Arthur Hertzberg Quotes (24 Quotes)

The President gives Prayer Breakfasts. He almost invariably has at them, from the Jewish community, the most Orthodox hard-line rabbis he can find, or that can be found for him. The liberals are under-represented, or not represented at all.

I wrote two political letters this morning - as a retired country gentleman, who now teaches at the university, and writes books.

Most American Jews came from the lower middle classes, and therefore they brought with them not a lot of Jewish culture. The American Jewish story starts with Ellis Island, and the candy store in the Bronx.

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.

Do the Americans want democracy in the Middle East Do the Americans want the oil wells of Iraq and of Saudi Arabia controlled by regimes which are revolutionary, and which are Islamic fundamentalist Mr. Bush wants that like he wants a hole in the head.

I think anti-Semitism is the meal ticket of the organizations that fight it.

Look, the hard-line Jewish position is based, to this day, on the idea that the Palestinian Arabs somehow or other will either accept third-class status, or they will pick up and go away. Now, this isn't happening.

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.

On campuses, and when I speak to the younger intelligentsia, I am getting a hunger for the text - the authentic text for Jewish knowledge.

The Roosevelt enactment of Social Security was a moral revolution in our country: We were assured that we would never reach the very depths of poverty. And to be told, that we are now going to gamble it, on Wall Street, is nonsense!

I was one of the founders of Peace Now. I was then a resident in Israel... I was then visiting professor at the Hebrew University, teaching Jewish history. And in the mind of Israel now, and to some degree even then, I'm not quite an outsider.

I have never been a dove because I'm some kind of woolly-eyed liberal. I have been a dove from the very early period, because I recognized that the Palestinians weren't going to go away, and they weren't going to remain passive. And all of these predictions were correct. And we'd better now act on them and make peace.

Jewish fundamentalism is teaching that Jews can fight with guns and with civil war, against being relocated off the West Bank, and disobey the orders of their government. That is the call to jihad, to several kinds of jihad.

Moral values, if you want to use them correctly, begin with love of your fellow man. And if they teach, not love, but hatred if they teach you to be certain that your fellow man is part of what the Christians once... when they wanted to beat up on Jews... then it is the call to war, it is the call to fascism, and it makes God into Hitler Quote me.

I don't know where Bush is going - yet. But, Sharon obviously - I wrote somewhere in the last several months, that Sharon has adopted, essentially, the position of the Labor Party: that the Palestinians are here to stay.

A large part of the problem, is that young people are being born into the world and growing up without much hope. And so, they become murderers, they become suicide bombers.

Nobody is in the process of making any changes that we can be specific about.

In mid-career, I was at one and the same time the rabbi of a major congregation, writing books, and teaching at Columbia. I didn't spend enough time with my children. Now, when I get an all-important call, I sometimes say that I'm having lunch with my granddaughter. And I do not apologize

But, I know enough people in that court, through the years, to know one thing: There's always somebody who surprises you, who rises above what they thought they appointed him for, and stays with the separation of powers, and with the right of the law to decide.

I argue that the Talmud is about the constant struggle to understand.

How can a rabbi not live with doubt? The Bible itself is a book of doubt.

I regard Christian and Jewish fundamentalism, and all other forms of fundamentalism, as the enemies of God - and I hope you'll quote me on that.

I am a rabbi. I am an Orthodox rabbi. I was ordained an Orthodox rabbi, at the age of 18. I am writing a book on the Talmud, right now. This isn't being said, out of some liberal prattle It's being said from the very essence and the heart of our religion.

I write to tell my grandchildren where they come from, and what their grandparents were up to, and I hope they will in their own way continue. I invite anyone else to listen in.