Name: __________________
Date: ____________
Hour:____________
Night – Elie Wiesel. Reading 1 Theme: Defining Identity.
 Explore the factors that shape Eiliezer’s identity.
1. How does Eliezer describe himself?
2. What is his family like? To whom in his family does he seem attached? With whom would he like to be closer?
3. What role does Moshe the Beadle play in Eliezer’s life?
4. How important is religion to the way Eliezer defines his identity?
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Consider why no one believed Moshe the Beadle.
5. How does Eliezer view Moshe at the beginning of the book? How do others in Sighet regard him?
6. Why were Moshe and other foreign Jews expelled from Sighet? How do other Jews in the community respond to the deportation of foreign Jews?
7. What did Moshe witness when he was shipped to Poland? Why does he want the Jews of
Sighet to know what he saw?
8. Why is it so important to Moshe that he be believed?
9. Was Moshe a madman as some people claim? What does that label seem to mean in Sighet?
What does the word mean to you?
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Explore the relationship between Sighet and the outside world between 1941 and 1944.
10. What do the Jews of Sighet know about the outside world in 1941? How do they respond to what they know?
11. Why do you think they refuse to believe Moshe when he returns to Sighet?
12. Do you think people really believe that Moshe is lying to them? What is the difference between saying that someone is lying and saying that you cannot believe what he or she is saying?
13. What kinds of stories do you find it easiest to believe/ What kids of stories to find it hardest to accept as true? What are the main differences between the stories you believe without question and those you doubt?
14. What do the Jews of Sighet know about the outside world by the spring of 1944? How do you account for the way they respond to the stories they hear by word of mouth? Over the radio?
Have you or someone you know ever responded to news in similar ways?
15. How do the Jews of Sighet react to the arrival of the Germans? The creation of the ghettos?
Their own deportation? How do you account for these responses?
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Discuss the way the author tells his story
16. Why do you think Elie Wiesel begins Night with the story of Moshe the Beadle?
17. What lessons does the narrator seem to learn from Moshe’s experiences in telling his own story?
18. Why do you think Elie Wiesel tells his story in the first person perspective? If Night were written in the third person, would it be more or less believable?

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 Please choose one of the following options for today’s journal response.
Then write for 7-8 minutes on a piece of notebook paper.
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I would like to read your response, so please put it in the inbox when you are done. If you cannot write for the full time on one journal, you may choose another as well.
 Make sure you date the journal. Its title is “Journal Response Night
Reading One”
1. Write your responses to the book so far. You might want to make a list of questions and comments that come to mind as you read this part of the book.
2. Create a timeline to show what has happened so far in the story. Add to the timeline as you continue reading.
3. The word “night” is a key word in this section of the book. What does the word mean early in the first chapter? How does the meaning change as the story progresses?
4. The narrator from time to time breaks away from the story to tell the reader about something that has happened later or to ask a question. Why do you think Wiesel has chosen to do so? How is he preparing you for the rest of the story?
5. The narrator mentions a number of events in this section that take place for the first or the last time. List as many as you can find. What do these events have in common? Why do you think the author has chosen to draw your attention to them?