The Jewish Wisdom Database

In Jewish history there are no coincidences.

Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.

Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.

I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. And anyone who does not remember betrays them again.

Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories.

I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to Him for that reason.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

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

Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.

The act of writing is for me often nothing more than the secret or concious desire to carve words on a tombstone: to the memory of a town forever vanished, to the memory of a childhood in exile, to the memory of all those I loved and who, before I could tell them I loved them, went away.

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.

Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercies over himself.

We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.