People are feeling and sensing a return of anti-Semitism - even in Europe, which, seventy years after the Holocaust, is a very scary thing. I think they are feeling that Israel is very isolated and doesn't always get what they see as fair treatment in the European media.
Interpretation
The quote reflects concern over the resurgence of anti-Semitism and the perceived unfair treatment of Israel in European media.
Jonathan Sacks highlights the alarming resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe, suggesting that despite the lessons learned from the Holocaust, society is witnessing a troubling pattern of discrimination. He notes that as individuals perceive Israel to be increasingly isolated and mistreated by European media, it reinforces a climate of fear and concern regarding the safety and acceptance of Jewish communities in the region.
In practice
In a seminar discussing the rise of hate crimes, this quote could be used to emphasize the importance of being vigilant against anti-Semitism.
Stabilizing the euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God.
Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent.
Jews read the books of Moses not just as history but as divine command. The question to which they are an answer is not, 'What happened?' but rather, 'How then shall I live?' And it's only with the exodus that the life of the commands really begins.
Why did God create mankind? Because God likes stories.
Find people not to envy but to admire. Do not the profitable but the admirable deed. Live by ideals.
Some years ago there was a study to discover the most stressful occupation. It turned out not to be the head of a large business, football manager or prime minister, but rather: bus driver.
My existence from day to day has become a matter of averting my eyes, of cringing. Death is the only truth left. Death is what I cannot bear to think. At every moment when I am thinking of something else, I am not thinking death, am not thinking the truth.
Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.
You do what you want and know is right. That is the only law.
We tell stories to talk out the trouble in our lives, trouble otherwise so often so unspeakable. It is one of our main ways of making our lives sensible. Trying to live without stories can make us crazy. They help us recognize what we believe to be most valuable in the world, and help us identify what we hold demonic.
Oh, my ways are strange ways and new ways and old ways, And deep ways and steep ways and high ways and low, I'm at home and at ease on a track that I know not, And restless and lost on a road that I know.
I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: "Go down again - I dwell among the people.
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