Israel's strategy cannot be to constantly confront the Palestinians with the history of the Holocaust, but instead to show them that Israel is a reality.

Jewish intellectuals contributed a great deal to insure that Europe became a continent of humanism, and it is with these humanist ideals that Europe must now intervene in the Middle East conflict.

I have the greatest respect for the survivors of the Holocaust. We can't even imagine what these people went through.

An hour of violin lessons in Berlin is an hour where you get the child interested in music. An hour in a violin lesson in Palestine is an hour away from violence, is an hour away from fundamentalism.

An Israeli who thinks that his government is doing everything right wouldn't join the Divan Orchestra in the first place.

But the ear, let us not forget, starts operating on the forty-fifth day of the pregnancy of a woman. Seven and a half months advance over the eye...(but) what do we do in our society, in our civilisation, to continue this process?

I can't stand being in Chicago anymore and hearing the Brahms Violin Concerto in the elevator. Because that shows me that when they come to the concert hall they listen to it in the same way.