Yes, I came upon another legendary Gentile figure who has praised my people: Excerpt from his 1994 autobio, "Songs My Mother Taught Me." pgs. 72-75 "I attended the New School for Social Research for only a year, but what a year it was. The school and New York itself had become a sanctuary for hundreds of extraordinary European Jews who had fled Germany and other countries before and during World War II, and they were enriching the city's intellectual life with intensity that has probably never been equaled anywhere during a comparable period of time. I was raised largely by Jews. I lived in a world of Jews. They were my teachers; they were my employers. They were my friends. They introduced me to a world of books and ideas that I didn't know existed. I stayed up all night with them - asking questions, arguing, probing, discovering how little I knew, learning how inarticulate I was and how abysmal my education was. I hadn't even finished high school, and many of them had advanced degrees from the finest institutes in Europe. I felt dumb and ashamed, but they gave me an appetite to learn everything. They made me hungry for information. I believed that if I had more knowledge I'd be smarted, which I now realize isn't true. I read Kant, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Locke, Melvillem Tolstoy, Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, and books by dozens of other authors, many of which I never understood. The New School was a way station for some of the finest Jewish intellectuals from Europe, a temporary haven before they left to join the faculties at universities like Princeton, Yale and Harvard. They were the cream of Europe's academicians, and as teachers they were extraordinary. One of the great mysteries that has always puzzled me is how Jews, who account for such a tiny fraction of the world's population, have been able to achieve so much and excel in so many different fields - science, music, medicine, literature, arts, business and more. If you listed the most influencial people of the last hundred years, three at the top of the list would be Einstein, Freud and Marx; all were Jews. Many more belong on the list, yet Jews comprise at most less than 3 percent of the United States population. They are an amazing people. Imagine the persecution they endured over the centuries: pogroms, temple burnings, Cossack raids, uprootings of families, their dispersal to the winds and the Holocaust. After the Diaspora, they could not own land or worship in much of the world; they were prohibited from voting and were told where to love. Yet their children survived and Jews became by far the most accomplished people per capita that the world has ever produced. For a while I thought that the brilliance and success of Jews was the cumulative yield of an extraordinary rich pool of genes in the Middle East produced over eons by evolution. But then I realized that my theory didn't hold up because following the Diaspora, Ashkenazic Jews evolved into a group physically much different than Sephardic Jews. Spanish Jews had nothing in common with Russsian Jews; in fact they could not even speak to them. Russian jews were isolated from German Jews, who taught of themselves as separate and superior, and Eastern European Jews had nothing to do with the Sephardic Jews. Besides, there had been so much intermarriage over the centuries that genetics alone couldn't explain the phenomenon. After talking to many Jews and reading about Jewish history and culture, I finally came to the conclusion that in the end being Jewish was a cultural phenomenon rather than a genetic one. It is a state of mind. There's a Yiddish word, seychel, that provided a key to explaining the most profound aspects of Jewish culture. It means to pursue knowledge and to leave the world a better place than when you entered it. Jews revere education and hard work, and they pass these values on from one generation to the next. As far as I am aware, this dynamic and emphasis on excellence is paralleled only in certain Asian cultures. It must be this cultural tradition that accounts for their amazing success, along with Judaism, the one constant that survived while the Jews were dispersed around the world. Traditions passed on via the Torah and Talmud have somehow helped Jews to fulfill the destiny they have claimed, a kind of "chosen people," if spectacular success in so many, many fields is proof of that. Whatever the reasons for their brilliance and success, I was never educated until I was exposed to them. They introduced me to a sense of culture that has lasted me a lifetime."

fuck you, you ass.

wow. well said.

Nate, Sarcasm!? Otherwise, you're not too far behind him!! LOL!! Your uncalled-for reactions are no different! They reek of immaturity, denial, and jealousy.

or annoyance. moron.

mono-brow.

here we go http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/meast/03/28/israel.attacks.02/index.html i truly wish the Palestinians would take the high road here. Cease the suicide bombings. Let Israel make all the mistakes. Unfortunately, they seem too factionalized to do so.

I love the Jewish people & the Jewish religion. I even like the Talmud. This affection of mine has nothing to do with "current events." Israelis are indeedy fucking the Palestinians in the ass---but this is a case of Manifest Destiny. War is always an ugly thing, of course---but the Jews will win this one, and they have to, and they will, and that's that, Amen. In the long run, the Palestinians are toast. So it goes . . . In this case I must side with the inevitable victors. Lorin Maazel tov.

I love the Jewish people & the Jewish religion. I even like the Talmud. This affection of mine has nothing to do with "current events." Israelis are indeedy fucking the Palestinians in the ass---but this is a case of Manifest Destiny. War is always an ugly thing, of course---but the Jews will win this one, and they have to, and they will, and that's that, Amen. In the long run, the Palestinians are toast. So it goes . . . In this case I must side with the inevitable victors. Lorin Maazel tov.

Evidently the boss coming through last Wednesday was a bit of a surprise to the new lit contingent as a fellow in piano class said: What About Shilo? The fourth era is in. And yeah, Brando isn't lying, like NJ Italians are synonomous with this concept of almost cultural geneticism. But Larry was surprised it sank through to mean: OTHER everywhere regardless. Then they became HITTITES and GREAT footbal players. Hmmmmmm. What happened?