I never saw this quote from Mark Twain before...

[Richard D]

... and it's a good one:

"...If statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky way. properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and had done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it.

“The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"

Mark Twain

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. K&R

[surfered]

2. I did not know about it either, but it is included in the Jewish Virtual Library

Originally published in Harpers.

[BurnDoubt]

3. Witness to Man's Madness

I've always loved The Jew in Walter M. Miller's "Canticle For Liebowitz" watching Humanity's inhumanity. Methusila's Curse.

[Hekate]

11. Canticle is a great book

[Cyrano]

4. The secret to Jewish immortality is chicken soup,

along with other Jewish dishes.

Unknown to most is that when Jews gather for holiday dinners, many say:

"They tried to kill us. We survived. Let's eat."

[Trueblue Texan]

9. I had a Jewish patient who told me chicken soup is Jewish penicillin.

It made me laugh, but she was a very strong, and very old lady who probably knew what she was talking about! LOL!

[3auld6phart]

5. Definitely

Food for thought. Does make one think. They al have all tried to suppress the Jews. Hang in there.

[MMBeilis]

6. Had to look up the difference between "abtruse" and "abstruse".

Last edited Tue Sep 17, 2024, 01:03 AM - Edit history (1)

[Richard D]

7. ???

[MMBeilis]

14. "......finance, medicine and abstruse learning".

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. What's that about? I don't see either word in the post. Abtruce is a S African rapper, otherwise not a word. . . . nt

[MMBeilis]

13. About the eighth line down - "....finance, medicine and abstruse learning."

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Ah, thanks

I realize now that I had searched for "truce" and not "truse".

Note that line counts are dependent on formatting and will be different depending on the width of the browser window and font sizes but I was able to find it.

Abstruse is definitely an uncommon word these days.

[MMBeilis]

16. Bernardo, old friend, I've got to come clean with you. You'll notice that my post was edited once. That was to....

......correct my misspelling of "truce/truse". Throw in the "ab" or "abs" and it's one of those things that one must admire about the English language.

[Hekate]

10. I need to send this to a couple of young people who I know

[Richard D]

12. I have some thoughts on this . . .

. . . that I originally was not going to share, but I am really overjoyed to see that this post is getting so many recommendations.

I'm definitely an Oct 7 Jew (it's really a thing!), as before then, I had only some slight interest in Judaica. I didn't follow any of the celebrations--I wasn't even religious enough to go to High Holiday services--and in my desire to travel places, Israel was not high on my list as I already was there years ago for the wedding of an Arab friend. But something was triggered in my soul on Oct. 7 that does not seem to be diminishing and is even growing. I still have no real desire to go to synagogues, but I do have a desire to visit Israel again for the purposes of the deeper study of Kaballah. For the last several months, I have been attending an online class on Kaballah that is taught by a rabbi who lives in Israel, and I am simply astounded by the wisdom that is there.

So, why do we continue when, for thousands of years, so many in the world seem hell-bent on destroying us? First, I believe it has to do with the incredible depths of the wisdom that has been studied and practiced by our people. I am discovering that this is fractal in nature. The more that is studied, the more that is revealed, and it seems to have no end to its depth. I say this as a person who has engaged in the study of Vedic traditions, Buddhism, Taoism, Shamanism, and several Native American cultures. All of these studies have deeply touched my heart and my life, and I do not see them as a side-trip but as experiences that have deeply enriched my spirit.

To segue back to why we have outlasted all our enemies, even time . . .

Most people do not get how severely we have been persecuted and genocided. Since the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, there have been 2000 years of mass slaughters, forced conversions, expulsions, and loss of culture and religious identity. Had these genocidal events not occurred, which led to the loss of potential future generations as well, it is within reason that today, rather than there being 15 million Jews in the world, there would be well over 100 million of us, perhaps even more than 200 million. This is a speculative figure, of course.

And, obviously, those who wanted our elimination from this planet still want that. This includes the growing neo-Nazi movement as well as radical Islam.

Few non-Jews understand the importance of Israel to our people. Up until Oct 7, I do not think that many Jews in the diaspora recognized this either. This is a whole other topic, but suffice for now to say it is the only place on the planet where Jews can defend themselves from those who want to kill us.

As was mentioned above, it is time for some chicken soup, along with the recognition that we are still here and still, as has always been the case, only want to sing, pray, dance weirdly, eat great food, and continue to contribute amazing art, culture, technology, music, cinema, science, medical advances, etc. etc. to the world. And, of course, comedy. We are good at that.

[KewlKat]

17. Mark Twains book on "Concerning the Jew"

You can read this short book which contains the quote in the first post at this link on the Internet Archive site -