New Film on Elie Wiesel Brings his Voice and Zionism Back Into Focus

The project took shape over four years after the Wiesel family agreed to cooperate fully while granting the filmmaker independence.

By Shula Rosen

A new documentary, Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire, directed by Oren Rudavsky, presents a portrait of Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel through archival material and personal testimony, with his son Elisha Wiesel playing a central role in shaping the project and preserving his father’s legacy.

The film spans Wiesel’s life from his birth in 1928 in Sighet, Romania, through the Nazi deportation of his family in 1944.

His mother and younger sister Tzipora were killed upon arrival at Auschwitz, while he and his father were later transferred to Buchenwald, where his father died.

Wiesel was freed on April 11, 1945, before being sent to France and eventually building a career in New York as a writer, lecturer, and Nobel laureate.

Director Oren Rudavsky structured the project around extensive archival recordings, allowing Wiesel to tell his own story on screen. “What’s very powerful about the documentary is that it’s in his own words,” Elie Wiesel’s son, Elisha Wiesel, told Australian Jewish News. “And I think that that was really the right move. It was the respectful move, and it was the right move.”

The project took shape over four years after the Wiesel family agreed to cooperate fully while granting the filmmaker independence.

Elisha Wiesel said earlier proposals were rejected after his father’s death in 2016, particularly those focused on adapting his memoir, Night.

“Many of them wanted to make a film about Night, but we had very specific instructions from my dad that he never wanted another creative getting between him and his readers,” he said.

The documentary also incorporates footage from Boston University classrooms alongside contemporary teaching environments in Newark, reflecting how Wiesel’s work continues to be taught to new generations.

Elisha Wiesel said he has taken on a more visible public role following the October 7, 2023, attacks, describing what he saw as a rapid shift in discourse in the United States. “And immediately, all of a sudden, Jews were on the defensive. Israel was on the defensive,” he told Australian Jewish News.

He also highlighted his father’s identity as a Zionist as a point of contention in current debates. “This person, this great leader, was a Zionist and I watch people’s brains explode,” he said.

The film was screened in Australia as part of the Jewish International Film Festival, continuing efforts to present Wiesel’s life and work to broader audiences.