Words matter. These are the best A. B. Yehoshua Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
In my DNA, the Zionist gene is extremely strong.
I think about the Arabs not as enemies but as cousins. Even when we are in a fierce conflict with them, they are more of a kind of family – with all the problems of a family. We have to live with them.
I am a serious reader, and I read slowly.
Jews outside Israel live in permanent contradiction. I think they should come home.
I don’t think that when Zionism began there was a claim that we were losing – even in part – our capacity to contribute to other peoples.
The literary trappings and moralizing of science fiction I find insufficiently compelling.
I deeply respect literature and expect to gain insight from a book and to identify emotionally with its characters. I therefore avoid reading suspense novels or science fiction.
I admit I think it is immoral for Jews to live in the Diaspora.
We’re living with the Arabs; we have to understand them… Through knowing the Arabs, you know yourself better.
Our synagogues are spread all over the world, and we want people to respect them and look after them. And we have to respect the places of prayer of others.
Jerusalem doesn’t belong only to Israelis and Palestinians, Muslims and Jews, but to the world.
One of the dreams of Zionism was to be a bridge. Instead, we are creating exclusion between the East and the West instead of creating bridges; we are contributing to the conflict between East and West by our stupid desire to have more.
It’s not what the rabbis say that defines Jewishness but what we Israelis do every day – our actions and our values.
The question of boundaries is a major question of the Jewish people because the Jews are the great experts of crossing boundaries. They have a sense of identity inside themselves that doesn’t permit them to cross boundaries with other people.
Intimate relationships are a gold mine for literature to explore, to understand, to describe.
In a time of crisis, there is rational tendency to turn to the writer.
World War II was a trauma that paralysed writers. It was something metaphysical, diabolical.
Israel is too attached to America, too influenced by America. It should be connected to Europe. America is based on mythology – the free man, the individual, the open frontier. Europe is more conscious of history. Take Britain and Shakespeare. You shape your identity through history.
At the heart of anti-Semitism lies Moses. He made a catastrophic error, a terrible mistake, and all anti-Semitism for two thousand years stems from his misjudgement. Moses said we Jews could remain a people without having a land. He said we don’t need territory to hold onto our Jewish identity. This was a disaster.
For 50 years – that is, for most of my adult life – I worked tirelessly for the two-state solution in the face of countless frustrations, both on the part of the Israeli governments and the Palestinian Authority.
Traveling is one expression of the desire to cross boundaries.
We have to rethink the two-state solution.
