By Hadar Katsman, Features Editor
“How did the Holocaust happen?” Rabbi Joseph Schwarz’s Jewish history class attempts to understand this very question, and in order to do so, he brings guest lecturers and Holocaust survivors to inspire his students with firsthand accounts. On Monday, March 31, the class had the tremendous opportunity to hear from Elisha Wiesel, the only child of renowned Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel.
Rabbi Schwarz, himself a child of Holocaust survivors, met Elisha when Elisha began reciting Kaddish for his father at the shul Rabbi Schwarz attends. “It was not easy growing up as the son of such a famous personality, and Elisha went through a rebellious stage,” Rabbi Schwarz told the YU Observer. “But he has since been very involved in trying to fill his father’s huge shoes and to continue his legacy.”
A Battle With Identity
From a young age, Elisha knew his family was different, whether it was visiting concentration camps while his friends went to Florida for spring break, or only getting responses of “something terrible happened” after inquiring about his paternal grandparents, who were both killed in concentration camps.
“My father made a very determined effort to shield me from the Shoah (Holocaust),” Elisha said, speaking to Rabbi Schwarz’s class. “He felt very much that it was a big burden for him, and boy, it would be an even bigger burden for me, at my young age.”
When he was around 11 years old, Elisha read “Night,” his father’s famous memoir on his experiences during the Holocaust, for the first time. “It felt like I was reading a family history, not a best-selling publication that millions of people have read,” Elisha said.
His father attempted to protect him from the public attention his writing received, Elisha added, recounting the time he left the ceremony early after he watched his father be awarded the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. “I really wanted to just be a normal American kid, and, to my father’s credit, he didn’t take that personally,” Elisha said. “He wasn’t insulted by it.”
Much of Elisha’s childhood identity was wrapped in being Elie Wiesel’s son. “Never mind that I was a good computer programmer and was writing computer games,” Elisha said. “All the things that I was interested in doing were completely meaningless next to this fact that I lived in this shadow.”
Elisha spent his entire high school experience exploring different identities, but said that every Jew he met would engage with him through the lense of being Elie Wiesel’s son. “They’d already modeled me before I even opened my mouth,” Elisha continued. “The truth is that the further I got from Judaism, the less people immediately started applying that lens to me.”
After these experiences in high school, Elisha wanted “absolutely zero to do with Judaism.”
‘He Always Believed God Was There:’ Elisha’s Journey Back to His Faith
Visits to Sighet in Romania, Elie’s birthplace, and Auschwitz sparked Elisha’s return to his faith. Around 23 years old at the time, Elisha went to Israel, where he began reconnecting to Judaism. He also joined the Marva, a basic training program in the Israeli Defense Forces.
Elisha’s mother, Marion Wiesel, also a Holocaust survivor, grew up secular in Vienna, whereas Elie grew up Vizhnitz Chassidic. Elie’s emunah (faith) remained intact throughout the war; he sometimes wore tefillin in the camps, celebrated Chanukah and davened during the Yamim Noraim (the High Holidays). “He argued with Him [G-d], was angry with Him, didn’t want to talk to Him for a little while, but he always believed He was there,” Elisha said.
But it was actually Elisha’s son, not his father, who brought him back to his faith.
One Saturday, Elisha was working on academics with his son when he asked Elisha, “You know, Dad, you’re pushing me hard, but isn’t it Saturday? Isn’t it Shabbat?” his son asked, “I thought we weren’t supposed to work on Shabbat.” Elisha said, “From that day on, not only did I stop pushing him on Shabbos, I stopped working.”
Hayley Goldberg (SCW ‘27) told the YU Observer, “That was really such a beautiful story, seeing how much one step in the correct direction can impact another person and how all his son had to do was say, ‘Hey, it’s Saturday. Shouldn’t we be resting?’ And then he reframed his entire mindset.”
Elisha has also worked at Goldman Sachs, an American investment bank, on Wall Street for 25 years. In recent years, he became more involved with Elie’s activism after Elie was diagnosed with blood cancer, writing speeches with him and speaking out together against antisemitism.
Elisha’s Stance on America and Israel
While Elie never moved to Israel, many people didn’t realize that he “was a deeply proud and committed Zionist,” Elisha said. At the same time, Elisha and his parents always felt a loyalty to the United States.
When asked if he sees similarities between America post-October 7 and Germany pre-WWII, Elisha said that while antisemitism is real, he does not think Jews can run away from it. “We’re always going to be stuck between these poles of antisemitism,” he said. “We have to fight it. The United States is and has been and will continue to be one of the most potent forces for good in the world.”
Elisha strongly believes the Holocaust can never happen again because the Jewish nation has the State of Israel. In an interview shortly after October 7, where he was asked if the atrocities that occurred that day would convince him to make aliyah, Elisha said, “If I go to Israel, let it be because I want to go to Israel, I’m pulled to something.”
“The Jewish people, to be healthy, need to have a presence both in the diaspora as well as in Israel,” he said to the class. “The concept that we can all just move to Israel and somehow lose all connection beyond it, I don’t find that to be realistic.”
Combating Antisemitism: Holocaust Education Isn’t Enough
It is a widespread belief that Holocaust education is enough to combat antisemitism, but Elisha said he disagrees. He encouraged the class to read Dara Horn’s novel “People Love Dead Jews,” in which she makes the case that Holocaust education only draws sympathy for Jews who died in the Holocaust, but not Jews who experience antisemitism today. Elisha posited that engaging with non-Jews to dispel any notions of what Jews are might be more worthwhile.
“I’m not saying that that’s easy either but we need more of that, more programs focused on living Jews than we do on programs focused on the dead Jews.”
“The Holocaust is a piece of our story, and I feel very strongly that we have to keep it that way,” Elisha said, yet adding that limiting Jewish persistence to the Holocaust is not right. “The real story is: What does the five or six thousand years of Jewish history really mean in the entirety of it? Not just the last 100 years and what we experienced in the Shoah.”
The Children Are Survivors in Their Own Ways
Rabbi Schwarz said that bringing Elisha to speak to his class gave his students an opportunity to see the importance of the stories of the children of Holocaust survivors “as they grapple with the unique challenges and complexities of inheriting their parents’ trauma and experiences.”
Goldberg said she had never really considered the effects of the Holocaust on the children of survivors before hearing Elisha’s lecture. “His story is so unique from his father’s,” she said. “We’re so focused on Elie Wiesel that we don’t realize just how much the Holocaust continued to impact people past the generation of the people who lived through it.”
Rachelle Winokur (SSSB ‘25), who also attended the speech, felt a strong connection to Elie Wiesel after reading “Night” in middle school. “I think that there’s something really powerful about seeing someone so down-to-earth or close to us, whose father represents so much,” she told the YU Observer.
With events like these, where students can hear directly from Holocaust survivors and their descendants, the Jewish people can ensure the Holocaust is never forgotten and never happens again. “The fact that Rav Schwarz makes it a priority and sacrifices valuable class time because he recognizes the importance of that really drives home the point of his class and the point of what our purpose is as the next generation of Jewish people,” Winokur said.
Photo Caption: Elisha Wiesel speaking to Rabbi Schwarz’s class
Photo Credit: Hadar Katsman