Wherever the Jew is found he is a problem, a source of unhappiness to himself and to those around him. Ever since he has been scattered in your midst he has had to maintain a continuous struggle for the conservation of his identity.
Maurice SamuelThere are two life-forces in the world I know: Jewish and gentile, ours and yours...I do not believe that this primal difference between gentile and Jew is reconcilable. You and we may come to an understanding, never to a reconciliation. There will be irritation between us as long as we are in intimate contact. For nature and constitution and vision divide us from all of you forever.
Maurice SamuelOur Jewishness is not a creed, it is ourself, our totality. Indeed, it may be fairly said that the surest evidence of your lack of seriousness in religion is the fact that your religions are not national, that you are not compromised and dedicated, en masse, to the faith.
Maurice SamuelYou may even have Jews in your midst who did not learn their way of life from us, and did not inherit it from a Jewish forebear. We may have authentic gentiles in our midst: these single protests are of no account; they are extreme and irrelevant variations.
Maurice SamuelTo say that a schlemiel is a luckless person is to touch only the negative side. It is the schlemiel's avocation and profession to miss out on things, to muff opportunities, to be persistently, organically, preposterously and ingeniously out of place. A hungry schlemiel dreams of a plate of hot soup, and hasn't a spoon.
Maurice Samuel