The Story of the Jews Quotes

“The wearing of skullcaps in public was criminalised, as were other items defined as habitually Jewish. But Hasidic Jews responded by adopting the costume of the Polish-Russian merchant; the black fox-fur shtreimel hat worn over the yarmulka, the long belted black coat and white stockings that merchants wore in St Petersburg. This is what they still wear in Jerusalem and elsewhere, imagined as distinctively Jewish dress, which frozen over the generations it has duly become.”
― Simon Schama, The Story of the Jews: When Words Fail, 1492–1900

“For the living the Jew is a dead man, for the natives an alien and a vagrant, for property owners a beggar, for the poor an exploiter, for patriots a man without a country.”
― Simon Schama, The Story of the Jews Volume 2: When Words Fail: 1492--Present

“when the groans and tribulations of the congregation of Cori became great, there came to us one who announced good tidings . . . we speak of the crown and glory and grace of the Nasi, the Lord and Noble one . . . the pillar of exile . . . Lord Don Joseph to whom God caused to be given the land of Tiberias . . . we have learned that many have already set out across the seas . . . we have been told that he seeks Jews who are craftsmen so they may settle and establish the land on a sound basis . . . On hearing all this we became stirred with one heart and went as one man to the synagogue . . . and there we made an agreement to go dwell beneath the pinions of the Almighty in”
― Simon Schama, The Story of the Jews Volume 2: When Words Fail: 1492--Present