Mark Kurlansky Quotes

I do explicitly see Jewish people as a people - not either a religion or an ethnicity but a people.

Extol Jewish virtue, modern Zionism and the Israeli Defense Forces.

The argument that all Jews have a heartfelt investment in the state of Israel is untrue. Some have a heartfelt investment in corned beef sandwiches.

It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.

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 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.

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

It's clear to me that one can't be Jewish without Israel. Religious or non-religious, Zionist or non-Zionist, Ashkenazi or Sephardic - all these will not exist without Israel.

As a Jew, support for Israel is in my DNA.

I respect Israel as hugely special, especially given all the sensitivities around it. The Jews managed to build a country, to elevate it, without anything except people and brains.

I'm no more or less Jewish than any other Jew. Israel has survived because we haven't forgot our Judaism, but there are some Israelis who did forget.

Look, we have existed for 4,000 years - 2,000 years in diaspora, in exile. Nobody in the Middle East speaks their original language but Israel. When we started 64 years ago, we were 650,000 people. So, you know, we are maybe swimming a little bit against the stream, but we continue to swim.

My purpose is to have American Jews look away from the success story with which they've cheered themselves up, and to have them remember the classical tradition, whatever it is.

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?

We have our own values; we build our own special, our JEWISH life - and we are proud, so very proud.

In North America, the greatest threat to the Jewish people is not the external force of antisemitism, but the internal forces of apathy, inertia and ignorance of our own heritage.

When those of Jewish blood exhibit moral or intellectual superiority, genius or special talent, we feel pride in them, even if they have abjured the faith like Spinoza, Marx, Disraeli or Heine. Despite the meditations of pundits or the decrees of council, our own instincts and acts, and those of others, have defined for us the term 'Jew.'

Jewish people are tough people. They believe in something and believe it really strong, and I find it fascinating that a small country like Israel is as powerful as it is.

A Jew without Jews, without Judaism, without Zionism, without Jewishness, without a temple or an army or even a pistol, a Jew clearly without a home, just the object itself, like a glass or an apple.

I feel that I am completely in solidarity with Jews in the world, because I know what it is to be a Jew. I've seen what it is; I am myself of Jewish origin, and therefore I can only be fully in support of the idea that the Jews, after all they've suffered, need a country where they are at home.

If I have to advise our brothers in France, I'll tell them one thing - move to Israel, as early as possible. I say that to Jews all around the world, but there I think it's a must and they have to move immediately.

The Jews are the most formidable and most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.

The real threat to Zionism is the dilution of quality, Jews know that they can land on their feet in any country of the world. The real test for us is to make Israel such an attractive place—such a cutting-edge place in human society, education, culture, science, quality of life that even Americans Jewish young people will want to come here.

I think all the history of the Jewish people is about adaptation.

Open a Jewish daily prayer book used in any part of the world, and Zionism will leap out at you.