Jewish Quotations | Page 2

Now, when we say we want peace, what we want is really for our Palestinian neighbours to have a demilitarized state next to us that recognizes the Jewish State. We're willing to recognize their state, the Palestinian state. But we ask them to recognize the Jewish state.

My prayer is that the good news of Jesus, the crucified and risen Messiah, would flood Jewish communities around the world, that the veil would be lifted, and that we would see a massive turning of Israel to the Lord Jesus.

You don't have to be Jewish to understand the history of Europe in the 20th century, but it helps.

At school, I never had a hold on English history, and cheder was a place run by sadistic incompetents, so I felt alienated from the Jewish part of my past.

Of course I consider myself a Jewish writer - I am one! All of the protagonists in my five books have been Jewish, and I wouldn't be surprised if all my future main characters were as well.

The election of the Jewish people is the result of God's falling in love with Abraham and founding a family with him.

So an autobiography about death should include, in my case, an account of European Jewry and of Russian and Jewish events - pogroms and flights and murders and the revolution that drove my mother to come here.

In my work with young Jewish adults in the gay community, I hear their stories of discrimination, of struggling for acceptance, of feeling invisible not for what they have done but simply for who they are.

In historical messianism, the reign of the Messiah is brought about by a Jewish ruler powerful enough to gather the Jewish exiles back to the land of Israel, reestablish a Torah government there, and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

We had a Jewish school; we had a Jewish club. My father was a main donor. My mother was on the committee of the school.

The opposition tried to brand us as the 'Ground Zero megamosque.' The language was deliberately wordsmithed in order to arouse hostility against us. But the idea that the Jewish mayor of New York City and the president of the United States supported a mosque at Ground Zero, and took a lot of flak for it, raised their stature in the Muslim world.

In the modern era, Jewish sovereignty over the land of our ancestors is a relatively short phenomenon. From the time of the successful Maccabean revolt to the Roman annexation in 63 BC constitutes about 100 years of Jewish rule. Combined with Israel's independence in 1948, this is about 160 years of effective sovereignty.

Only if we accept the proposition that the state of Israel is the exclusive and legitimate representative of the Jewish people would a movement calling for divestment, sanctions and boycott against that state be understood as directed against the Jewish people as a whole.

When you have a Jewish mother who has a very strong Jewish family, it's very ethnic in its practices. Eating brisket, the food and the family and the interconnectedness for better or worse.

Working with the Jewish community is essential to me and what I stand for.

Both peoples, both nations, deserve a nation-state of their own. Palestinians, if they wish so, will go to the Palestinian state; Jews, if they so wish, can go to the Jewish state. And we'll have to have security and demilitarization agreements between us.

For I firmly believe that Jewish life, indeed any communal life, can only be organized according to democratic principles.

I wouldn't trade anything for family time. To me, it is more important than everything else, and I have a very deep-rooted belief in it, which is influenced by my Jewish faith. That's a very great source of who I am and what I believe in.

It is not wealth, it is not station, it is not social standing and ambition which can make us worthy of the Jewish name, of the Jewish heritage. To be worthy of them, we must live up to and with them. We must regard ourselves their custodians.

I grew up in a tradition where having ideas and contributing to the community and creating art that had an impact on the world mattered. That's part of the Jewish tradition.

When those of Jewish blood exhibit moral or intellectual superiority, genius or special talent, we feel pride in them, even if they have abjured the faith like Spinoza, Marx, Disraeli or Heine. Despite the meditations of pundits or the decrees of council, our own instincts and acts, and those of others, have defined for us the term 'Jew.'

A challenge to the right of Israel to exist can be construed as a challenge to the existence of the Jewish people only if one believes that Israel alone keeps the Jewish people alive or that all Jews invest their sense of perpetuity in the state of Israel in its current or traditional forms.

I grew very skeptical of certain kind of Jewish separatism in my youth. I mean, I saw the Jewish community was always with each other; they didn't trust anybody outside. You'd bring someone home, and the first question was, 'Are they Jewish, are they not Jewish?'

