"Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow."

A five-hour reading of the entire work "Night" by Elie Wiesel took place last Sunday at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. The reading commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day as well as the anniversary of the murder of Wiesel’s father, Shlomo, at Buchenwald, according to an article in Tablet: "Wiesel’s Message Reverberates in New York for a ‘Night’ of Remembrance" by Rachel Delia Benaim,

A number of well-known writers, public figures, and Counsels or Ambassadors from several countries took turns reading from the book, including Abe Foxman; Itzhak Perlman; Aaron Lansky, founder of the Yiddish Book Center, and many others.

"As the event proceeded, thousands of people gathered nearby in Battery Park to protest President Donald Trump’s controversial immigration ban—a confluence of events that Foxman said was fitting because Wiesel 'stood up to prejudice, racism, and bigotry directed at anybody.'"

Michael S. Glickman, president and CEO of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, made this statement to the "Observer" --

"I think Abe Foxman, one of our earlier speakers, put it best as he said we are doing this program as the Statue of Liberty is blindfolded and Emma Lazarus is gagged. I really do think that this is the moment where we need to speak up, and we need to be present and we need to participate in a dialogue that needs to make sure that this never happens again. In this community and elsewhere." (from "Elie Wiesel Reading Illuminates Importance of Modern Refugee Crisis" by Talia Smith)

Wiesel, who died last summer, first published "Night" in 1952 in Yiddish, in Argentina, later in French, and in 1960 in English. In it he wrote "Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow."

Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague (1525)

The scholar Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague appears to have been born around the beginning of Passover in 1525. Today, he is mainly known for his creation of the Golem of Prague. Many authors have written about this clay man, brought to life by dangerous kabbalistic spells, and brought down by rubbing off one letter of the word written in Hebrew on his forehead. The word "truth" can be changed by removing one letter into the word "death" -- that's what the story says the rabbi wrote and changed.

I'm especially fond of the version by Elie Wiesel. According to some legends Loewe's Golem still remains hidden in a Prague synagogue attic. The Golem idea is very much alive in modern fiction, as I wrote here:

A Word on Golems in Science Fiction and other Fiction

Elie Wiesel (September 30, 1928)

"Only those who were there know what it was like. We must bear witness. Silence is not an option."

Jewish Daily Forward founded on April 22, 1897

The Forward, or Forverts, was a secular Jewish paper, dedicated to the huge immigrant community of Yiddish-speaking Jews in the US around 100 years ago.

In their own words:

"The Forverts is a legendary name in American journalism and Jewish life. Launched as a Yiddish-language newspaper on April 22, 1897, the Forverts(Jewish Daily Forward) fought for social justice, helped generations of immigrants to enter American life, broke some of the most significant news stories of the century, and eloquently defended democracy and Jewish rights. Under the leadership of its founding editor, the charismatic Abraham Cahan, the Forverts embodied the voice of the Jewish immigrant."

"By the early 1930s the Forverts had become one of America's premier metropolitan dailies, with a nationwide circulation topping 275,000 and influence that reached around the world and into the Oval Office. Thousands more listened regularly to the Forward's Yiddish-language radio station, WEVD. The newspaper's editorial staff included, at one time or another, nearly every major luminary in the then-thriving world of Yiddish literature, from the beloved "poet of the sweatshops," Morris Rosenfeld, to Sholem Asch, Avrom Reisin, and the future Nobel laureates Isaac Bashevis Singer and Elie Wiesel. " -- From the Forward Online

And the Forward is still going strong on the web!