Quotes About Community

Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends.

All for one, and one for all!

May my enemies, your enemies, and all enemies of the Jews have as many good years as we have profit out of dealing with hot Yiddish papers.

if hungry people were present, they were no doubt choristers and

When a wolf attacks the flock and devours a lamb, the rest of the lambs panic; they go into a momentary panic. Then they press together and begin to tremble all over.

Come to think of it—what are we going to do with our old cantor? We just got a new one, you know. We needed him like a hole in the head.

He was a follower of a Hasidic rebbe, a trustee in the synagogue, a big-shot with the authorities. In brief, a factotum.

But it's as my mother, bless her, says: When a madman breaks a window, it's never his own….

You see, I come from Mezritch, though I grew up in Mazapevke, but Vorotolivke is where I'm still registered.

We helped ourselves to a drop of vishniak, had some more marmalade, and made small talk. What about? Don't ask me.

Where were they coming from? From Zhmerinka, and from Kazatin, and from Razdyelne, and from Popelne, and from a few-other places that were equally famous for their roughnecks.

We had a good scare in our town when they broke out, because we were afraid pogroms would come next.

Once, matches were made behind a child's back; you came home from shaking hands with your in-laws, you wished the bride or groom a mazel tov, and that was that.

It's an old Jewish custom to pick up and go elsewhere at the first mention of a pogrom.

You know what, Mendl? Listen to your wife, tell Odessa where it can go, and come home to Kasrilevke.

The earth is not just for the clever and the strong. It must be possible even for weak and pitiful creatures — like himself and this old dog — to make some contribution in their lifetime.

I tell you the truth - for a long, long time these farmers have worked like horses and cattle; and like horses and cattle they have died. The reason our religion has penetrated this territory like water flowing into dry earth is that it has given to this group of people a human warmth they never previously knew. For the first time they have met men who treated them like human beings. It was the human kindness and charity of the fathers that touched their hearts.

In the end, each of us is alone, but in the meantime, we must all huddle together to give one another comfort and warmth.

If we want a spaceship built or the distance of a star measured, we call in the experts. But when we want something really important done, we collect twelve ordinary folks to do it. As I recall, the founder of Christianity did the same thing.

Men mold some cities, some cities mold men.

You must understand something, Mr Thompson. What I do has nothing to do with the money or the bricks and steel that make a building. It's the people who matter. I'm able to give them a comfortable place to work or to live, a place where they can raise families and have decent lives. That's what was important to my father, and it became important to me.

No man is an island. What happens to one, happens to us all, for we are all made of clay and stardust. We share the same moments of time. The universal second hand starts its unforgiving sweep toward the next minute:

Some cities are shaped by people, and some cities shape people.

A religion, even if it calls itself a religion of love, must be hard and unloving to those who do not belong to it.