Simon Schama Quotes

I've never understood people who say they're not a practicing Jew. You never hear a black guy say he's not a practicing African-American. What does it even mean?

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

I guess everything having to do with your background has some influence on how you tell stories but it's hard to parse how growing up in a Jewish community in Minnesota really affected it.

In my blood there is no Jewish blood. In their callous rage, all anti-Semites must hate me now as a Jew. For that reason I am a true Russian.

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.

Being Indian is not blood as much as it is culture.

The question of boundaries is a major question of the Jewish people because the Jews are the great experts of crossing boundaries. They have a sense of identity inside themselves that doesn't permit them to cross boundaries with other people.

To be a Jew is a destiny.

I'm a Jew.

I am not a Hollywood Jew and I won't ever be one.

Most Jews, like most rational persons, know that their personal identity and their ethnic identity are not one and the same.

Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.

The greatest guarantee for the preservation of a person’s identity is language and faith, and all Armenians must carry these two values.

I first discovered the Jewish People in America. I have seen any number of Jews, but the Jewish People I never met in Berlin or elsewhere in Germany. This Jewish People that I found in America came from … Eastern Europe generally. These men and women still retain a healthy ethnic feeling. It has not yet been destroyed by the process of atomization and dispersion.

The notion of someone who is fitting in or trying to become part of a larger family... It's hard to separate that from my own Jewish roots.

I've never been from a certain group. I've always reserved a space for myself where I'm unattached to any group, but the part of Judaism that I really take away, that means something to me, is the part about community.

Judaism is not, per se, a religion in the sense most Americans think of. Even if you don't adhere to the various precepts, you're still a Jew.

A Jew is anyone who says he is.

I am Jewish. My real name is Chris Tuckenberg. A lot of people don't know about that.

A life without stories would be no life at all. And stories bound us, did they not, one to another, the living to the dead, people to animals, people to the land?

We are committed to raising our children as Jews. I knew that it had to start with me at a greater level, at a deeper level, if it was going to be a meaningful example to them.

Because Jews were kicked out of every country in Europe at one time or another, and plenty of other places as well, there isn't an ability to identify with a national heritage - you'll never hear a Jew say 'I'm German' or 'I'm Polish,' without saying something about being Jewish as well, and for good reason.

Judaism is important to me from a tribal point of view.

The Jews know who they are as a people. The Christians have not come together as a people yet.

Jews have had to carry around their own sense of self in a carpet bag and I think perhaps too much emphasis might be being put on nationality and on the other hand patriotism, that sort of thing.