A BEGGAR IN JERUSALEM

Throughout his published works, Wiesel, unique among Jewish authors who have survived the holocaust, has continually moved forward into the current Jewish experience, joining terror to hope, death to continuity, anonymity to identity. In parable, spiritual exploration, archaic myth and surreal tableau, Wiesel, through the character of David, a wandering stranger in Jerusalem, adumbrates the tough, pragmatic realities of the Six Day war with the ghosts of Jewish dead, "an echo of voices long extinguished." Among beggars, a tattered group beside the Wall, David hears tales, tells tales, waits for Katriel, son of a Rabbi and a link between ancient and new verities. In David's thoughts persons living and dead merge, break apart and merge again until David understands the heart of suffering and loss. A message from the past is delivered to a victorious Israel—that a people "cured of obsessions and complexes, relieved of mystery and burdens," is a delusion. Nothing has changed, and for those marked for death, solitude is a distinction. In his attempt to touch divine mystery at the core of a blood memory, Wiesel is inclined to veil his steps in arcane speech, difficult time transitions and labyrinthian symbolism, but the intent and the passion is fixed and sustained. For many, a meaningful prophecy.