When Zionism becomes co-extensive with Jewishness, Jewishness is pitted against the diversity that defines democracy, and if I may say so, betrays one of the most important ethical dimensions of the diasporic Jewish tradition: namely, the obligation of co-habitation with those different from ourselves.

There is a Jewish tradition of family, too, but then not all Italian or Jewish families are close.

I was always a little unsteady in my self-belief. Then there was the Jewish thing. I love being Jewish, I have no problem with it at all. But it did become like a scar, with all these people saying you don't look it.

I'm Jewish, I can say it. We're storytellers. We were the moneylenders... Therefore we tell great tales to get what we need. I love Jewish men. They make the best husbands.

Every Yom Kippur, Jewish tradition requires a strict spiritual inventory. You aren't supposed to just sit around feeling guilty, but to take action in the real world to set things right.

My parents decided - because they were not going to teach us anything Jewish at home - to send both me and my sister to a Jewish primary school. So I went to Kerem Primary School in Hampstead Garden Suburb. But, for me, that school really didn't work that well.

Mainstream Jewish intellectuals became 'pro'-Israel after the June 1967 war when Israel became the U.S.A.' s strategic asset in the Middle East, i.e., when it was safe and reaped benefits. To credit them with ideological conviction is, in my opinion, very naive.

I've always felt that there's a Catskills comic who lives in my head and is constantly trying to get out. There's all these jokes that have been passed down from Jewish generation to Jewish generation, which I love but which I've always made fun of.

I had always been interested in politics. I had assumed, for a variety of - well, for two reasons, being Jewish and being gay back in the late '50s, early '60s - that I would never be elected or anything, but I would participate as an activist.

I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures or that the Jewish song is better than the song of my neighbor.

I don't think I ever really knew the right words to 'Hava Nagilah,' which isn't great for a Jewish singer.

My dad's Jewish and my mum is Christian, so I grew up with no religion. Just whatever religion I wanted.

One of the great strengths of the United States is... we have a very large Christian population - we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.

Historically, I come from Jewish history. I had the classic upbringing in the Yeshiva, learning, learning, and more learning.

In the suburban Midwestern Reform Jewish world I was raised in, in the nineteen-seventies and eighties, grown men built plastic scale models of Israeli tanks and F-15 jets and displayed them throughout the house, dangling the warplanes from bedroom ceilings with fishing line.

I wear the Jewish star, but I'm not - I haven't converted to Judaism, and I'm not - I'm not - I'm not Jewish in the conventional sense because the Kaballah is a belief system that predates religion and predates Judaism as an organized religion.

There is a school in Israel called Hand in Hand which I support. There Arab and Jewish students study together on a daily basis.

I could not cherish London and not value Jewish London. The contribution of Jews to London is immense - politically, economically, culturally, intellectually, philanthropically, artistically.

My story is so boring: Long Island Jewish parents take their daughters to Broadway.

President Obama himself has attributed the legitimacy of the Jewish State not to its historic identity as Jewish territory, but to the Holocaust.

My father was a doctor in Moravia, in the south of the country. There were a number of Jewish doctors in the hospital there, and at a certain point - almost too late, really, but in time - they were all sent overseas by their employer.

If a Jewish group sat down with a Christian conservative group, and there was a so-called Messianic Jew at the table, that would be the end of the meeting.

If you are trying to raise a child to be a Jew, then you have to create a sense of Jewish identity. You really weaken that sense of identity if you celebrate two religions.

People who criticize power in the Jewish community are regarded the way Ahab treated Elijah: You're a traitor.

I was raised in an orthodox Jewish home where it was expected that, as a woman, I'd marry an investment banker, raise kids in the suburbs and go to temple. I wasn't raised to set the world on fire.

Nobody in France would ever say 'He's a Jewish novelist' or 'She's a black novelist,' even though people do write about those subjects. It would look absurd to a French person to go into a bookstore and see a 'Gay Studies' section.

When the Jewish people, after nearly 2,000 years of exile, under relentless persecution, became a nation again on 14 May 1948 the 'fig tree' put forth its first leaves. Jesus said that this would indicate that He was 'at the door,' ready to return.

