MOST ISRAELIS HAIL WIESEL'S NOBEL; SOME RAP
HIS LIVING OUTSIDE ISRAEL
Author: By Curtis Wilkie, Globe Staff
Date: Thursday, October 16, 1986
Page: 25
Section: NATIONAL/FOREIGN
JERUSALEM -- In the midst of a controversy that affects the future of the
government of Israel, the lead item on Tuesday night's television news here
was the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Elie Wiesel.
Wiesel, whose preoccupation with the Holocaust has forged a bond with the
Jewish state, won immediate praise from many Israeli leaders, and the
television story was headlined: "Jerusalem celebrates." But in a country where
contention has been raised to an art form, Wiesel's triumph was not
universally applauded.
There were complaints -- most of them in private -- that Wiesel should live
in Israel and that he has exploited the Holocaust on the lecture circuit.
"There's no business like 'Shoah' business," said one Israeli journalist,
using a play on words with the Hebrew term for the Holocaust -- "Shoah."
However, other Israelis hailed Wiesel.
Shimon Peres, who continues as the caretaker prime minister for Israel,
told Wiesel in a cable, "all your friends and admirers here in Israel are
proud that the Nobel Prize Committee arrived at this positive conclusion."
Peres said Wiesel was "ceaselessly striking the bells of collective memory,
the pain of perished Jews" and had finally been recognized by the world for
his "courageous perseverence."
Peres and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir were scheduled to swap jobs on
Tuesday, but the rotation has been delayed by a dispute over the makeup of the
new Cabinet.
President Chaim Herzog also praised Wiesel for championing the cause of
Soviet Jews, which he called "another issue of human rights."
Wiesel, a frequent visitor to Israel, is expected to come here later this
fall after a trip to Moscow in connection with the US Holocaust Memorial
Commission.
Naftali Lavi, the director of the United Jewish Appeal, said in an
interview that he was grateful to the Nobel committee for awarding Wiesel the
prize. Lavi is also a Holocaust survivor and was liberated from Buchenwald
with Wiesel in April 1945.
Lavi described Wiesel as "the spokesman for all of those who went through
that hell. He tried to make the world aware of that great tragedy and ensure
that it never happened again."
Y. Arad, chairman of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, said
Wiesel was "always working to promote the awareness and knowledge and lessons
of the Holocaust, to show the direction that hatred, anti-Semitism, narrow
nationalism and fascism can lead nations -- even cultured nations."
Gideon Hausner, a former Israeli attorney general who led the prosecution
of Adolf Eichmann for war crimes, said Wiesel "has devoted his life to the
cause of memory, the cause of remembrance. To the coming generations, his
message is: Never again."
Editorial comment in Israel generally expressed pride in Wiesel's
accomplishment, though there was an implication that this exponent of Jewish
causes should live in Israel, following the line held by many Israelis that
all Jews should immigrate to Israel.
Israel Eldad, a right-wing commentator, faulted Wiesel on Israeli radio for
not only refusing to live in Israel but for encouraging Jews to continue to
live in other countries.
A generally favorable editorial yesterday in the newspaper Maariv also
concluded by expressing the hope that Wiesel would move to Israel.
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