Jewish Literature Quotes

To accept the story of the Arab destruction of the library of Alexandria, one must explain how it is that so dramatic an event was unmentioned and unnoticed not only in the rich historical literature of medieval Islam, but even in the literatures of the Coptic and other Christian churches, of the Byzantines, of the Jews, or anyone else who might have thought the destruction of a great library worthy of comment. That the story still survives, and is repeated, despite all these objections, is testimony to the enduring power of a myth.

I consider myself a Jewish writer - even if my characters frequently are not Jewish - in the same way, I guess, that I consider myself a Jewish man, even though I don't often attend shul.

I do not recall a Jewish home without a book on the table.

"The State of the Jews" was not a title of a country. It was a title of a futuristic novel.

I'm a Jewish Jane Austen.

I have another aspect of my career where I'm a scholar of Yiddish and Hebrew literature, and I'll say that when you study Yiddish literature, you know a whole lot about forgotten writers. Most of the books on my shelves were literally saved from the garbage. I am sort of very aware of what it means to be a forgotten artist in that sense.

God, I just love 'A Journey to the End of the Millennium,' by A. B. Yehoshua. My favorite novel by an American Jew is probably 'Humboldt's Gift.'

A little more than a hundred years ago, "Tel Aviv" was not a city. It was a title of a novel written by an author. The "Return to Zion" was a name of another novel. There was a bookshelf. There was no country. There was no state. There was no nation. There was no physical Jewish reality in this country.

Of course I consider myself a Jewish writer - I am one! All of the protagonists in my five books have been Jewish, and I wouldn't be surprised if all my future main characters were as well.

I have also written a book about the Giving of the Torah, and a book on the Days of Awe, and a book on the books of Israel that have been written since the day the Torah was given to Israel.

'The Chosen,' if you recall, was based on the Chaim Potok novel and featured Robbie Benson's persuasive performance as a Hasidic Jew.

I'm basically an Upper West Side Jewish writer.

There are fewer and fewer Jews in Ireland, but we still have one of the most famous Jewish characters in literary history, of course, in Leopold Bloom.

My own interest in Kafka's letter came about when I was writing an article on Peter Ginz, the boy novelist held in Terezin, not far from Prague, and exterminated in Auschwitz by the Nazis. The Ginz family were from more or less the same milieu as the Kafkas.

I have a 10-year track record of writing for the Jewish community.

Arnošt Lustig is one of the leading contemporary Czech fiction writers, and certainly the most important Jewish writer of Bohemia to have survived the Holocaust.

I consider myself a Jewish writer, like all my heroes: Tom Stoppard, David Mamet, Philip Roth, Arthur Miller, Woody Allen.

I'm hot on the Jewish book club circuit. How many black authors do you know who can say that?

When you read the Koran, you give up. At least the Bible is very beautiful because Jews have an extraordinary literary talent.

November is Jewish book month, so Jewish Community Centers all around the country have book fairs where they invite authors and sell books in advance of the holidays.

There is in Ammiel Alcalay’s work an unabashed tenderness for the world as it is, and that makes him courageous, different.

Jewish authors would never have invented either that style nor that morality; and the Gospel has marks of truth so great, so striking, so utterly inimitable, that the invention of it would be more astonishing than the hero.

The big publishers want someone they can send on the Jewish book circuit, somebody the old ladies can see marrying their granddaughters.

Even when she was alive, Esther Kreitman's novels, short stories and translations received far less attention than the work of her famous brothers, I. J. and Isaac Bashevis Singer.

One is happy to report that Israel Shenker is still at the aerosol stage. His energy is still compressed. The result distinguishes him both as a Jew and as an observer of Jews.