My father's politics and ideas were, to me, unforgivable. He was a Jewish convert who became very anti-Semitic, and I didn't find the anti-Semitism forgivable.

My father was a Jewish immigrant who settled in Argentina and was left to his own devices at the age of 15. My mother was a teacher, herself the daughter of a poor immigrant family.

My grandmother on my father's side, a nightclub singer, was a Jewish refugee from Prussia who ended up in Jerusalem, where she met my grandfather - a British army officer. I remember as a child having bowls of chicken soup made by her. There were lots of interesting components, like feet and necks.

My greatest hope is that we will see a day when Israel will stand tall as a symbol of belonging across the Jewish world, and when global citizens will look to Jerusalem as the vibrant, modern, inclusive capital of Israel.

One of the things that has strengthened the bond between Laura and me over the years is our shared belief in giving of ourselves to improve the life of our community. We are honored to receive this award and pledge to always strive to live up to the high ideals of its namesake and those of The Jewish Theological Seminary.

My first agent told me to change my name or I'd only play Jewish parts or Indians. Of course I refused to change it. Shortly thereafter she came up to me and told me I had to keep it, because her numerologist said it was very, very good.

My family is a Jewish Iranian family, but I was born in Turkey and raised in Italy. So it's a very mixed background.

Now you have an Iraq war that Americans are turning against, and you have people saying it's all a Jewish conspiracy. But look at President Clinton's team: You had many Jews who aggressively pushed for peace in the Middle East. But these same critics don't see this as part of the same conspiracy.

People were sort of stopping having the traditional Jewish music in weddings and ceremonies. And I kind of liked that stuff.

My first novel, 'Compromising Positions,' was a whodunit. The protagonist was a Long Island Jewish housewife who turns private investigator. But she was Jewish the way I was: lighting Sabbath candles but envying her Protestant and Catholic friends' December decorating options.

I grew up in a reform Jewish family in St. Louis. Our idea of Judaism was no bar mitzvahs and a Christmas tree that had a skirt at the bottom embroidered with the names of my grandparents.

I'd like to do a Jewish porno movie. I'd call it 'I don't Want to Do That.

When towns have sent out suicide bombers to fire incessantly and indiscriminately into Jewish communities, they become legitimate targets.

Since the beginning of this administration, he has been a senior-level force for making sure the Jewish community had a voice at the very highest levels of the administration.

Mother humor is such a universal theme. I wrote a show called '25 Questions for a Jewish Mother.' I had people coming up to me after the show saying, 'I'm Baptist, and my mother is just like yours.'

Mr. Wiesenthal has been untiring in his service to the Jewish communities in the U.K. and elsewhere by helping to right at least some of the awful wrongs of the Holocaust, ... If there is one name which symbolizes this vital coming to terms with the past, it is Simon Wiesenthal's.

She has been a key liaison with the Jewish world, and has helped to expand his knowledge and relationship with the community.

She has disturbing views on the Jewish people that are unacceptable to us.

she can't keep the opinions about the Jewish people to herself ... She has disturbing views on the Jewish people that are unacceptable to us.

Life for these Jewish gauchos was very hard. They had no tractors, suffered from locusts and made a pittance of a living - so my father went to find work in Rosario, married there and eventually brought the whole family over.

So it's not going to help create good relations between Jewish communities and others.

Simon Wiesenthal was an individual who made sure we didn't forget the atrocities visited on us just because of who we are and he made sure the individuals responsible were brought to justice. For that, the Jewish community owes him a great deal of gratitude and respect.

Simon Wiesenthal will forever be rightly credited with ensuring justice was done for some of the worst crimes in history...He was tireless in his efforts and he gave the Jewish communities in the UK and around the world a lifetime of service, and future generations will forever be indebted to him. His important work will be continued by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, ensuring that his name and legacy are preserved. The name Simon Wiesenthal will forever be synonymous with justice and fostering tolerance and understanding.

Shock. Disbelief. This is a loss to the entire Jewish community.

