In the episode, host Lillian I speaks with Bernice Lerner about her riveting book, All the Horrors of War: A Jewish Girl, a British Doctor, and the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen.
In their conversation, Dr. Lerner reflects on the experience of writing about her mother’s Holocaust experience, how she sees her writing as an important vehicle for teaching about peace and justice, the transformative power of sharing our stories, as well as her perspectives on Daisaku Ikeda’s notion of the greater self.
In addition to her writings on the Holocaust, Dr. Lerner has written and taught on the topic of virtue ethics. She is the former dean of adult learning at Hebrew College, former lecturer on the Holocaust at Boston University, and a senior scholar at Boston University’s Center for Character and Social Responsibility.
If you are interested in learning more about Dr. Lerner and All The Horrors of War, you can visit her website here. You can also tune into her other talks here.
This episode launches a special, multi-part series exploring themes from Mr. Ikeda’s 1993 Harvard lecture, “Mahayana Buddhism and Twenty-first Century Civilization.” Stay tuned for our next episode on the theme of interdependence.
Email podcast@ikedacenter.org if you have any questions or dialogue stories to share with us.
Music attribution: Podcast Music
This central concept of Daisaku Ikeda’s reveals how the path of positive personal and social change based on Buddhist humanism is essentially an affirming and expansive one. Both of these attributes flow from the Buddhist understanding that no life condition or circumstance is permanent, thus allowing for the emergence of new realities.
