Dawn

by

Elie Wiesel

The Old Man is the anonymous leader of the Movement. Though Elisha doesn’t know the Old Man’s identity, he believes he met him during training camp, as Elisha worked with a masked instructor who had a surprisingly gentle voice. The Old Man’s ideology centers on the belief that the Jewish people must take their future into their own hands by learning to hate their enemies. The Old Man orders Elisha to execute John Dawson. He refuses to back down from Dawson’s death sentence, despite worldwide protest, because he believes that Jewish people have passively endured persecution for too long and must fight back.

The Old Man Quotes in Dawn

The Dawn quotes below are all either spoken by The Old Man or refer to The Old Man. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Revenge, Terrorism, and War Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

The situation was grave. The Zionist leaders recommended prudence; they got in touch with the Old Man and begged him, for the sake of the nation, not to go too far: there was talk of vengeance, of a pogrom, and this meant that innocent men and women would have to pay.

The Old Man answered: If David ben Moshe is hanged, John Dawson must die. If the Movement were to give in the English would score a triumph. They would take it for a sign of weakness and impotence on our part, as if we were saying to them: Go ahead and hang all the young Jews who are holding out against you. No, the Movement cannot give in. Violence is the only language the English can understand.

In the late 1940s, following the horrors of the Holocaust, the Jewish community in British-ruled Palestine is filled with conflict. Though Zionists agree on the importance of creating an independent Jewish homeland in Palestine, they disagree on methods for establishing that homeland. In Dawn, the “Old Man”—the anonymous leader of the radical “Movement”—resorts to terrorist tactics like reprisals. This means that if the British execute a Jewish fighter, then the Movement will respond by executing a British soldier in turn. From the Movement’s perspective, the Jewish people have submitted to violence at others’ hands for far too long; if there is any hope for establishing an independent nation, then they must now treat others as they have been treated throughout history. Though other Zionists argue that such actions will invite indiscriminate violence, the Old Man maintains that anything less will keep the Jewish people in the same persecuted position they’ve occupied for centuries. Elisha soon finds himself in the middle of this tension as the Old Man calls upon him to carry out the execution.

Related Characters: Elisha (speaker), John Dawson, David ben Moshe, The Old Man
Page Number: 8
Get the entire Dawn LitChart as a printable PDF.
Dawn PDF

The Old Man Quotes in Dawn

The Dawn quotes below are all either spoken by The Old Man or refer to The Old Man. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Revenge, Terrorism, and War Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

The situation was grave. The Zionist leaders recommended prudence; they got in touch with the Old Man and begged him, for the sake of the nation, not to go too far: there was talk of vengeance, of a pogrom, and this meant that innocent men and women would have to pay.

The Old Man answered: If David ben Moshe is hanged, John Dawson must die. If the Movement were to give in the English would score a triumph. They would take it for a sign of weakness and impotence on our part, as if we were saying to them: Go ahead and hang all the young Jews who are holding out against you. No, the Movement cannot give in. Violence is the only language the English can understand.

In the late 1940s, following the horrors of the Holocaust, the Jewish community in British-ruled Palestine is filled with conflict. Though Zionists agree on the importance of creating an independent Jewish homeland in Palestine, they disagree on methods for establishing that homeland. In Dawn, the “Old Man”—the anonymous leader of the radical “Movement”—resorts to terrorist tactics like reprisals. This means that if the British execute a Jewish fighter, then the Movement will respond by executing a British soldier in turn. From the Movement’s perspective, the Jewish people have submitted to violence at others’ hands for far too long; if there is any hope for establishing an independent nation, then they must now treat others as they have been treated throughout history. Though other Zionists argue that such actions will invite indiscriminate violence, the Old Man maintains that anything less will keep the Jewish people in the same persecuted position they’ve occupied for centuries. Elisha soon finds himself in the middle of this tension as the Old Man calls upon him to carry out the execution.

Related Characters: Elisha (speaker), John Dawson, David ben Moshe, The Old Man
Page Number: 8