Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel "was fifteen years old when the Nazis deported him and his family to the Auschwitz concentration camps. After the war was over, he was eventually persuaded to write about his Holocaust experiences, producing his internationally-acclaimed memoir, Night, which ranks among the definitive works of Holocaust literature. Appointed chairman of the U.S. President's Commission on the Holocaust in 1978, Wiesel became the Founding Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council in 1980. He is the founding president of the Paris-based Universal Academy of Cultures and the Chairman of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. He has held professorships at the City University of New York, Yale University, and Barnard College, and is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University.

"A lifelong human rights advocate, he has defended the cause of Soviet Jews, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, Argentina's Desaparecidos, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of famine and genocide in Africa, of apartheid in South Africa, and victims of war in the former Yugoslavia. He has won numerous awards for his achievements in literature and human rights, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, the Medal of Liberty Award, election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the rank of Grand-Croix in the French Legion of Honor, an honorary knighthood in the United Kingdom, as well as more than a hundred honorary degrees from institutions of higher learning. In 1986, Mr. Wiesel won the Nobel Prize for Peace. He has published more than forty works of fiction and nonfiction." 

He has been associated with the Middle East Media Research Institute and Prodemca, and he is a director of the International Rescue Committee and the Balkan Action Committee.


 * Expert Member, Institute for the Research of Genocide
 * Cofounder, Forum 2000 Foundation
 * 2005 Global Action Awards Judges for the NetAid Global Action Award.
 * International Council, Human Rights Foundation
 * International Council of Advisors, International Campaign for Tibet
 * Advisory Board, America Bosnia Foundation
 * Advisory Committee, AmeriCares (at least in 2004)
 * Advisory Board, Committee to Free Lori Berenson
 * Board of Overseers, International Rescue Committee
 * Former Co-chair, State of the World Forum
 * Member of the Honorary 25th Anniversary Committee, Global Rights
 * Advisory Committee, New Tactics in Human Rights
 * Winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize
 * Winner of the 2006 Cosmos Club Award
 * Member, Committee of 100 for Tibet
 * Honorary Member, Club of Budapest: Members
 * National Advisory Board, Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States
 * Current, United Nations Messengers of Peace
 * National Honorary Advisory Council, Council for America's First Freedom
 * Honorary chair, International Center for Conciliation
 * Ambassadors Council, Freedom from Hunger
 * Patron, Aegis Trust
 * Honorary Patron, Holocaust Educational Trust

Criticism

 * John Walsh, "Elie Wiesel’s Ignoble Recruits: Nobel Laureates Sign On To “Harsher” Iran Sanctions – and More", Dissident Voice, February 16th, 2010.