Lecture By Elie Wiesel Kicks Off Hillel Series

Lecture by Elie Wiesel kicks off Hillel series

By WHITLEY SETRAKIAN

NEWS SPECIAL WRITER

PREVIEW

Each year, the Hillel Foundation at the University of Michigan brings together some of the finest thinkers, wordsmiths, musicians and film in the Jewish — even global — community. The 1990-91 Celebration of Jewish Arts and Writers series promises to live up to any and all expectations.

Hillel director Joseph Kohane tempers his excitement with eloquence as he talks

PREVIEW about the opening PHbVItW event Tuesday at 8

p.m. in Hill Auditorium. Onstage will be Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist, author and storyteller Elie Wiesel.

‘•He made his last appearance here about five years ago and many people came out to see him,” said Kohane. we felt that there was a new generation of students at U-M who had never heard him speak directly to them. Elie Wiesel is really a unique personality m the world of Jewish thought and the world of social justice and social consciousness. He s a national treasure - not only because of his writing, but because he is a unique teacher and especially gifted in communication in what ought to be of ultimate importance to people. It was time again to hear from him.

Wiesel is considered by many, said Kohane, to be the “unofficial spokesman for the Jewish community.” Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, teaches at Boston University and maintains offices in New York and Paris.

“We’re really talking about an artist someone who has a great gift in communication to others. Elie Wiesel sort of weaves a wonderful, spellbinding atmosphere with his talking from the heart. He brings in his own personal anecdotes, philosophical insights ... it’s a very powerful concoction.”

Wiesel will speak on “The Passion for Remembering.”

1 “His work comes out of his perrenial concerns - understanding Jews’ obsession with remembering. Fundamentally, the Jewish absorption with remembering has to do with the strong sense that if we are to learn, if we are to understand the future, we only have past experience as a guide. Tickets for Wiesel's lecture are $25, $10, and $7.

The series continues on Oct. 13 and 14 in Auditorium A of Angell Hall with the Ann Arbor premiere of the internationally acclaimed film “The Lodz Ghetto (1990, Kathryn Taverna and Alan Adelson). In 1940, the Nazis forced the 200,000 Jews of Lodz, a textile center with the second-largest Jewish population in Europe, into a sealed, internally self-governed ghetto, creating a huge work camp for the German war effort. This film depicts the Nazi-appointed Jewish leader of the ghetto, one of modern history’s most disturbing char acters, Mordechai Chim Rumkowski, played with goading, perverse intensity by actor/novelist Jerzy Kosinski. Call Hillel (769-0500) for showtimes.

Grace Paley, noted short story author will read from her work on Wednesday, Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m. Robert Harris of the New York Times Book Review wrote of Paley’s work, “Paley is one of the few who write about people who actually believe m things passionately and say so. She demonstrated how history and politics can move and change — and victimize — people.

Lawrence Kushner a contemporary Jewish mystic who has inspired modern-day seekers of Jewish spirituality, will speak on Saturday, Jan. 19 at 7.30 p.m.

Responding to the country’s growing enchantment with klezmer music Hillel has invited Kolos — an avant-garde klezmer band to play for a party Saturday, Feb. 2 at 8 p.m. Kolos’ music shoots out from traditional roots. Foundations of Eastern European styles are infused with American,^ rican pop, jazz, reggae, Latin and funk styles. Admission includes hors d oeuvres and beverages.

An evening with storyteller Syd Lieberman wraps up the series. One of the foremost tellers of Jewish tales in the country, Lieberman has appeared on television, at major storytelling festivals across the country and on National Public Radio’s “Good Evening” show. He will perform Sunday, March 24 at 2 p.m.

All events are to be held at the Irwin Green Auditorium at Hillel (1429 Hil St.)

unless noted otherwise. For admission prices and more information, call Hillel at 769-0500.

The Writers Series is made possible by an endowment from the Morton and Diane Scholnick Family Fund.