Quotes About Community

Already in antiquity, Jews had developed a romance with cities, whose size offered them a range of religious, economic, and social opportunities that smaller rural locales did not. In the Middle Ages, Jews played an important role as agents sent by host

romance continued well into the modern age, during which Jews have exhibited a hyper-urban tendency, making their way to major cities both to escape from and to affirm their connection to fellow Jews. The proclivity of Jews for cities was grounded in a mix of factors: the presence of diverse commercial opportunities, the sense of

the behest of the Roman Empire, Jews commenced a migratory movement westward from the Middle East to Europe that continued over the first millennium of the Common Era. A particularly notable community of Jews arose in the imperial capital of Rome. The first-century Jewish historian

In 1700, the largest number of Jews in the world, more than a half million out of 1.1 million, lived in eastern Europe. From this point forward, the Jewish population in eastern Europe would grow exponentially over the next two and a third centuries until the Holocaust.

As a result, by the early twentieth century, large Jewish concentrations could be found in cities across the globe, including Baghdad (one-third of the population), Salonika (50 percent), Warsaw, ?ód?, Budapest, Vienna, Berlin, Paris, London, New York, and Buenos Aires. Indeed, 25 percent of the world's Jewish population lived in a mere fourteen

Why not be a communist, she thinks, if it means that kind of belonging?

It's all well and good to stay in the institutions you care about, but wouldn't it be nice to feel that the institution, in turn, cared about you, or at least wasn't hell-bent on your eradication or, failing that, the legislating away of your rights?

The word phobic has its place when properly used, but lately it's been declawed by the pompous insistence that most animosity is based upon fear rather than loathing.... I hate computers. My hatred is entrenched, and I nourish it daily. I'm comfortable with it, and no community outreach program will change my mind.

didn't need a fifteen-minute conversation, just some human interaction. It can be had, and easily: a gesture, a joke, something that says, "I live in this world too.

My only comfort was the knowledge that I was not alone. Huddled in the hallways and making the most of our pathetic French, my fellow students and I engaged in the sort of conversation commonly overheard in refugee camps. Sometime me cry alone at night. That be common for I, also, but be more strong, you. Much work and someday you talk pretty. People start love you soon. Maybe tomorrow, okay.

She hit bottom when she physically attacked a deaf-mute. This was a boy of fourteen, a beloved neighborhood figure who delivered for the nearby deli.

July 3, 1981 Raleigh There is a new cancer that strikes only homosexual men. I heard about it on the radio tonight.

This town is the Greek Baltimore.

My understanding was that it completed a person, sanding down the rough provincial edges and transforming you into a citizen of the world.

The better country club operated on the principle that Raleigh mattered, that its old families were fine ones, and that they needed a place where they could enjoy one another's company without being pawed at. Had we not found this laughable, our country club might have felt desperate.

There are few greater pleasures than feeling proud of someone, of worrying you might burst with it, especially if that someone is related to you and therefore part of your organization. I've always thought of my family that way, as a company. What's good for one of us is good for all of us. Our jobs are to advance the name Sedaris.

Asking for candy on Halloween was called trick-or-treating, but asking for candy on November first was called begging, and it made people uncomfortable.

The word phobic has its place when properly used, but lately it's been declawed by the pompous insistence that most animosity is based upon fear rather than loathing. No credit is given for distinguishing between these two very different emotions. I fear snakes. I hate computers. My hatred is entrenched, and I nourish it daily. I'm comfortable with it, and no community outreach program will change my mind.

To this day, I prefer to believe that inside every television there lives a community of versatile, thumb-size actors trained to portray everything from a thoughtful newscaster to the wife of a millionaire stranded on a desert island. Fickle gnomes control the weather, and an air conditioner is powered by a team of squirrels, their cheeks packed with ice cubes.

of yesterday, the London Underground announcements will no longer begin with "Ladies and gentlemen." Gender-queer people said it made them feel excluded, so from now on the conductors will say, "Hello, everyone.

Ours is the only club I'd ever wanted to be a member of, so I couldn't imagine quitting.

Over time I grew accustomed to the sight of a friend's colostomy bag and came to think of Kent State as something of an I.V. League university. The state would pay your board if you roomed with

there'd be a lot of people there and he didn't like people, especially when they came in "lots.

Before you do something questionable," Roger continued, as he had countless times before, "ask yourself, 'What if everybody did what I'm about to do?