A Beggar in Jerusalem: A novel [Paperback]

Elie Wiesel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 27, 1997

When the Six-Day War began, Elie Wiesel rushed to Israel. "I went to Jerusalem because I had to go somewhere, I had to leave the present and bring it back to the past. You see, the man who came to Jerusalem then came as a beggar, a madman, not believing his eyes and ears, and above all, his memory."

This haunting novel takes place in the days following the Six-Day War. A Holocaust survivor visits the newly reunited city of Jerusalem. At the Western Wall he encounters the beggars and madmen who congregate there every evening, and who force him to confront the ghosts of his past and his ties to the present. Weaving together myth and mystery, parable and paradox, Wiesel bids the reader to join him on a spiritual journey back and forth in time, always returning to Jerusalem.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Very remarkable, indeed, outstanding."

-- New York Times Book Review

"Perhaps the first major novel to bring to bear on the destiny of the Jew all the resources of modern European literary experience combined with the storytelling techniques of the Hasidic masters."

-- Washington Post Book World

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Schocken (May 27, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805210520
• ISBN-13: 978-0805210521
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #928,953 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elie Wiesel is the author of more than forty books, including his unforgettable international best sellers Night and A Beggar in Jerusalem, winner of the Prix Médicis. He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States Congressional Gold Medal, and the French Legion of Honor with the rank of Grand Cross. In 1986, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. He is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The work of a great spokeman for moral mankind, May 16, 2005

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Beggar In Jerusalem (Hardcover)

1986 Nobel Prize Peace Winner Elie Wiesel is one of the great moral figures in the modern era. His classic work 'Night' perhaps more than any other work made horrifically clear the pain and suffering of the Holocaust. He has written over fifty works of literary and moral testimony, a number of which are not simply classics of literature but which changed the course of history. One of those was his 'Jews of Silence' on the fate of Russian Jewry.
This present work is written about the Six- Day War of June 1967. It is written with the same humane quality, the same mystical lyricism that pervades much of his work. It expresses something of the relief felt in the Jewish world in 1967 when Israel overcame the threat of destruction from the Arab world initiated at Nasser's closing of the Suez Canal.
The work moves back and forth from the Jerusalem of the present to the small Eastern European village world Wiesel lived in before the Holocaust. The work despite its poetic and revelatory qualities is confusing in its narrative line, and in my judgment far from one of Wiesel's best. Yet it does express something of the longing of hundreds of Jewish generations to return to their ancestral home in Jerusalem, and the land of Israel - and to dwell there in peace with their neighbors. It is a book written in the same humane and generous spirit ( And thus follows the ancient Jewish adage- that the greatest triumph is to make a friend of a former enemy) of all Wiesel's works.
This work does give some feeling of that great exaltation the Jewish world felt in 1967 at its escaping existensial danger and returning to its holiest places.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Beggar's Tale, August 10, 2009

By 

R. Chaffey "beckahi" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Beggar in Jerusalem: A novel (Paperback)

Elie Wiesel has always had the uncanny ability to compassionately bring to life the horrific history that the Jewish people have suffered. His personal accounts and his novels return time and again to the mysteries of the Holocaust and the impact it has had on its survivors and the world in general. His novels are always lyrical in nature and disjointed in structure, moving between time and place with little distinction. "A Beggar in Jerusalem" may be the most unstructured novel that Wiesel has written, for it is a tale of a beggar who does not know any longer what is real and what is imaginary.

"A Beggar in Jerusalem" is narrated by David, a beggar who has witnessed numerous events that he relates to the reader along with stories of his people and friends he has lost. His closest friends are the local madmen who populate the street. Through his ramblings, and the stories that these other madmen tell, the reader is given a tour of what ties Jewish history with the present and the future. Wiesel himself said that in this book he attempted to show "what cannot be shown, to explain what is not to be explained, to recapture an experience that cannot be relived." If that is possible, Wiesel has achieved it, showing the effects of the Holocaust, explaining the dreams of the dreamers, and portraying scenes of the Six-Day War.

At times throughout the novel, it is difficult to tell who is doing the telling, since the narrator seems to shift between various characters, and the narrator himself seems to change identities, especially at the end of the story. This makes for a very disjointed reading as the novel skips from one event to the next, so while it is a short book it is not necessarily an easy read. With "A Beggar in Jerusalem" Wiesel seems as much a prophet as his main character, bringing to life the overwhelming peace that is possible in the end, or perhaps even in the beginning.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wiesel's brilliant 4-dimensional masterpiece, March 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Beggar in Jerusalem (Paperback)

a powerful trip across the mind of a holocost surviver wandering the haunted and enchanted streets of the old city in search of a lost friend. rich with emotion and stunning prose, this narration tells the story of the beggars and madmen who gather at dusk in the shadow of history, allowing the narrator to question his very memories. this is a text which lies on your table demanding to be read again and again, revealing bits of its mystery.