Reza Aslan Quotes

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.

The Orthodox believe in Jewish literacy, and most of the rest of us couldn't care less. Rabbis and other creatures have a monopoly on Judaism. This is a turnoff in a world that is increasingly secular and that has turned away from religion. Jews are simply turning away from Judaism.

I just went to Hebrew school, had a bar mitzvah. No crazy weird Jewish cult.

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 try to be a good shiksa wife. I go to Central Synagogue in New York.

I am just a plain Jew; I mean have no training.

We are very anxious to bring the Jews of Morocco over and we are doing all we can to achieve this. But we cannot count on the Jews of Morocco alone to build the country, because they have not been educated for this.

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

The key to recognizing who Jesus was is to recognize this fundamental truth: He was a Jew.

We Jews have a special attachment to the Book. The study of page after page in tomes yellowing with age was obligatory.

I perceived how that it was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth except the Scripture were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother tongue.

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

I'm very spiritual and I'm Jewish by faith. I'm not a practising Jew, I'm more of a recreational Jew. I celebrate the holidays and I try to inform my kids about their heritage because I think we all at some point have to defend our heritage and if they get picked on I want them to know why.

When knowledge no longer becomes the commodity of the few, but in a sense becomes equalized by everyone having access, you lose some aspect of Jewish particularity, or at least a Jewish particularity that is fundamental to the construct of Jews as people of the book, which was always interesting.

Jewish children learn in secret. In backrooms and on long benches near a table. In time of danger they lean to hide their book between their stomach and their trousers---a kind of smuggling.

[Jews have] a particular need, evidently greater than that of any others, to pay more careful attention to education.

One is also obligated to divide one's [learning] time into three: a third for learning the Written Torah, a third for learning the Oral Torah and a third in which to understand and comprehend what one learnt into the first two thirds by deriving facts from other facts

Remove all images of a white Jesus. This is not correct even if one is Christian. The historical Jesus had be black in color despite the missionaries' attempt to paint him English and Swedish.

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.

Jews have become the teachers of men in great things.

Something about the cultural tradition of Jews is way, way more sympathetic to science and learning and intellectual pursuits than Islam.

I was honoured recently to accept the position of president of Mizrachi U.K. I did so because I believe our eternal challenge as Jews is both straightforward and also awash with complexity: How to sanctify the innovations of the modern world in accordance with our eternal Jewish values?

We keep a Jewish household and are raising our daughters Jewish.

I went to Hebrew school but opted out of a bar mitzvah.

'The New World Haggadah' is meant for American Jews in the 21st century.