While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, Wiesenthal was
taken one day from his work detail to the bedside of a dying member
of the SS. Haunted by the crimes in which he had participated,
the soldier wanted to confess to and obtain absolution from a
Jew. Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence
and truth, Weisenthal said nothing. But even years after the war
had ended, he wondered: Had he done the right thing?
Weisenthal presented this ethical dilemma to leading intellectuals
and theologians of various faiths. The responses of fifty-three
distinguished men and women are presented in The Sunflower. They are theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists,
human rights activists, Holocaust survivors and victims of attempted
genocide in Bosnia, Cambodia, China and Tibet. They include The
Dalai Lama, Matthew Fox, Mary Gordon, Yossi Klein Halevi, Arthur
Herzberg, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Cynthia Ozick, Desmond Tutu
and Harry Wu. Their responses, as varied as their experiences
of the world, remind us that Weisenthal's questions are not limited
to events of the past.
This important book has provoked international dialogue, bringing
together people of diverse backgrounds and faiths, to confront
profound and disturbing moral questions.
The first JRGO online forum will be moderated by some of the thinkers
and writers who contributed to Weisenthal's book. Often surprising
and always thought-provoking, The Sunflower will challenge you to define your beliefs about justice, compassion,
and human responsibility.