Shmuel Yosef Agnon Quotes

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

A lot of Jewish kids do identify with us.

A lot of Jews are great friends of mine.

As a journalist, I've always treaded carefully about being Jewish and caring a lot about Israel and having that not become too big of an issue that could affect my journalism. But I also don't think it's essential to my Judaism, as I think it might be for some other people.

In terms of defending Jews, I'm a Jew.

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.

We are organizing Jewry for its coming destiny.

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

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.

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.

I don't know what it's like to be Jewish, but I suspect there is some aspect of that: being Jewish is the thing that bonds you as opposed to being Jewish from Poland, or Jewish from Hungary.

I think a lot of Jews make Israel the centerpiece of their Judaism. It becomes the centerpiece of their Jewish existence and of their faith. I have always felt that that's not for me.

Today, Jewish defense is an accepted thing.

As a Jew I am aware of how important the existence of Israel is for the survival of us all. And because I am proud of being Jewish, I am worried by the growing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in the world.

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

I would like every Jew to be as comfortable in his skin as I am in mine.

As a Jew, it is my historic responsibility to defend the Jewish people. I feel this responsibility for the survival of the Jewish people. We're not going to accept any decision by anybody else about security of the State of Israel. It is our role and only our role.

I had a Hebraic wedding in New York, so I'm definitely Jewish.

No matter where you go in this world, you will always find a Jew sitting in the beach chair next to you.

I don't like to publicly acknowledge being a Jew.

I've begun to think like a Jew, to feel like a Jew.

Though I am not religious in the least, I am very proud to be Jewish.

There is something very very special, universal and easily identifiable among all Jews; it is beyond territory, it is something we all have in common.

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

To be good Americans, we must be better Jews, and to be better Jews, we must become Zionists.