Yale Bulletin and Calendar

December 1, 2006|Volume 35, Number 12|Two-Week Issue

Elie Wiesel

Noted author and peace activist
Elie Wiesel to give Chubb Lecture

Noted author, human rights activist and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel will present the next Chubb Lecture on Tuesday, Dec. 5, at 4:30 p.m. in the Law School's Levinson Auditorium, 127 Wall St.

Admission is free, and the public is welcome.

Wiesel has dedicated his life to working for peace and human rights around the world, earning him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States Congressional Gold Medal, the Medal of Liberty Award, the French Legion of Honor and, in 1986, the Nobel Peace Prize. He has received more than 120 honorary degrees from institutions of higher learning in the United States, Europe and Israel.

His more than 50 books have won numerous awards. His newest novel, published in France in 2006, will soon be released in English. His memoir of life and death in the Nazi concentration camps, "Night," originally published in 1956, has been translated into more than 30 languages. In 2006, Farrar, Straus and Giroux released a new English-language edition, with a new translation. This edition was selected by Oprah Winfrey for her "Book Club."

Born in the town of Sighet in Romania, Wiesel was 15 years old when he and his family were deported to Auschwitz. His mother and younger sister were murdered there; his two older sisters survived. Wiesel and his father were later transported to Buchenwald, where his father died before the camp was liberated in 1945. After the war, Wiesel studied in Paris and became a journalist. A devoted supporter of Israel, Wiesel has also defended the cause of Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, Argentina's "Disappeared," Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, South African apartheid victims, and victims of violence in Rwanda, Ethiopa and the former Yugoslavia. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed him chair of the President's Commission on the Holocaust. In 1980 he became founding chair of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.

Soon after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, the Wiesels established the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. Its mission is to advance the cause of human rights and peace throughout the world by creating a forum to discuss urgent ethical issues confronting humankind. The foundation has convened several conferences of Nobel laureates and world leaders to confront global issues.

Wiesel was the Henry Luce Visiting Scholar in the Humanities and Social Thought at Yale 1982-1983. Since 1976, he has been the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University.

The Chubb Fellowship is devoted to encouraging and aiding Yale students interested in the operations of government, culture and public service. Established in 1936 through the generosity of Hendon Chubb (Yale 1895), the program is based in Timothy Dwight College. Each year three or four distinguished women and men have been appointed as visiting Chubb Fellows. While at Yale, they have close, informal contact with students and deliver a public lecture. Former Chubb Fellows include U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter; prime ministers Clement Atlee and Mario Soares; authors Toni Morrison and Carlos Fuentes; choreographer Mikhail Baryshnikov; and journalist Walter Cronkite.

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Campus Notes