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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the dual nature of Jewish history as a blend of tradition and assimilation.
Simon Schama emphasizes that Jewish history cannot be simplified into two opposing narratives of isolation from the surrounding cultures or complete assimilation into them. Instead, it is characterized by a complex interplay of maintaining Jewish identity while engaging with and adapting to various cultural influences, reflecting a dynamic experience of living in between these two extremes.
Themes
Jewish HistoryAssimilationTraditionIdentityCulture
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a lecture about cultural identity and integration.
More from Simon Schama
All quotes →In 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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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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From the very beginning, history wasn't content simply to be nostalgic fairytales; it wanted to make you think.
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