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Quote by Irena Klepfisz

“Most Jewish feminists and gays that I know remain angry and frustrated by Jewish progressives. Deeply committed to progressive causes, frequently in the vanguard of political action, Jewish feminist and gays find ourselves fighting for the rights of others without the secure knowledge that others will fight for us.”

Quote by Irena Klepfisz

Author

Irena Klepfisz, born on April 17, 1941, is a Polish-American author known for her focus on Jewish history and identity, particularly the experiences of Holocaust survivors. Her writing style is unique, blending personal experience with profound social commentary. more

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“...I've stopped wanting to do any work at all. All work is bullshit. Everyone knows that. No matter how many telephones and extensions, no matter how many secretaries, no matter how many names in the rolodex. It's all bullshit.”

Knows Matter Names Work Secretary Bullshit Extensions Telephones

Book:Keeper of accounts

Source: Keeper of accounts

“How do we work together? For if we want liberation for women, then we're committed to building a society in which these distances--of class and economics--dissolve, and all our authentic differences--cultures, personalities, sexualities, talents, and aspirations--emerge and are equally nourished.”

Ifs Want Together Culture Differences Freedom Class Talent Building Personality Diversity Economics Distance Committed Sexuality Liberation Aspiration Working Together

Author:Irena Klepfisz

“What we grieve for is not the loss of a grand vision, but rather the loss of common things, events and gestures.... ordinariness is the most precious thing we struggle for, what the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto fought for. Not noble causes or abstract theories. But the right to go on living with a sense of purpose and a sense of self-worth--an ordinary life.”

“...Jews must learn to say without excuse, without equivocation: despite our history and our powerlessness in the past, despite allthe injustices that we have endured--today, now, the Palestinians are the victims of oppression, and their oppressors are the Israelis.”

Today Past Victim Injustice Jew Excuse Despite Oppression Palestinian Oppressors Powerlessness

Author:Irena Klepfisz

“Poland remains undzer heym, our home, no matter how bitter the memories, how filled with disappointment and betrayal. Amerike iz goles, America is exile, a foreign land in which I speak a foreign tongue. But I will never live in Poland. I do not want to, though I do not see an end to the mourning.”

Source: Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essays, Speeches, and Diatribes

“...Iknow the bitter fact that most lives are incredibly wasted, that opportunities for developing identity, for receiving pleasure, for achieving a sense of self-worth are limited and, not only underdeveloped, but in most cases not developed at all--because no one thinks that a housewife, or a mother, or a typist has anything to develop.”

Thinking Self Facts Mother Opportunity Pleasure Cases Achieve Identity Self Worth Bitter Developing Receiving Sense Of Self Housewife

Author:Irena Klepfisz

“...I am an outsider, a lesbian, a shikse. The Jewish community is not my community. But as a Jew--as a Jew in a Christian, anti-Semitic society--the Jewish community is, and will always remain, my community. Enemy and ally.”

Christian Community Enemy Jew Allies Outsiders Anti Semitic Jewish Community

Book:Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essays, Speeches, and Diatribes

Source: Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essays, Speeches, and Diatribes

“The aspirations of most people--security, pleasure, leisure, meaningful work, creative and intellectual pursuits--are to be supported. These desires and dreams are not shameful. In supporting them, we are showing solidarity with working people, for whom these are luxuries and not givens.”

People Dream Desire Given Pleasure Creative Security Intellectual Meaningful Pursuit Luxury Aspiration Leisure Solidarity Shameful Meaningful Work

Book:Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essays, Speeches, and Diatribes

Source: Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essays, Speeches, and Diatribes

“Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society... It is in fact totalitarianism. I find this is very scary stuff.”

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Author:Stephen Harper

“Johnson is wise, Boswell foolish; Johnson warns and abstains, Boswell plunges; Johnson is rather a great man writing than a greatwriter, Boswell is a great writer and an ordinary man; and they are two of a kind, abysmal melancholics and compulsive socializers, afraid of solitude and afraid of death and dissolution, victims of themselves, meant for each other, needing each other, needing evidence and arguments (Boswell is a lawyer, Johnson magisterially dictates to him some of his briefs), making beautiful models of rational discourse out of the useful substance of all they know.”