The challenge for a nonfiction writer is to achieve a poetic precision using the documents of truth but somehow to make people and places spring to life as if the reader was in their presence.
Simon SchamaRead
Jews can live their own life as Jews and yet be part of a different country.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the possibility of maintaining one's cultural identity while being a part of a larger national identity.
Simon Schama's quote reflects on the Jewish experience of living authentically within their cultural traditions while also participating in the broader society of the country they reside in. It highlights the idea that one can embrace their identity fully without the need to forsake their homeland or cultural heritage, suggesting a harmonious coexistence of multiple identities.
Themes
JewsIdentityCultureBelongingNationality
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about multiculturalism, one might use this quote to illustrate the importance of cultural diversity.
More from Simon Schama
All quotes βIn its Greek origins, historia meant inquiry, and from Thucydides onwards, the past has been studied to understand its connections with the present.
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Jewish history turns out not to be an either/or story - as in, either pure Judaism detached from its surroundings or else assimilation - but rather, for the vast majority, the adventure of living in between.
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I understood when I was quite small that there were two special things about the Jews. That we'd endured for over 3,000 years despite everything that had been thrown at us, and that we had an extraordinarily dramatic story to tell.
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History is admirably dangerous. It is not the soft option. Teachers need to be grown up and brave. Sensitivity is fine, but it stops at the door of honest narrative.
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History gives you insight of the same quality of truth as poetry or philosophy or a novel.
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