I know so many Irish musicians. They're all over, because there has been so much emigration from Ireland. Like the Jews.
My views about the safety of Jews in the world have not been changed by the work on the Dreyfus affair or, for that matter, by the work I did on Franz Kafka for the book on him I published a year before the Dreyfus book appeared.
I feel that the Jews have always had a special connection to this part of the world, which in geographical terms was called Palestine for so many centuries.
It is very important that the world know that there have been 500 years of peaceful coexistence in Turkey between the Jews and Moslems.
No one said anything to my face, but I constantly heard comments denigrating Jews.
In the late '80s, the U.S.S.R. loosened its restrictions on immigration. When the government was like, 'Y'all wanna bounce?' my family, along with tens of thousands of other Jews ran for the door in an attempt to make a better life in America.
For many years, our Messianic Jewish brothers and sisters have paid a great price. Other Jews have rejected them, and the Christian church would require they walk away from their traditions to fit into the Gentile culture. We must face these past wrongs.
I want to remind people that the Nazis weren't able to take the Jews to the crematoriums immediately. The German people wouldn't have allowed for it. Instead, the Nazis had to change public opinion. They marginalized the Jewish people, disparaged them, and made them objects of contempt.
I'm glad many Jews attend Knick games.
I really got the 'Rhoda' flavor from studying my stepmother, Angela, who's Italian, not Jewish. There's really so little difference between the speech patterns and family attitudes of Jews and Italians in the New York area, anyway.
To me, 'The End of the Jews' - both the title and the novel itself - is about the end of pat, uncritical ways of understanding oneself in the world.
When my children were born, I made the choice I wanted them to be raised as Jews and to have a Jewish education.
