I couldn't have said it better!
Posted on 05/03/2005 2:55:50 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Since we have just finished celebrating Pesach and our exodus from Egypt over 3,300 years ago, I thought it might be interesting to look at our impact on the world through the eyes of those who we have impacted! Here are some thoughts for your consideration:
"Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has appeared in the world." -- Winston Churchill
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"The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven the everlasting fire, and has illumined with it the entire world. He is the religious source, spring, and fountain out of which all the rest of the peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religions." -- Leo Tolstoy
"The Jew gave us the Outside and the Inside - our outlook and our inner life. We can hardly get up in the morning or cross the street without being Jewish. We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes. Most of our best words, in fact - new, adventure surprise, unique, individual, person, vocation, time, history, future, freedom, progress, spirit, faith hope, justice - are the gifts of the Jews." -- Thomas Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews
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"It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the Jewish people... This people is not only of re- markable antiquity but has also lasted for a singular long time... For where as the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago,these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians tes- tify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell of years. They have always been preserved, how- ever, and their preservation was foretold... My encoun- ter with this people amazes me..." -- Blaise Pascal
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"The Jewish vision became the prototype for many similar grand designs for humanity, both divine and man made. The Jews, therefore, stand at the center of the perennial attempt to give human life the dignity of a purpose." -- Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews
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"As long as the world lasts, all who want to make progress in righteousness will come to Israel for inspiration as to the people who had the sense for righteousness most glowing and strongest." -- Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma
Cahill and Tolstoy are wrong as usual.
Tolstoy was right when he wrote about the way Anna Karenin brushed back her hair, the pecularities of Levin's toothache and the spots on Napoleon's gloves. The little things. He was wrong about anything outside of that sphere.
" Salvation is from the Jews" Yeshua
"[The Jew] has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him." -- Mark Twain
I agree with that. The Jews have been 'the hated of the Earth" for a long time, and all they seem to do is produce artists and Intellects (good and bad) and Nobel Prize winners and business leaders and political prodigies. ....and of course great athletes by the bucketful [/sarcasm].
May I add here one of my favorite poems, written by a famous Unknown author? I think it sheds a special light on the world we share.
The Jew
Scattered by God's avenging hand, afflicted and forlorn,
Sad wanderers from their pleasant Land, do Judah's children mourn;
and e'en in Christian countries, few breathe thoughts of pity for the Jew.
Yet listen, Gentile, do you love the Bible's precious page?
Then let your heart with kindness move to Israel's heritage;
who traced those lines of love for you?
Each sacred writer was a Jew.
And then as years and ages passed, and Nations rose and fell,
though clouds and darkness oft were cast o'er captive Israel
the oracles of God for you were kept in safety by the Jew.
And when the great Redeemer came for guilty man to bleed.
He did not take an angel's name, no, born of Abraham's seed,
Jesus, who gave His life for you -
the gentle Saviour - was a Jew.
And though His own received Him not, and turned in pride away,
whence is the Gentile's happier lot? Are you more just than they?
No! God in pity turned to you - have you no pity for the Jew?
Go then, and bend you knee to pray for Israel's ancient race;
ask the dear Saviour every day to call them by His grace.
Go, for a debt of love is due
from Christian Gentiles to the Jew.
What about this one?
"Jews! Unique nation of the world! For thousands of years the tyranny of the world has succeeded in depriving you of your ancestral lands but it has not eradicated your name, nor your national existence... Legitimate heirs of the Land of Israel!... Hurry! The moment has arrived to claim the return of your rights among the nations of the world. You must claim for yourselves a national existence as states among states, and your unencroachable right to bow down before God according to your faith, publicly and forever."
Napoleon Bonaparte’s "Appeal to the Jews," 1798.
If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one per cent. of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star-dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers.
He has made a marvellous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished.
The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?
FRmail me to be added or removed from this Judaic/pro-Israel ping list.
WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
"You (the Jews) have prayed for Jerusalem for 2000 years, and you shall have it."
Winston Churchill, cited in "The Time," London, May 5, 1938.
Hashem only knows.
My favorite Jewish quote:
"He had a hat".
I've always loved Mark Twain.
Give me a moment.
I will see if i can find the wonderful thing JRR Tolkien said about Jews, when he was asked what he thought of them by Germany...
Here we go:
REASON # 46,907,825 TO LOVE J.R.R. TOLKIEN
I've posted this quote before, but it is worth posting again. Via the sublime Emily Jones, who both posted this, and e-mailed me about it, here is this post by Sheilla O'Malley in which Tolkien responds to a query by a German publishing firm asking whether Tolkien was of arisch or "Aryan" origin (the publishing company was interested in a German translation of The Hobbit):
Thank you for your letter ... I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware noone of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject - which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.
Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.
I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and remain yours faithfully
J.R.R. Tolkien
(Tolkien Ping!)
"Jews are the same as everybody else -- only more so!"
You are a great addition to FR, Marguerite.
Thank you for your letter ... I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware noone of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject - which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.
There it is.
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