Download Jewish Terms Presentation

Jewish Terms Presentation
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Major Themes
• Elie’s struggle to maintain faith in a goodbenevolent God.
• Silence (2 types- God’s Silence AND silence of
prisoners).
• Inhumanity toward other humans.
• The Importance (or sacrifice)of parent-child
bonds.
• Tradition.
• Religious Observance.
Night : Tone
• Tone
– Eliezer’s perspective is limited to his own experience,
and the tone of Night is therefore intensely personal,
subjective, and intimate. Night is not meant to be an
all-encompassing discourse on the experience of the
Holocaust; instead, it depicts the extraordinarily
personal and painful experiences of a single victim.
Night: Setting
• setting (time) · 1941–1945, during World War II
• settings (place)
Eliezer’s story begins in
– Sighet, Transylvania (now part of Romania; during Wiesel’s
childhood, part of Hungary)
The book then follows his journey through several concentration
camps in Europe:
– Auschwitz/Birkenau (in a part of modern-day Poland that had
been annexed by Germany in 1939)
– Buna (a camp that was part of the Auschwitz complex)
– Gleiwitz (also in Poland but annexed by Germany)
– Buchenwald (Germany)
Night Study Guide Notes
• There are five motifs to look for while reading
Night:
motifs (a recurring subject, theme, or idea)
– Night – pay attention to what happens at night and
what that might symbolize.
– Bearing Witness – Pay attention to which
characters are witnesses and to what they bear
witness.
Night Study Guide Notes
• Motifs (continued):
– Father-son Relationships – Pay attention to how Elie
and his father’s relationship develops; in addition,
notice other father-son relationships in the book.
– Loss of Faith – Notice how Elie’s faith in God changes
as the book progresses. Write on your study guides
where these changes occur.
Night Study Guide Notes
• Motifs (continued):
– Voice vs. Silence – Who has a voice and who chooses
to remain silent? Why might Elie Wiesel title his
novel what he did originally (And the World Has
Remained Silent), and why did he no longer remain
silent?
– Click here to listen to Elie Wiesel's "A God who
Remembers"
Two Symbols:
• Fire
• Night
A Guide to Jewish References in Night
1. Beadle—a caretaker or “man of all work” in a
synagogue. (page 1)
2. Cabbala—Jewish mysticism. Followers believe
that every aspect of the Torah has hidden
meanings that link the spiritual world to
everyday life.
A Guide to Jewish References in Night
• Hasidism—a Jewish reform movement inspired
by the cabbala that spread through Eastern Europe
in the 1700s. For Hasidic Jews, the divine
presence is everywhere, in everything.
A Guide to Jewish References in Night
• Passover—a Jewish holiday that is celebrated for
eight days each spring to recall the Exodus of the
Jewish people from Egypt where they were held
in slavery. (page 8)
• Pentecost—the Jewish holiday that
commemorates the revelation of the Law on
Mount Sinai. Called Shavuot in Hebrew, it is
celebrated about seven weeks after Passover. (page
10)
A Guide to Jewish References in Night
• Synagogue—a Jewish house of prayer. (page 1)
• Talmud—from a word that means study or
learning. A collection of teachings and
commentaries on the Torah, the Five Books of
Moses. (page 1)
• Temple, The—a reference to the Temple in
Jerusalem, which the Romans destroyed in 70
A.D. It was the center of Jewish worship in
ancient times. Today Jews recall its destruction in
their daily prayers. (page 1)
A Guide to Jewish References in Night
• Zionism—the belief that Jews must once more
become a nation with a land of their own in
Palestine. A commitment to Zionism led a
number of European Jews to settle in Palestine
in the early 1900s. (page 6)
Terms you will encounter often
• Auschwitz-Birkenau—established in 1940 as a
concentration camp, a killing center was added in
1942 at Birkenau. Also part of the huge camp
complex was a slave labor camp known as BunaMonowitz.
• Concentration camp—a prison camp in which
individuals are held without regard for accepted
rules of arrest and detention.
Terms you will encounter often
• Death camp—a camp where the Nazis murdered
people in assembly-line style. The largest death
camp was Auschwitz-Birkenau.
• Kapo—a prisoner forced to oversee other
prisoners.
• Mengele, Josef (1911–1979)—senior SS
physician at Auschwitz-Birkenau from 1943–
1944. He carried out “selections” of prisoners
upon their arrival at the camp and conducted
experiments on some of those prisoners.
Terms you will encounter often
• “Selection”—the process the Nazis used to
separate those prisoners who would be
assigned to forced labor from those who
were to be killed immediately.
• SS—in German, Schutzstaffel; the elite guard
of Nazi Germany. It provided staff for the
police, camp guards, and military units within
the German army.