Elie Wiesel

Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel (September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, which is based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz and Buchenwald during the Holocaust.

As a political activist, Wiesel became a regular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust and remained a strong defender of human rights during his lifetime, advocating for justice in numerous causes around the globe, including that of Soviet Jews and Ethiopian Jews, South African apartheid, the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian genocide, the War in Darfur, the Kurdish independence movement, the Armenian genocide, Argentina's Desaparecidos, Nicaragua's Miskito people, the Sri Lankan Tamils, and the Cambodian genocide. He was also an outspoken advocate for Israel and frequently weighed in to support the country during escalations of the Arab–Israeli conflict and throughout the Iran–Israel proxy conflict. He backed Netanyahu publicly, including his controversial 2015 Congress speech on Iran, and signed ads praising Jewish settlers in Silwan. He claimed Jerusalem "belongs to the Jewish people" and opposed territorial compromise there. He also hosted direct talks to facilitate the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.