Students speak with Elie Wiesel, noted author, scholar, ardent Zionist and ambassador for human rights.
Katie Hartman is a senior at the Trinity School in New York City. She is also a participant in Write On for Israel.
Standing at the Western Wall this past summer, I felt profoundly uncomfortable. This is strange because I am a committed Conservative Jew and the Kotel is one of our holiest sites. The sentiment many American Jews share about the Western Wall — that it is the Jewish people’s holiest site and that it is a place at which spiritual epiphanies can take place — could not have been further from the truth in my case. In fact, the Kotel was a religious turn-off for me. Because I am not Orthodox, I felt like I did not belong there.
