Jewish Quotes

“Here in the Settlement of the Pale, life was hard, but in times of real trouble, Leah thought it was always worse for the Jews.”
― Beverly Magid, Sown in Tears: A Historical Novel of Love and Struggle

“What I believe” is a process rather than a finality. Finalities are for gods and governments, not for the human intellect.”
― Emma Goldman, What I believe

“Every single day is tzimmes
Happiness and grief, always in season
Never just one way, but tzimmes
I will tell you why, one simple reason...
Whether your tzimmes is sweet or savory, simple or complex, I hope you learn to love it ... there is strength in the tzimmes pot.”
― Shellen Lubin

“Every single day is tzimmes
Because
Everyone you know is tzimmes
And so
Everyone you love is tzimmes”
― Shellen Lubin

“It's got to be all right
That it's not all right
'Cause there's always times when it can't be all right
That's how you
Get through
Every single day”
― Shellen Lubin

“It was an insane venture.

And then, while I was working away at figuring out how to make it happen,
I watched Inventing Anna,
and at the end of the whole series of episodes,
this accomplished con artist
was asked what most surprised her about people...
She said she was surprised that people couldn't live with
a higher level of anxiety.
She believed that that was what brought her down.

And at that moment I knew that that was what I needed to get through
this whole venture:
to be able to live with that level of anxiety.

And I could. And I did.”
― Shellen Lubin

“Fear breeds superstition.”
― Baruch Spinoza

“Those names, Ari and Sol - what is it about Jewish trans men that we all have to reach back to our roots, as if they are the only source of nourishment we have left?”
― Isaac Fellman, Dead Collections

“To claim Palestine after two thousand years made no more sense to him than the Italians claiming Germany because it was once occupied by the Romans.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“We have to start new every day, and sometimes, many times a day. Sometimes we just have to take a deep breath and start again.”
― Gershon Schusterman, Why God Why: How to Believe in Heaven When it Hurts Like Hell

“It’s impossible for human beings to accurately judge other human beings. So how can we judge God?”
― Gershon Schusterman, Why God Why: How to Believe in Heaven When it Hurts Like Hell

“If God doesn’t exist, no value is absolute. Life is just one big crapshoot.”
― Gershon Schusterman, Why God Why: How to Believe in Heaven When it Hurts Like Hell

“Hooknosed crones strapped into the electric chair. No one has ever seemed to comment that the stereotypical witch is meant to appear Jewish.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Stella Maris

“The Bible is not primarily man's vision of God but God's vision of man.
The Bible is not man's theology but God's anthropology.”
― Abraham Heschel

“Never since the days of the Spartan Helots has history recorded such brutality as has been ever since the war and as is now being perpetrated upon the Negro in the South. How easy for us to go to Russia and drop a tear of sympathy over the persecuted Jew. But a step across Mason's and Dixon's line will bring us upon a scene of horrors before which those of Russia, bad as they are, pale into insignificance! No irresponsible, blood-thirsty mobs prowl over Russian territory, lashing and lynching its citizens.”
― Lucy Parsons

“A world of meaning is lost when these views of racial ideology, the brutalization of war and the state-run process of extermination dominate our understanding of the Holocaust because the question "Why did the Nazis and other Germans burn the Hebrew Bible?" demands a historical imagination that captures Germans' culture, sensibilities, and historical memories.”
― Alon Confino, A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination from Persecution to Genocide

“I once overheard him saying to my mother that, in spite of the lack of contemporary evidence, he believed a historical Jesus had existed, a Jewish teacher of morals, of great wisdom and gentleness, a prophet like Jeremiah or Ezekiel, but that he could not for his life understand how anyone could regard this Jesus as "Son of God". He found blasphemous and repellent the conception of an omnipotent God who could passively watch His Son suffer that bitter and lingering death on the cross, a Divine "Father" with less than a human father's urge to come to his child's assistance.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“I know my Germany. This is a temporary illness, something like measles, which will pass as soon as the economic situation improves. Do you really believe the compatriots of Goethe and Schiller, Kant and Beethoven will fall for this rubbish?”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“Wouldn't it be better to avoid the thrust of the dagger which, I knew, with the atavistic insight of a Jewish child, would in a few minutes be plunged into my heart?”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“Perhaps if you were a Jewess it might be different. He'd suspect you of wanting to hook me. And he wouldn't like that at all. Of course, if you were immensely rich he might, he just might consider a marriage possible — but even so he'd hate to hurt my mother's feelings. You see, he's still very much in love with her.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“Like a hypnotist's pendulum, the spectacular chandelier swung to and fro, to and fro before playing tinkling tunes on its descent. Like the crescendo of crashing cymbals in Tchaikovsky’s ‘1812 Overture’, a dramatic finale ensued as it smashed to the ground.”
― Juliet Ayres, A Glimmer Through the Breach

“If Kushner’s view is correct, then renounce the members of the clergy as charlatans and discard the prayer books as offering only a placebo when true medicine is required. Throw away the Psalms as dealing in falsehoods. Excise “Thank God” from our discourse. If we can’t appeal to Him to help us because He is incapable, why should we thank Him when things go right? There is a certain intellectual dishonesty to this.”
― Gershon Schusterman, Why God Why: How to Believe in Heaven When it Hurts Like Hell

“We have to distinguish pain from suffering. Pain is part of the human condition and comes from the Creator. Suffering is inflicted by human beings on themselves. Pain usually has an end point, while suffering can go on indefinitely. Pain is inevitable, while suffering is optional.”
― Gershon Schusterman, Why God Why: How to Believe in Heaven When it Hurts Like Hell

“The light of the festival doesn't come from candles,
The sweetness in the air doesn't come from treats.
The light and sweetness of these joyful festivities,
Rise from the loving streams of our heartbeats.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Giants in Jeans: 100 Sonnets of United Earth

“You know why most menorahs nowadays have nine branches even though Hanukkah lasts eight days! It is to hold the ninth candle that sacrifices itself to light up the lives of those lamenting in darkness.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“My grandmother always made challah for Shabbat and dropped it off at our house. She said braided bread was a symbol of love because it’s like arms interlocking.”
― Roan Parrish, The Remaking of Corbin Wale

“A woman belongs on the bimah as much as an orange belongs on a seder plate!”
― Harriete Berman

“We do not know whether Jewish manuscripts were usually made by Jewish artists to order in Christian workshops, but they were certainly made in the styles locally current in their countries of adoption.”
― Janet Backhouse, The illuminated manuscript

“Do it to perfection, or not at all.”
― Laya Martinez, When Your Family Says No

“There are a thousand and one gates allowing entry into the orchad of mystical truth. Every human being has his own gate. He must not err and wish to enter the orchad through a gate other than his own. That would present a danger not only for the one entering but also for those who are already inside.”
― Elie Wiesel, Night