?) Hitler salutes are ignored by the police, despite being illegal. The reason? Appeasement. '...a desire not to escalate an already tense situation had forced them to hold back.' The police are the grand-children of Nazis too. https://www.theguardian.com/world/201...
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I discovered after reading this, that Wiesel is a controversial figure. I'm not talking about the anti-Semitic loons or the woman who wanted to join the 'me too' campaign. Rather, within the body of work that stands as 'Lest We Forget', there is much debate as to what his testament means, whether he has betrayed those he writes of, himself included, how his work fits into what others have done. He was the rockstar of the Holocaust preservation, the first to force non-Jewish people to acknowledge the horror. Yet he only managed to do that by watering down what he had to say, a process that started with The Night, his French and then English version of a much longer work written in Yiddish for an entirely different audience.
As has been noted by scholars in the field, the watering down process wasn't only about making something that was palatable to the world that was complicit in the murder of millions of Jews. It made sense that a different audience would be presented with a differently written, more culturally accessible work.
However, there is also the issue of memory, what a memoir is, at which point it becomes a lie. Much has been written about this too in reference to Wiesel, and in particular his juxtaposition with James Frey on the Oprah Bookshow (whatever that is).
For my part, I can understand the impossibility of saying the same thing to the people you are accusing as to the people to whom wrong is done. It is so easy to understand the humiliation as well as the rage. Even the idea of silence, as a major theme. What I find hard to relate to is the mysticism that is fundamental to his interpretations of the world. His rage feels as genuine as his talk of forgiveness feels forced. I can believe whole-heartedly in the one, not at all in the other.
This may be entirely my failing. I've never been religiously inclined and the notion of 'forgive and forget' does not sit easily with me. Eventually one sort of forgets. With that comes something which isn't forgiveness, more like a moving on, I suppose, which takes the place of that more noble sentiment.
In any case, can one have it both ways? Forget in some personal way, and never forget in some social way which we believe is vital to the prevention of such events in the future? I had the misfortune to go to Berlin's memorial for murdered Jews a few years ago. Full of people taking selfies and having fun. It could scarcely have been more offensive to point of the place. Richard Brody wrote of it:
Why no names, he asks? The victims are shrouded in abstract concrete anonymity, as are the murderers.
rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
-----------------------------
I discovered after reading this, that Wiesel is a controversial figure. I'm not talking about the anti-Semitic loons or the woman who wanted to join the 'me too' campaign. Rather, within the body of work that stands as 'Lest We Forget', there is much debate as to what his testament means, whether he has betrayed those he writes of, himself included, how his work fits into what others have done. He was the rockstar of the Holocaust preservation, the first to force non-Jewish people to acknowledge the horror. Yet he only managed to do that by watering down what he had to say, a process that started with The Night, his French and then English version of a much longer work written in Yiddish for an entirely different audience.
As has been noted by scholars in the field, the watering down process wasn't only about making something that was palatable to the world that was complicit in the murder of millions of Jews. It made sense that a different audience would be presented with a differently written, more culturally accessible work.
However, there is also the issue of memory, what a memoir is, at which point it becomes a lie. Much has been written about this too in reference to Wiesel, and in particular his juxtaposition with James Frey on the Oprah Bookshow (whatever that is).
For my part, I can understand the impossibility of saying the same thing to the people you are accusing as to the people to whom wrong is done. It is so easy to understand the humiliation as well as the rage. Even the idea of silence, as a major theme. What I find hard to relate to is the mysticism that is fundamental to his interpretations of the world. His rage feels as genuine as his talk of forgiveness feels forced. I can believe whole-heartedly in the one, not at all in the other.
This may be entirely my failing. I've never been religiously inclined and the notion of 'forgive and forget' does not sit easily with me. Eventually one sort of forgets. With that comes something which isn't forgiveness, more like a moving on, I suppose, which takes the place of that more noble sentiment.
In any case, can one have it both ways? Forget in some personal way, and never forget in some social way which we believe is vital to the prevention of such events in the future? I had the misfortune to go to Berlin's memorial for murdered Jews a few years ago. Full of people taking selfies and having fun. It could scarcely have been more offensive to point of the place. Richard Brody wrote of it:
The title doesn’t say “Holocaust” or “Shoah”; in other words, it doesn’t say anything about who did the murdering or why—there’s nothing along the lines of “by Germany under Hitler’s regime,” and the vagueness is disturbing. Of course, the information is familiar, and few visitors would be unaware of it, but the assumption of this familiarity—the failure to mention it at the country’s main memorial for the Jews killed in the Holocaust—separates the victims from their killers and leaches the moral element from the historical event, shunting it to the category of a natural catastrophe. The reduction of responsibility to an embarrassing, tacit fact that “everybody knows” is the first step on the road to forgetting.
Why no names, he asks? The victims are shrouded in abstract concrete anonymity, as are the murderers.
rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
March 8, 2011
With the wealth of experience Mr. Wiesel has to offer, the imagery and painful catharsis of this book are understandable. However, there is a downside to his personal experience, and that tends to be the bitterness of the injured soul.
Don't get me wrong- if there is anything to be bitter about, it is being a holocaust survivor. However, I found this book in the comparative religion section of the bookstore, and expected something deeper and more pervasive than a diatribe against the Germans, and a defense of the Jewish vendetta.
My tears and compassion are with you, Mr. wiesel, especially in your struggles with the concept of G-d, but I was less than impressed with this "new mythology for our times".
