I find it extremely disquieting; a great Jew dies and all you can think of is Palestine.

That's not true at all. What troubled me has nothing to do with Palestine. What troubled me is that when a human is degraded and abused to the point that Wiesel was, what remains is not simply a message that it should not happen to any human under any circumstances ever again. I don't fault Wiesel. He is only human. What troubles me is human nature. That was the only time I have been able to hear someone speak first hand about genocide.

This has nothing to do with Jewish people. Many Chinese would have a very difficult time feeling the same kind of empathy if Japanese came under oppression as opposed to some other people. This is a problem of human nature and our inability to reserve 'us' for when we speak of all of humanity.

What troubles me is that there seems to be an asterisk on our ability to view all human beings with compassion and mutual respect. I probably suffer from the same, although I haven't ever been put to the test. I don't expect that I would pass it as much as I would like to think that I could.

Don't get me wrong, the world needs as many Elie Wiesel's as it can get. But I read Night, and it made me want to cry for what people can do, and for what people have endured. Listening to him speak made me sad for another reason.