The prime minister views with great severity the Jewish terrorist actions directed against innocent Palestinians out of the warped thought that out of this action the disengagement could be brought to a halt.

When the Temple was destroyed, the Jewish people faced a crisis unlike any other in its history. For centuries, the sacrificial system had served as the primary medium of atonement before the Almighty.

I have Jewish friends. I have Middle Eastern friends. I have Spanish and Italian and British and Scottish and German friends and Austrian friends, and guess what? They all deal with homophobia. It's an earthling epidemic; it's not isolated in the black community.

Hanukkah represents the eight days that oil burned in the temple when there was only enough to burn for one night. Our gathering this year has even more meaning in light of recent events. As small as our Jewish group has become that's met in Diamondhead for 20 years, it's important that we be together. No one remains untouched by the hurricane.

I am proud to nominate the first Jewish candidate for vice president, my colleague and my friend Joseph Lieberman, ... Al Gore, you could not have made a better choice for the vice presidential candidate of the United States.

I can't imagine writing something that didn't address Jewish themes and questions. It's such a big part of my life, a lot of the way in which I experience the world.

For those who have envisioned the State of Israel to be a democracy, which although primarily a Jewish polity for Jews is one in which non-Jews can become citizens and enjoy equal civil rights with the Jewish majority, the question of natural law is the question of human rights.

I believe that we can live together with the Palestinians, ... I came here to the holiest place of the Jewish people in order to see what happens here and really to have the feeling of how we need to move forward. There was no provocation here.

But every single Jewish manuscript is evidence of an individual's commitment to that manuscript.

They’re good people. I have a lot of Jewish friends.

Have you been around South Beach? Most of the people I see with chains are elderly Jewish gentlemen. I don't know what he's talking about. There's no rule we have that doesn't affect several hundred young African-American men. You can't play the race card here without having it flipped back at you.

Herzl declared the Jewish State in Basel and Sharon outlined its borders in Crawford, ... From the moment he decided that he has to consolidate the Jewish state lines, it was as good as done.

He was prescient. What can I tell you? He was a Jewish soothsayer. One of the things I admire stylistically is how he was able to give you the bitter pill with such good laughs.

Gribenes have been referred to as Jewish popcorn or kosher pork rinds. It's basically chicken skin fried in schmaltz. They're crispy and mixed with fried onions. I'm telling you, when you have it with chopped liver, it's the most incredible thing because you get this crunch and this surge of chicken flavor.

I'm a good girl, and I have a very good Jewish family who brought me up very well.

Hitler's appeal to greed and sloth, to increase German prosperity without requiring Germans to work for it, led into the Holocaust because confiscating Jewish property seemed to make sense to the greedy.

Golda was born in 1898. Her life parallels the life of the Jewish people in the 20th century. The text is beautiful. It gives enough history so that non-Jews can follow it.

Here's the thing: I'm not beautiful. I mean, I'm a perfectly normal-looking Jewish guy. My face has never been my fortune, nor has my body... physical beauty has never been part of my equation. It's just not on my shopping list.

undermine the character of the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

He's decided the African-American community is more important to his re-election than the Jewish community. He doesn't care about ending discrimination.

I first came to Jewish-Catholic relations in 1963, while studying for the rabbinate at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.

My parents were born and brought up in New York City. My father was trained as an electrical engineer, and my mother was an elementary school teacher. They were the children of Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States from England and Lithuania in the late 1800s.

My parents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe; my father came to South Africa from Lithuania in 1910, my mother, from Latvia, in 1922.

Livingstone has a blind spot when it comes to relations with the Jewish community. He has an antipathy, an antagonism, a personal dislike for the Jewish community.

Stanley Hauerwas is correct that Judaism insists on the bearing of children because it is essential to Jewish continuity. But to end the matter there is to miss an essential point: if we are to learn to love others, Judaism says, we must begin by loving those who are closest to us.

Refugees, Jerusalem, borders, Jewish settlements and water are issues reserved to the final-status talks between the two sides and nothing should pre-empt or pre-judge the outcome of the final status talks before they begin.