Renowned author Mitch Albom shares message of hope and forgiveness with Stuart audience

Noted writer and philanthropist Mitch Albom spent about an hour Wednesday night telling a Stuart audience about the horrors of the Holocaust, the desperate conditions in earthquake-ravaged Haiti and the general tendencies people have to lie to one another.

When it was over, the crowd of about 200 at the Temple Beit HaYam left smiling, laughing and chatting excitedly among themselves.

There was good reason why the post-speech mood seemed more celebratory and less funereal.

While much of his subject matter was grim, Albom offered an uplifting message about hope, forgiveness and the ability people have to rise above the evil around them.

As Albom put it: "Hope is the sliver of light that creeps under the prison door."

Albom's talk essentially relaunched the Rappaport Center's popular speaker series.

Albom is a newspaper columnist, author and playwright best known for "Tuesdays With Morrie," a bestselling memoir. His books, which also include "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" and "The Time Keeper," have sold more than 40 million copies in 48 languages worldwide.

Albom devoted most of his talk to his latest book, "The Little Liar," a work of historical fiction that begins in a small Greek village during World War II.

The main character is an 11-year-old boy named Nico, who's so honest and virtuous that other villagers have nicknamed him "Snow," as in, "as pure as the driven snow."

A German officer recruits Nico to assist in loading the village's residents on trains bound for Auschwitz. Nico naively assures neighbors, friends and family members the trains will take them safely to new homes and jobs.

Only after the roundup is completed in an orderly fashion, mirroring real-life events, does Nico learn the German officer has tricked him into telling lies.

While most of the people Nico knows and loves are whisked away to their doom, the officer decides to spare Nico's life, which is at best a mixed blessing. (But also maybe Albom's way of saying that some shred of humanity existed even in the heart of a wicked Nazi agent.)

Nico becomes a pathological liar and spends decades haunted by the memory of what he had done.

But, as Albom explained, the book also offers messages of hope and redemption. Fannie, a childhood crush who survives the Nazi death camps, spends years trying to track Nico down and offer forgiveness for his betrayal.

Albom also hinted there are signs that while Nico essentially assumes a new identity working as a movie producer in the United States, he retains at least some remnants of the person he had been as a child growing up in that village.

Albom suggested to the audience that lying is very much ingrained in human nature. While some lies are small, and may even spare the people who hear them from more hurtful truths, other lies can cause great damage to the human psyche.

While the book is fictional, Albom said it addresses themes that are still relevant in today's society.

He noted how trust in many institutions has progressively eroded, leaving people struggling to know what to believe.

"When we lose faith in the pillars of our society, we become susceptible to suggestion," Albom said. "When people are unhappy, they look for someone to blame. And we live in unhappy times."

Albom recounted how Adolf Hitler's use of repeated lies, often couched in euphemisms to soften their hard edges, aided his rise to power.

"Does that sound familiar?" Albom asked the audience, without mentioning anyone in particular.

After his book was written, Albom recounted how he learned from journalist Anderson Cooper about an eerily similar situation in which Hamas members convinced an Israeli villager to reassure his neighbors that it was safe to come outside, where they were slaughtered at the beginning of the ongoing conflict.

While Albom writes about uncomfortable topics, he remains committed to the idea hope can conquer adversity. He noted a critic of one of his books mockingly described Albom as "the King of Hope."

"Personally, I think that's a pretty good throne to be stuck on," Albom said.

Albom also emphasized the importance of forgiving people in our lives, even if they're in the wrong. That was one of the lessons he learned from his former college professor and mentor, whose conversations were the basis for "Tuesdays with Morrie."

"Forgive everyone, everything," Albom recalled his mentor saying as he was dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a nervous system disorder also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. "That's not a lesson we should wait until the end of our lives to figure out."

From its founding in 2002 until 2020, the Rappaport Center recruited prestigious speakers from diverse fields to promote knowledge and understanding among Treasure Coast residents.

Past speakers included Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, super lawyer Alan Dershowitz, political analyst David Gergen and oceanographer Edie Widder.

The series was temporarily suspended in response to COVID and the 2021 death of founder Jerome "Jerry" Rappaport, a philanthropist and former Sewall's Point resident. His widow, Phyllis Rappaport, brought the speaker series back this year.

Next up in the series will be David Ignatius, a foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Post and author of spy novels, including “The Paladin," “The Quantum Spy" and “The Director."

Ignatius is scheduled to speak April 10, from 7 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. Tickets are available by contacting the temple at (772) 286-1531.

This column reflects the opinion of Blake Fontenay. Contact him via email at blake.fontenay@tcpalm.com or at 772-232-5424.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Rappaport Center speaker Mitch Albom offers message of hope to Stuart