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J Quotes

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“Jewish self-image and its historiographic reflection were transformed by the destruction of the state and temple and the exile of the Jewish people. But continuity was preserved in language and scripture, memory and commemoration. The rabbis were not only the supplanters but also the heirs and custodians of the old tradition from which they claimed to derive their own legitimacy. The situation in Persia and in other Middle Eastern countries was radically different. Here the conquest and conversion of these peoples to Islam brought radical change and, above all, discontinuity. Muslim conquest brought a new religion and the consequent changes were far greater than, for example, in Christendom. Christianity triumphed in the Roman Empire, but it did so by conversion, not by conquest, and it preserved the Roman state and the Roman law and learned to live with the Latin and Greek heritage. Islam created its own state, the Caliphate, and brought its own language, Arabic, and its own scripture, the Qur’an. The old states were destroyed. The old languages and even the old scripts were forgotten. The rupture was not as complete as was once thought, or as Muslims claimed, and much pre-Islamic custom survived under an Islamic veneer. [...] There was no usable past from a Muslim point of view—hence the Muslim neglect both of history and of epic, with only minor exceptions. There was thus complete discontinuity in the self-image, the corporate sense of identity, and the collective memory of the Islamic peoples of the Middle East.”

“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist; not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahalal arose in the place of Mahalul, Gevat - in the place of Jibta, Sarid - in the place of Haneifs and Kefar Yehoshua - in the place of Tell Shaman. There is no one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”

“Jewish voters care. They want someone who's good on Israel and who's good on Jewish issues. But they also want somebody who's going to be pro-choice and pro-gun control and pro-gay rights. To the vast majority of the Jewish community, just being good on Israel or on Jewish issues is not enough.”

“Jewish women are very exciting, as exciting sexually as any other group. Even so, my advice to a young man marrying a Jewish girl would be to have three and a half years of foreplay. Of course, most girls in every group are reserved about getting down to it. They don't usually do it right away. But once they do it, women are bananas. They don't wanna do it, you can't make them do it, there's no way they'll do it - but once they do it, they don't let you alone.”

“Jews allow to steal lands from Palestinians, only because they are Jews, and those are Palestinian. I want to repeat it, because people here in America don't believe it. We have a new law that settlers allowed to steal private lands of Arabs and take it to Jews. This is an official law. And now they're going to ban everyone who criticize a pure apartheid law. So, in a way, it's horrific. It's only everyone who stand for civil right in the minimum level - liberals, not radical - is not allowed to Israel.”

“Jews and homosexuals are the outstanding creative minorities in contemporary urban culture. Creative, that is, in the truest sense: they are creators of sensibilities. The two pioneering forces of modern sensibility are Jewish moral seriousness and homosexual aestheticism and irony.”

“Jews are no longer pressed and obliged to fight, hide or deny their Jewishness. What for? No one actually requires today to abandon the idiosyncrasy of some other culture or ethnic tradition. The great achievement of this last period is that we have been slowly, sometimes reluctantly, yet steadily, learning the art of living with differences.”

“Jews are obligated to fulfill the particularities of Mosaic law. They don't light Sabbath candles simply because candles make them feel close to God, but because God commanded the lighting of candles: Closeness might be a nice by-product, but it is not the point. Christians will understand candle-lighting a little differently. Spiritual practices don't justify us. They don't save us. Rather, they refine our Christianity; they make the inheritance Christ gives us on the Cross more fully our own... Practicing the spiritual disciplines does not make us Christians. Instead, the practicing teaches us what it means to live as Christians.”

“Jews are told that they should spend their lives helping others and when they make a lot of money it really bothers them. So, as a way to decrease their guilt, they try to help the underdog. They think, "Why should I be rich when so many suffer?" They feel better once they run to the party that claims to defend the underdog, the Democrats.”