The only way for us to help ourselves is to help others and to listen to each other's stories.

If anyone had told us in 1945 that there are certain battles we'll have to fight again we wouldn't have believed it. Racism, anti-Semitism, starvation of children and, who would have believed that? At least I was convinced then, naively, that at least something happened in history that, because of myself, certain things cannot happen again.

Judaism is in a sense a Rabbinic, Talmudic religion, rather than a Biblical religion.

I think so. 9/11 has been a turning point in American history, there's no doubt about that.

I believe in the story [ of Adam and Eve]. For me, it's a story.

It was pitch dark. I could hear only the violin, and it was as though Juliek's soul were the bow. He was playing his life. The whole of his life was gliding on the strings--his last hopes, his charred past, his extinguished future. He played as he would never play again...When I awoke, in the daylight, I could see Juliek, opposite me, slumped over, dead. Near him lay his violin, smashed, trampled, a strange overwhelming little corpse.

My students are very special. They are my source of pride, my source of joy, my source of hope. I am terribly fond of my students.