Tag Archive for ‘Israel’

“The Jewish state builds my Jewish identity even if I spend my whole life in Los Angeles or New York or Miami.”

Source: Gil Troy, quoted in Jewish Journal in a discussion occasioned by the publication of his new anthology The Zionist Ideas.

And a brief note: I’m going to be taking a brief blogging break, so there will be no “Pre-Shabbat Jewish Literary Links” posted this week. In the meantime, you may wish to read more “words of the week”—from my own keyboard—in the form of my latest “View from the USA” column for the UK’s Jewish Chronicle. L’hitraot (“until we meet again”).

Labels: Israel, Words of the Week

“If I was to look at America through the unforgiving prism those loud, marginal If-Not-Nowers use for viewing Israel, I would call my American friends and yell: ‘What kind of a country do you live in? Is that all there is? The underclass and the overclass? How did America get so broken and break for so many people? Maybe “America really ain’t a good idea.”‘

Instead, I still believe in America, like I still believe in Israel. I believe both have serious problems, but also believe that both have serious resources, including tremendous creativity and goodwill, to solve them. And I’d rather be a Jewish and American Voice for Balance than a screechy crank whose extremism today guarantees irrelevance and just more anger tomorrow.”

Source: Gil Troy, “Love of Israel, America, Can Take on Many Forms” (The Jerusalem Post)

Labels: Israel, Words of the Week