"I grew up in a secular Jewish home. What was so important for us was the ethical values of Judaism and the central principle of our lives, Tikkun Olam (a Hebrew phrase that means “healing the world”). My father did not believe in organized religion, so we did not belong to a synagogue, but we led a Jewish life filled with traditions and meaning in a more unconventional way. Almost my entire family on my mother’s side came from central Europe, especially Vienna. All of them perished in the Holocaust, with the exception of my great-grandmother and her son. Also my grandfather, because he had arrived to Chile much earlier. For me as a writer, the stories of the Shoah are very important. They are central to my writing, which you can see in Dear Anne Frank and also I Lived on Butterfly Hill, in which one of the principal characters, the grandmother, is a survivor of the Holocaust. I also try to invoke in the readers the universal importance of social justice and tolerance. I believe these are not only Jewish teachings but fundamental human ideals. Yet I feel I was and continue to be shaped by growing up in a Jewish home that emphasized these values."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Novelists from the United StatesEssayists from the United StatesWomen authors from the United StatesWomen academics from the United States20th-century poets from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marjorie_Agos%C3%ADn
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Marjorie Agosín
92 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Marjorie Agosín →
Related Quotes
"Human rights were implemented by a group of Western nations in response to the moral crimes that occurred during Worl…"
"Writing is a body of human expression, in which the daily conventions of our lives join with the ambiguities and subt…"
"The possibilities of language reside in the possibilities of faith; they are a form of redeeming and correcting world…"
"For me, my exile had nothing to do with an expulsion or with the impossibility of remembrance, because somehow or oth…"
"Poetry, which is always with me and brings me to privileged horizons and uncertain but always true pathways"
"Those devoted to the study of Latin American poetry can identify the names of poets such as Vicente Huidobro, Pablo N…"
""...sometimes memory is dangerous, but on most occasions it can be a salvation. Sometimes remembering means to live a…"
"Though women have always been close to words, they have often been barred from speaking: Saint Paul, in the Holy Scri…"
"In the house where I grew up in Santiago de Chile I heard a Babel of whispers, songs, prayers, and languages. Spanish…"
"antisemitism has always existed in Latin America, as evidenced by the many nations that remained neutral during the S…"