Last week, the U.S. Postal Service unveiled a new stamp honoring Holocaust survivor, Nobel laureate, writer, educator, and Clal co-founder Dr. Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) at a ceremony at New York’s 92nd Street Y. Wiesel’s image now joins the USPS Distinguished Americans series, marking his life as a moral leader and humanitarian.
For Clal, this recognition is as meaningful as it is momentous. In 1974, Wiesel co-founded Clal alongside Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg and Rabbi Steven Shaw z”l out of a pressing Jewish urgency: how to pivot from the ultimate experience of Jewish death in the Holocaust to a reaffirmation of life. In addition, in the founding of the State of Israel and the unprecedented freedom and acceptance of Jews in America, Clal’s founders recognized that a new era was dawning for American Jewry—one in which the old ways of doing business would no longer suffice. For Wiesel, this was a turning point, as he cultivated a broader human morality and began building bridges within the Jewish community and beyond.
Pluralism was at the heart of Clal’s founding. For Wiesel, pluralism was not an abstract value but a lived necessity. Having endured a world in which Jews perished side by side, Clal’s founders insisted the future must be one in which Jews across differences of practice, belief, and identity could truly live together. Wiesel and the other founders established early programs like Zachor to shape national Holocaust education, while immersive retreats and lay leadership learning initiatives offered experiences to build new models of Jewish engagement. Thanks to Wiesel’s commitment to pluralism, Clal created a national faculty of rabbis and scholars that transcended all denominational boundaries, in which diversity became a source of strength and renewal. That model was vital as questions of Jewish identity and coexistence engulfed American Jewish discourse, and Clal shaped a new generation of leaders who could navigate that pluralism.
A survivor of Auschwitz, Wiesel’s life was shaped by profound loss. He carried the memory of the Holocaust into every classroom, every lecture hall, and every page of his writing, including his acclaimed memoir, Night. Yet, fittingly the word inscribed on his stamp is “Humanitarian.” His legacy is not only that of bearing witness to his own and others’ suffering, but of being a teacher, builder, and moral guide who ensured that Jewish wisdom and ethics could speak meaningfully to a world in search of moral clarity.
Honoring Wiesel on a stamp may seem like a small gesture, but postage stamps have always been more than paper squares. Stamps are carefully designed to convey messages about history, culture, or national values. These miniature works of design carry memory, values and cultural storytelling out into our world, allowing their messages to travel farther than we do.
Every element on a stamp—typography, portrait style, color palette, white space—is carefully chosen to convey a story in a very tiny space. Stamps memorialize what a culture chooses to honor. In this moment, when antisemitism is on the rise and Holocaust denial persists, Wiesel’s face on a stamp becomes portable education, bringing attention to a history that is sometimes overlooked or distorted. That message also extends to future generations: commemorative stamps are often collected, archived, and displayed, becoming a lasting artifact. They remind us that even small designs can make a large impact.
For our part, we at Clal seek to carry forward Wiesel’s legacy by expanding the horizons of what Jewish life can mean and ensuring that compassion and moral responsibility remain at the center of our work.
Image of stamp: Courtesy © United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.