Between the middle of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a handful of men and women changed the way we see the world. Some of their names are on our lips for all time: Marx, Freud, Proust, Einstein, Kafka.
The fourth paragraph is more interesting:
Folk wisdom has it that five Jews wrote the rules of society:
- Moses said, "The law is everything."
- Jesus said, "Love is everything."
- Marx said, "Money is everything."
- Freud said, "Sex is everything."
- Einstein said "Everything is relative."
Genius and Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947 ~ by Norman Lebrecht, 2010, history, 464 pages
What do these visionaries have in common? They all had Jewish origins. They all had a gift for thinking in wholly original, even earth-shattering ways. The Jewish people made up less than 0.25% of the world’s population in 1847, and yet they saw what others did not.
2 comments:
This sounds like a fascinating read. Thanks for sharing!
This sounds like a very informative book. I don’t know much about world religions, because I am French and my family was secular, like most of French people of any religion (growing up in Paris I had Christian, Jewish and Muslim friends and none of them attended any service) Although while in San Francisco I was very interested in Buddhism. Years ago I read mysteries by Harry Kemelman like “ Friday the Rabbi slept late” or “Thursday the Rabbi walked out” and in it the Rabbi would talk about his religion which I found fascinating. That’s the way I learnt a bit about the Jewish religion. After the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting a couple years back, synagogues invited people to come to one of their Shabbat services. I attended one in Atlanta to show support. People there were so friendly I really enjoyed it.
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