Don't get me wrong- if there is anything to be bitter about, it is being a holocaust survivor. However, I found this book in the comparative religion section of the bookstore, and expected something deeper and more pervasive than a diatribe against the Germans, and a defense of the Jewish vendetta.
My tears and compassion are with you, Mr. wiesel, especially in your struggles with the concept of G-d, but I was less than impressed with this "new mythology for our times".
October 6, 2013
Elie Wiesel’s office at Boston University is actually at the School of Theology, where they train pastors, rather than the Religion Department, where he teaches. I happened to be assigned the locker directly next to his office, and twice over my time there I had the pleasure, while bending for a book, of him opening his door smack into my head. You can tell a lot about a person by raw apologies. I wonder what you can tell about a person by their heart-wrenching writing about terror and despair.
Wiesel’s personal grace and caring spirit does not really flow into Legends of Our Time. Nor does his pain and anger make it far off the page. In this brilliant, disturbing collection, Wiesel bares something that the world cannot very well handle and certainly not understand. Yet that he writes about the Holocaust so beautifully is—not quite a redemptive act, for how can one redeem God’s abandonment—but it is an artistic achievement that draws us toward the impossible task of making some sense of the senseless.
One can expect him to attack God, for questions of theodicy, but his critique of Holocaust reflection is deeper. These stories rupture the notion that there is any coherent meaning to life. Perhaps some people find solace in building significance through religion or kindness or identity, but Wiesel urges, “Let us, therefore, not make an effort to understand, but rather to lower our eyes and not understand.” (234) He finds emptiness on a trip to his home town, something near to shallowness with his visit to young Russian Jews, deaf ears toward prophetic voice. Even his own prayer is “proof of my impotence.” (12) This is not a hopeful collection, though it retains something graceful, sublime. Partly as a character, partly because of the beauty of the language, we root for Wiesel to conquer grief, and we even get hints that he knows the path: “Where, after the long night, should the first ray of light come from, if not from us?” (83) But essentially this is art so passionate we must wonder how the artist can live anything like a normal life, much less a sanctified one.
Wiesel’s personal grace and caring spirit does not really flow into Legends of Our Time. Nor does his pain and anger make it far off the page. In this brilliant, disturbing collection, Wiesel bares something that the world cannot very well handle and certainly not understand. Yet that he writes about the Holocaust so beautifully is—not quite a redemptive act, for how can one redeem God’s abandonment—but it is an artistic achievement that draws us toward the impossible task of making some sense of the senseless.
One can expect him to attack God, for questions of theodicy, but his critique of Holocaust reflection is deeper. These stories rupture the notion that there is any coherent meaning to life. Perhaps some people find solace in building significance through religion or kindness or identity, but Wiesel urges, “Let us, therefore, not make an effort to understand, but rather to lower our eyes and not understand.” (234) He finds emptiness on a trip to his home town, something near to shallowness with his visit to young Russian Jews, deaf ears toward prophetic voice. Even his own prayer is “proof of my impotence.” (12) This is not a hopeful collection, though it retains something graceful, sublime. Partly as a character, partly because of the beauty of the language, we root for Wiesel to conquer grief, and we even get hints that he knows the path: “Where, after the long night, should the first ray of light come from, if not from us?” (83) But essentially this is art so passionate we must wonder how the artist can live anything like a normal life, much less a sanctified one.
May 21, 2021
"Legends of Our Time" is the third book I've read in the past few weeks by and about the extradordinary life of Elie Weisel. It provides something important that extends beyond the others into his exploration of what it means to be a human being. Whereas "Night" pulls the veils of denial from what happened in the camps, and "Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's classroom" by Ariel Burger gives an account of his lifelong witnessing of how we turn our back on suffering and courage alike, "Legends of Our Time", in a series of essays, penetrates to the depths of a unique human mind who lived a unique life.
July 17, 2021
Hard to follow if you don't have much knowledge about the Jewish faith.
I promise to never forget...
I promise to never forget...
December 2, 2022
This book makes you grateful for everything. It makes me want to live my life in a more pure way.
September 23, 2015
This is the first time I have read Wiesel. Picked up the book after going through the Museum of the History of the Polish Jews in Warsaw. I have not been able to put it down. Extraordinary writing. The teachers he writes of rise into the realm of mysticism. It made me feel the weight of the ages and the expanse of human wisdom and knowledge. It made me long for the teachers of old, for an age when everything was analog, when traditions were taught orally. It gave me a renewed sense of the long history of Judaism and what it means to be a Jew (although I am Episcopalian/Buddhist myself), and of course the horrors of the 20th century. I feel like this book has opened a door into a whole area of understanding that I was previously unable to access through apathy or lack of exposure and interest. Now I want to read more!
July 26, 2007
So, I don't know. I guess I was expecting something really brilliant. I enjoyed Night and Dawn so much, I thought Wiesel just hit a nerve with me. But this book was less than nerve-striking. And the topic of what happens to the Jews after the holocaust is really interesting, I think. I don't know. I just couldn't get into it, I guess.
April 19, 2011
such wise writing and philosophical insights to life. i enjoyed this book of short stories very much.
November 17, 2012
A number of short stories (a preference of mine admittedly. Some with some very challenging premises. Made me think, which of course adds to its allure for me.
September 4, 2014
I do not have the words. Elie Wiesel does.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews