Maxine Kumin Quotes

I do not want to be misunderstood that you need a dose of persecution in order, really, to have a sense of your identity. Otherwise, you know, there would be no American Jews. Even if you're not strictly, fiercely Orthodox, you commit yourselves to a community of memory.

Most of the Jewish writer friends I have are American, and I feel closer to them because they're always obsessed with one issue - identity: what does it mean to be an American Jew?

It's interesting when you're part of a group - the Jews, to be exact - that the world has had such problems with.

It's tough being a Jew.

More than Israel has kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept Israel.

More than the Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews.

I was not a very good Jew. I never practised what Judaism tells you to do, to teach your kids all about Judaism.

When you come to Germany as a Jew you have an uneasy feeling, but I've always felt okay in Berlin.

I understood when I was quite small that there were two special things about the Jews. That we'd endured for over 3,000 years despite everything that had been thrown at us, and that we had an extraordinarily dramatic story to tell.

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.

I'm the only one in my family - I'm a practicing Jew - who has attached themselves to religion in a more traditional way.

I was the kind of Jew who'd be in a bar, somebody would say it's Yom Kippur, and I'd go, 'Really?'

I am very proud of being Jewish. I went to a Jewish school all my life.

As a matter of fact, part of being Jewish is the whole question of what it is to be a Jew.

What are you going to do to preserve a tradition that is the peculiar and unique culture that Judaism inculcates? The American Jewish community is not going to survive by lining up against its common enemy.

I believe in Judaism, I was raised a Jew, I'm happy to be one - or proud to be one.

I've had a bris, was Bar Mitzvahed and, on occasion, have referred to a temple as a shul. I've never denied it, nor have I disguised it. I am, indeed, a Jew.

My father's Jewish, so my world is Jewish whenever I go home.

I don't like to publicly acknowledge being a Jew.

I had always known that I was Jewish - we celebrated the holidays, we went to a synagogue - but I had never known that I was supposed to feel ashamed about it.

When my children were born, I made the choice I wanted them to be raised as Jews and to have a Jewish education.

I've begun to think like a Jew, to feel like a Jew.

Myself, first of all, I am a Jew. And that is the most important thing for me.

You can take a Jew out of a shtetl, but you cannot take a shtetl out of a Jew.

Being among my people is a delight. We Jews live among ourselves. I love it.