This audiobook by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel may not be wonderful poetry, but it is a wonderful story that goes to the core of Jewish moral identity. When the Enemy decrees that the Jewish community must provide 10 people to be hanged—or else the entire community will be wiped out—the Rabbi must figure out what to do. Narrator John Rubinstein provides subtle voices for the Rabbi, his people, and the great sages whom he consults. He deftly conveys the Rabbi's frustrations, sorrows, and joys in his search for a solution to the community’s terrible problem. There is no traditional happy ending here, but there is a triumph of sorts. The text includes a glossary of Jewish thought and thinkers at the end. (Some may want to listen to the end first.) D.M.H. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

A short nar­ra­tive poem with dev­as­tat­ing impact, beau­ti­ful­ly illus­trat­ed and accom­pa­nied by a help­ful glos­sary con­tex­tu­al­iz­ing ref­er­ences to his­toric rab­bis, cities, and con­cepts, includ­ing that of the nig­gun, a mys­ti­cal song that one rab­bi called ​‘the pen of the soul.’ ”
—Jewish Book Council
 
“The tale and its lesson are classically Wiesel. Human and beautiful, it empowers the powerless. It’s traditional for Jews to place stones on graves; this story, based on several examples from history, places a pebble on an already insurmountable pile of rocks. The Tale of a Niggun is, of course, a Jewish book, but also not a Jewish book. Jewish stories, even in the present tense, are ancient stories, and the question and lesson central to the book are as present now as they’ve been since Eve left Eden . . . Frequent Wiesel illustrator Mark Podwal’s watercolor paintings are lovely.”
—New York Journal of Books

“Accompanied by Mark Podwal's quietly haunting full-page illustrations, Wiesel’s spare language cuts to the heart of human loss while the rhythms of the poetry capture the sad, endless march of inhumanity through history. At the same time, this poem sings out the power of belief and community and love.”
—Kirkus Reviews

This audiobook by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel may not be wonderful poetry, but it is a wonderful story that goes to the core of Jewish moral identity. When the Enemy decrees that the Jewish community must provide 10 people to be hanged—or else the entire community will be wiped out—the Rabbi must figure out what to do. Narrator John Rubinstein provides subtle voices for the Rabbi, his people, and the great sages whom he consults. He deftly conveys the Rabbi's frustrations, sorrows, and joys in his search for a solution to the community’s terrible problem. There is no traditional happy ending here, but there is a triumph of sorts. The text includes a glossary of Jewish thought and thinkers at the end. (Some may want to listen to the end first.) D.M.H. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

2020-09-02
A narrative poem explores a ghastly dilemma faced by Jewish ghetto dwellers during World War II.

Written in the late 1970s and included in a long-out-of-print collection of Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Wiesel's essays, the poem is set on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Purim. That's when the "enemy" (the word "Nazi" is never used) announces they will massacre everyone in the ghetto unless 10 Jews are turned over for hanging—this to avenge the killing of the 10 sons of Haman, the anti-Semitic scourge of the Purim story. Overwhelmed by this unthinkable dilemma, the ghetto rabbi feels "his knees weakening, the blood rushing to his face." Searching for answers, he consults the great religious thinkers through their writings. Maimonides, the Rambam, states that a community should perish before handing over one of its members to the enemy, but pressed by the rabbi, his talking spirit concedes that he can't be of help because he never could have foreseen such a predicament. The Baal Shem Tov, or Besht, the founder of Hasidism, teaches the rabbi a special niggun, or song, that confers hidden powers "to break the chains of evil and malediction." But the Besht is so overcome by sadness that he can't infuse the song with the joy it needs. Ultimately, when the niggun is sung by the ghetto community, it conjures a miraculous coming together of Jews—not only from all over Europe, but also from the pages of the Talmud. Accompanied by Podwal's quietly haunting full-page illustrations, Wiesel's spare language cuts to the heart of human loss while the rhythms of the poetry capture the sad, endless march of inhumanity through history. At the same time, this poem sings out the power of belief and community and love.

A modest but affecting work with timeless relevance.