Originally published in The Jewish Advocate.
BOSTON – For 31 years, Elie Wiesel has been sharing his “Fascination with Jewish Tales” with increasingly large audiences of his long-running lecture series by the same name. Next week, Wiesel kicks off Boston University’s annual three-lecture series with a talk entitled “Why Pray?”; it will be held at Metcalf Hall on the university’s Commonwealth Avenue campus.
“I love tales, I always have,” Wiesel told the Advocate in a telephone interview Monday. He credits the centrality of storytelling in his life to his early upbringing in the Hasidic world of Eastern Europe. “Hasidism is not only tales, but it’s also tales. No other religious movement concentrates so much on storytelling and tales as the Hasidic movement,” he said.
His love of storytelling is apparent even in a phone conersation, which continually veered onto tangents as new anecdotes sprang to Wiesel’s mind. Whether adding color to facts or imparting advice to a young reporter, Wiesel cannot help himself when a story comes to mind.
David Levy 