Itche Goldberg - Quotes

Quotes

"The split in the Socialist ranks was very powerful, and harmful and it was about attitudes to the Soviet Union".

“Never, never in history, did we produce so many poets and so much poetry in such a short period of time, barely one century. It is rare to find so much creativity in the entire history of our involvement with other languages. Look at the Tanakh—you have any number of splendors put together by various writers over the course of centuries. But here, they weren’t given any time. Time was so short for all of us. And we’re speaking only of poetry. But the prose that was produced! ... It was a time of exceptional, history-making creativity. And if we don’t understand this, we will perhaps not understand how to inherit or what to inherit.” (Speaking of Yiddish literature in first half of 20th century)

“Just because I’m secular doesn’t mean I’m antireligious.”

"The need to keep Yiddish alive in one shape or another is very basic. And after what we went through -- the loss not only of six million but also Eastern Europe -- do you allow a culture to drift away and stop existing?"

"You can't possibly see a future Jewish life with the disappearance of a 1,000-year-old language and with it a 1,000-year-old culture. Somehow it has to be there."

"There was no question about our Jewishness or Jewish consciousness and the Jewish consciousness led us very naturally to the Soviet Union. Here was Romania, anti-Semitic; here was Poland, which was anti-Semitic. Suddenly we saw how Jewish culture was developing in the Soviet Union. It was really breathtaking. You had the feeling that both the national problem was solved and the social problem was solved. This was no small thing. It was overpowering and we were young."

"We're dealing with a language that is about 1,000 years old and a literature that is 600 or 700 years old. What developed was an extraordinary and profound modern literature which would become the equivalent of French and German literature."

"I only have two dreams. One dream is that someone will knock on the door and I will open it and they give me a check for $150,000 for the magazine. Second dream is that someone knocks at the door and I open it up and he gives me a corned beef sandwich. Those are my only two dreams. I'm not asking for much. Really, I'm not. And I think they're both reachable."

"They were killed simply because they were Jewish intellectuals. Their Jewishness was the reason. They were all stamped as spies." (Re' 1952 Stalin victims)

At age 100: "The question of where we go from here is on my mind a lot. What’s happened to socialism? What is the future of Yiddishism? When I came, at age 21, into the Workmen’s Circle shule in Toronto, I had so much eagerness, energy, and faith in socialism and in Yiddishism. Now I have insecurity. But I am used to insecurity. For over forty years I have published Yidishe Kultur without ever being able to secure its existence!"

"So a generation passes."

"Nu, far vos a bissel? Lernst du!" ("So, why just a little? Learn!", response to someone who knew only a little Yiddish)

On Eruv Yom Kippur, 2006, three months before dying, Goldberg's secretary claimed that he had asked to put on Teffilin. A Lubovitsher hasid was found and obliged; a photo taken, and printed in the Algeminer Zhurnal. When Itche saw the photo he was outraged. "They printed that?" he asked his son. The orthodox press made much of his "conversion," but it had no basis in reality. A mezuzzah that had been attached to his door was removed. Itche had loved and honored what he understood as Jewish religious folkloric traditions his entire life, and he relished every aspect of Jewish culture, ritual, and liturgy, at the same time that he maintained a respectful but profound and complex scepticism to all matters of faith until his last clear days.

"There will... be a full ‘transfer of power’ to the new emerging generation. I stress emerging, because I do not anticipate a Venus-like birth of a new Jewish Homo Americanus flowing out of the foam of the Sea of History. It will be a slow process of continuity and change.... The historic challenge for us will be: can we carry over and implant our secular and humanist national values into the Jewish cultural patterns of the ‘80s? I am not going to define secularism here. However, I want to make a very broad statement: secularism is for us the only point of entry into Jewish life. We have ideologically and philosophically rejected for ourselves religion as the point of entry. Zionism—despite our positive stand on Israel—is not our link, either. National negation we eschew and reject. We therefore have no alternative whatsoever except a historic-cultural secular tie which binds us with the people. Realistically and historically we have no alternative. However, to influence others—yes, and to give identity to ourselves—we must raise secularism to a meaningful expression and link with the people.... Meaningful implies depth, knowledge, commitment, involvement, renewal and—yes, of course—tradition."

"Nonsense" (his response to the idea that Yiddish is dying)

"I sometimes feel that we were wrong in failing to incorporate more Jewish values in our Yiddishkayt. I’ve always enjoyed reading the Bible, particularly the prophets, and I wonder at times if we were a bit too dismissive, or ignorant, of our Jewishness.... I would not now permit so much to be brushed aside." (See also )

“As the medieval walls around Jewish life collapsed, the role of religion as the sole expression of national connection dwindled.” “a branch of the Jewish tree but not its trunk.” This thesis, writes Goldberg, “was a significant act of historical liberation. The branch-stem concept became the groundwork for the ventures of Jewish secularism. Secularism rests on two notions: on the one hand accepting religion as an important form of expression for a certain sector of the people, and, on the other, proclaiming secularism as a branch of the same stem with equal rights and values—immersed in tradition and a natural outgrowth of the people’s past. For the first time, the concept of pluralism became acceptable within the Jewish community—not according to economic class, but according to beliefs and ideas of nationhood. Although secularism continued to rely on the lower layers of society—the workers, middle-class folks, and large parts of the modern intelligentsia—for the first time the basic idea was confirmed that every segment of the people, so long as it remains tied to the stem, has a right to shape its own national connections and its national destiny according to its perception of its history.”